Philip's latest DVD recorder is ugly as sin, and can't be described as cheap. We love it nonetheless. Find out why by reading our Australian review.
While PC-based DVD burners have been going from speed to speed, there hasn't been that much action on consumer systems designed to replace the humble VCR. Units have been available, but they've typically been very expensive and somewhat counterintuitive.
Philip's DVDR890 is the first player we've seen with a number of important features. The most prominent is the price. At AU$1,999, it's not a cheap device, and it's still at least AU$1,000 north of a mass consumer space. It is a step in the right direction, however. At that price it's affordable to a certain income bracket, and presuming adoption continues, it should relatively quickly become highly competitive with videotape. As adoption rates pick up the cost of blank media should also hopefully drop; a little shopping around found DVD+RW discs at the AU$15 price point, less than half what they were a year ago. That's still a lot more than you'll pay for videotape, even though DVD media itself should be cheaper to produce than tape.
Installation of the DVDR890 is virtually identical to setting up a VCR, albeit with a great many more connection options. You've got basic Cinch, S-Video and Composite video in and out to contend with, on both the front and back of the unit. This gave us the opportunity to test the DVDR890 in an environment where it was the hub of a number of inputs, from straight Coaxial antenna coverage to cable tv and a variety of plugged in video formats.
We tested the DVDR890 with a variety of media. Philips claims the unit is capable of playback of Audio CD, CD-R, CD-RW, VCD, Super VCD, DVD Video, DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R and finally DVD+RW. It can only record in the last two DVD categories however. We were very impressed to find that we couldn't locate a disc it didn't like; even a rather dodgy DVD-R disc that refused to play in most drives was happily accepted by the DVDR890. It even likes MP3 discs, although that seems a waste of the potential of the unit in our opinion.
Recording was likewise mostly free from hassles. The DVDR890 supports Macrovision, so those keen on DVD/VHS piracy will probably need to look elsewhere, but otherwise the only issue we found with recording from external sources was that the unit won't display an image when fast forwarding through VHS or Beta tapes. All you'll get at that point is a blank screen, which can make queuing up tapes a tad awkward. You'll get the same result with 'chewed' sections of tapes, with a blank section taking the place of the bad quality tape.
The DVDR890 supports recording at a variety of quality levels. If you've got the absolute highest quality signal, and want the best results, you'll get 60 minutes from a DVD+R/RW disc. At the other end of the spectrum, in EQ mode you can get up to 360 minutes. There is a price to pay for that extended capacity; the higher compression/longer recording times degrade the signal quality noticeably, in the same way that recording VHS tape in LP or EP modes will. EQ mode looks similar to a low quality VCD, especially if you're recording anything with a lot of action. One nice feature of the DVDR890 is that it outputs the signal to TV at whatever quality setting you're recording at. This means you can instantly get feedback as to what the finished product will look like simply by flicking through the quality modes.
The DVDR890 also allows users to simply and efficiently create DVD chapters. Every time you hit record, the DVDR890 takes a screen capture of the first instant, and places a datestamp as a title. You can alter the title one letter at a time (think video game console) to whatever you want. The process of chapter insertion does install a second or so delay in recording, and likewise there's a five second or so gap when you finish so that the disc can be finalised. The menus that result aren't the prettiest you'll ever see, but they're totally logical and easy to follow when discs are placed in other players.
If you're using a DVD+R disc, you can of course only use the disc once, but a DVD+RW disc can be rerecorded over many times. Deleting a section of a recording takes around 15 seconds to do, seemingly irrespective of size. We're a little cautious of the claims that you may be able to re-record over a DVD+RW disc thousands of times, but it's certainly more than you'd be able to do to any tape-based video solution.
We might like the technical grunt of the DVDR890, but we can't say that anyone would be particularly impressed with its visual appearance. It lacks the styling of more mainstream DVD players and has a more utilitarian look to it. This does allow it to encompass an additional set of AV ports on the front, but means it may not match some furniture. It's also rather large (435x88x325mm) - the exact opposite of Panasonic's DVD-X10, for example.
The DVDR890 also makes a good DVD playback unit. Our only caveat here is that the remote lacks some features -- most notably an eject button -- and can be a touch tricky to use for some operations. Chapter skipping and fast forwarding/rewinding use the same buttons, for example. A tap is a chapter skip, a prolonged hold is a fast forward. This is clunky in actual use; we found ourselves jumping chapters when we wanted to skip forwards, and vice versa.
The DVDR890 is still a bit over the pricing 'sweet spot' where it becomes a total successor to VHS. It's certainly an attractive proposition as long as you can handle the plain styling and entry price however.
Philips DVDR890 Recorder
Company: Philips Australia
Price: AU$1,999
Distributor: Selected resellers
Phone: 1300 363 391
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4%
It's garbage. I've successfully recorded only 7 (seven) DVD's. Now it's in repair. Buy something else, not Philips.