Philips DVDR5500 , , Upscaling DVD Recorder Reviews

+ This is a value for money machine if it worked. II've seen this machine at double it's price in some of the shops. I really like this machine. It plays all formats of dvd's which is a bonus and comes with a USB slot.

- If this machine would have worked when I first received it, I wouldn't have had to send it back. It has an HDMI slot where it plays vision but not sound. An HDMI slot and cable should support sound and vision. I just hope its a faulty unit I bought. If it's not a faulty item and the HDMI slot is for vision only on this machine then you'll be wasting your money buying a machine that does not support the feature on the unit. If you have a HDD Camcorder that runs off of a USB cable, don't think that this slot will support the camcoder, it's for a flash memory stick only.

+ sound and quality excellent just a couple of problems as stated below

- freezes every so often locks up we have to unplug and reset player

+ I use it on digital Freeview and the picture quality on recording and tv is excellent.Noise while recording and on standby is very low. Good value for money at the time.Good for multi disc, JPEG photo and USB.

- Has frozen with me five times now and has to be disconnected at the mains with consequences of resetting time and date.Disc keeps running when tv is turned off but ok on standby. The remote is very small for big hands and the digital EPG is almost useless for access or for recording from. I have settled for manual timer record which defeats the purpose for modern day use.

+ Reviewer left no comment

- Can be tempermental, sometimes you have to turn it of on the wall and reset it, to work properly.

+ The player is very attractive and easy to use. A variety of recording options makes this an extremely versatile player/recorder combo, and this together with it's low profile makes it an excellent choice for anyone seeking to buy a recorder in the future.

- Needlessly complex installation instructions in the booklet provided.

+ good picture quality

- when not used for short periords it shows no response from the remote also when tried manually this means that i have to keep unpluging it from the socket

+ Good recorder to use & so far there have been no problems.

- Instruction manual could have been a bit more user friendly.

+ Slim line and picture quality wonderful.

- Still getting to grips with the hows and hownots

+ Easy to set up and use

- When power is interupted you have to rest the clock manually

+ Lots of features

- Slow startup

+ Excellent combination of features and picture quality. One of the few DVD recorders to feature a Freeview tuner and Dual Layer recording capability. Has an HDMI output and upscales to 1080i.

- The programme listings (Electronic Programme Guide) is a bit slow and clumsy to use.
The EPG doesn't allow recording of Freeiew radio programme channels.
Trying to play back XVid movies from a USB stick seemed to cause the machine to hang (cured by cycling the power). I don't know whether the machine should be able to play back XVid - I might need to convert this to DivX (which it can play).

+ Plays DivX

- No battery backup on clock, no RF output.

+ Cheap and does the job.

- Very basic.

+ Sleek design

- Bright standy by light
Needs to be reset if left on stand by for a few days unused
Quite wide but very slim

+ picture quality is great

- slow start up takes time to get going if not left on standby all the time