Philips DVDR3577H (160 Gb) DVD Recorder / HDD Recorder

1st of all i bought this because it had a hard drive built in so you can record,pause live tv(160g worth).it was relatively cheap compared to the sony model and the biggest bonus is the usb port.a tip is to buy an external hard drive(nb: you must format this to fat32 to make movies play)and then all videos that are xvid,avi will play on your recorder via usb.if your videos are not compatible then convert to avi.another plus from philips is they update the player now and again,just visit there website http://www.p4c.philips.com/cgi-bin/dcbint/cpindex.pl?ctn=DVDR3577H/05&scy=GB&slg=en
(nb: that will take you straight to the right page).
also it is high definition and has a progressive scan.the picture comes out perfect as an hd recorder should.
ok the reasons i only gave 4 stars and i hope philips read this.
1. there is no open or close on the remote control,all is done manually via the player.(although i have now learned if you press the stop button and hold for around 6 seconds on the remote this will open/close the dvd recorder)
2. sometimes(very rare) the remote signal gets mixed up with my tv remote and sometimes switches itself on when i dont want it too.
3. the start up is very very slow
4. sometimes when you record it stops but as a back up it will let you record via the live tv (the channel you were recording).by pressing the live tv button and record again.a little pain i know but at least all is not lost.
To conclude i hope i have been helpful it is a fantastic player,hopefully philips can resolve minor trivia issues.you wont be dissapointed when you buy.....enjoy many thanks for reading.......andrew

Nice and clear instructions and many different functions. Clear recordings replayable from a hard disk. Much better than a whole box of tapes. You can even copy to an external disk.
Watching is fun after a hard days trading as Haveonelikethis.

Good value item, quick delivery, good communication, downside dosnt record off the intregrated tv in lounge which is only just coming up for a year old but funnily enough does off the small intregrated tv in bedroom

Apart from a (in my opinion minor) glitch I later learned about on the web (it sometimes goes into or comes out of Standby by itself and has to be reset at the mains) this is a great little device (and pretty swish looking too).

It automatically records live TV on a looped buffer as soon as you switch on, so you can pause, rewind and pull off anything you were watching over the last 6 hours. You can play movies direct from a USB key, and it plays most avi, divx and VCD files quite happily (as well as music and jpegs). And best of all (although the book says it cannot)it seems to be able to play off of a hard drive connected to the USB port too (potentially giving you an huge swappable Media Jukebox - I tried with a 200GB drive, I don't know what the limit might be)!

I only have a regular CRT TV, so I cannot say about the 1080 upscaling, but I've read it's very good. Also, it is Analogue only (so you cannot tune into digital channels with it), but I have cable anyway, so no problems there either.

ln all, if you have straightforward needs, you can do a lot worse. Mine is still within its 1 week refurb. warranty, but so far its been fine (apart from the glitch I mentioned).

it does all i want and more.also great price.the seller was very clear and precise when advertising the product.