Philips DVD-R70

Took this recorder out of a cupboard, after 6 years of storage and about a year of use, as a "stop-gap" - until I choose the ideal PVR (my new home doesn't accommodate a PC in the living room which used to be my my main form of TV recording - started using direct to HDD recording back in 2004).

All the faults mentioned in other reviews have appeared, skipping, refusing to record on the last half hour of a dvd, etc ... machine is unuseable !

Was bought for £350 at the time, an entry level DVD recorder, but its image quality and useability score well below a Cyberhome DVD player I bought for £80 3 years earlier and which I still use !

Initially was pleased with the functions and capabilities of the Philips DVD-R70, even though the fast forward function never worked as it should have and after a few weeks disc errors started occurring. Skipping and freezing became a part of every DVD recorded or played! Two returns to manufacturer failed to rectify faults and the machine is no longer used. Philips appear to be no longer at the forefront or cutting edge of technological innovation.

I will never buy any Philips product again. The Philips DVD-R70 was my second DVD recorder. The first was a DVD-R880, which had all the faults of the DVD-R70, but I was told that it was due to a faulty batch of lasers!! It has good picture quality on recorded discs, but the remote control response is lethargic to say the least. It makes its own mind up if it's going to play a bought DVD until the end without freezing or returning to the start menu. It also suffers from very slow load times.

Initially after buying the Philips DVD-R70 player I was quite happy, but found it to be incredibly sensitive. Sometimes it would just decide not to allow further recording on half full DVD's. Unfortunately this was the start, and fortunately I had kept my old player as a back up.

Soon I ended up using the old player about 50% of the time as it would take several attempts at loading and reloading to get the Philips player working.

Now, a year and a half after buying it, I can honestly say it was a mistake and I won't be buying Philips again. About 20% of the DVD's loaded work first time, those that do end up either skipping or with block pixels so I need to turn the machine on and off again. To say I'm disapppointed is an understatement.

I paid £357 ($800) for my new Philips DVD Recorder on November 2004.

The following problems began 14 months after purchaser:

My machine had a loud humming after playing for over half an hour.

It started jumping halfway through playing new commercial DVDs

The picture started throwing up block pixels.

On some DVDs it refused to play saying disc error or just shutting the system down.

I see from various discussion forums that this is a well known problem with these machines, they just stop working.

I rang Philips customer services and was on the phone over 20 minutes (8 minutes of that on hold). They refused to give me a direct line to further the matter, saying I had to write rather than ring in. When I told them I had a disability and could not, I was told to stop being difficult!

So, not only did I pay for the call (yes they charge you to complain) but I still have a faulty and very expensive dvd player.

This whole experience has me reflecting how poor Phillips products and service levels really are. Even my three month old Phillips Freeview box has started playing up.

I remember months ago looking for online reviews on Philips recorders, I ignored one or two saying don't buy. All I can say is my Sony stuff has worked for years with no problems.

I have asked Philips to clarify what people do with their faulty Philips products, does Philips have a recycling scheme, or do their customers tend to landfill them via the local council?

Only buy a Philips if you can afford to purchase a new product fourteen months later.

The Philips DVD R70 is a good machine on the face of it, did everything one expected. Easy to set up and record.

Devloped problems with play- first kept hanging up then started jumping.

Sent it back- took 2 weeks to repair then developed jumping problem

Am now getting money back and buying Liteon-5005

I bought the recorder to replace my aging VHS recorder. At first I was delighted it was easy to set up and picture quality was excellent in all but the 6hr mode when there is some strange shift of pixels. Then it locked up and I had to unplug it to reset it. Then it started to reject the +rw disks, so back to Philips as the supplier (Curry's) couldn't or wouldn't repair it, some 2months later I insisted on a new replacement as I would not wait any longer.

I am now thinking of a replacement.

I'm from Athens, Greece and I have been waiting for a cheap DVD recorder. I bought it 3 months ago. This Philips DVD R70 DVD Recorder is very stylish and simple to set up. The recordings are very good quality, depending on source material. I have copied some of my VHS and Digital8 video-camera tapes and the results were very good.

But It can't play some DVDs and Video CDs, which is very disappointing because those DVDs can play on my PC. I also had to pull the plug out from the wall several times, as it was the only solution at the time.

The menu is not as friendly as it is on my old SONY VCR. Also the Greek language is missing from it menu. I can't understand why my 5-years old SONY VCR or my 3 years old Philips TV have a Greek menu but my brand new DVD-R has not. I want to give my thanks to Philips for showing their respect to Greek customers.

An other big problem is the remote control. The next chapter and the 4/8/32x speed modes uses the same button, which is very inconvenient.

Overall I am not very pleased with this recorder and I will keep my VCR alongside it.

After Having a Philips DVDR-880 DVD Recorder from Argos, which was poor quality when it consented to work - and after a couple of months died altogether! Argos offered to exchange it for a New Philips DVD R70, £20 cheaper - what had I to lose, but I must admit the 70 is a vast improvement in quality & reliability, and spending the £20 on a "Sonel" Scart lead, improved it's versatility in "other ways" which I will not go into here. Yes, this seems a great player, it is a shame that an old firm like Philips, seems to use its customers as a testbed for new products.

I have to say this Philips DVD R70 DVD Recorder is not mine, it belongs to my friend who bought it a few days ago. He recorded a DVD from his camcorder. Out of the 3 Philips DVD player I have (2x625 and 1x728) only one of the 625 is willing to play the disk. The disk is also not playable on my Logix 3300 and Hitachi DVD (very old model), it will play on my PC and my daughter's Proline portable DVD Player.

It is just too unreliable.

My friend also try to do the multiregion hack, from I think DVDHELP, without any success.

I was going to buy one myself, not anymore.