Info and forum posts by 'ChrisG_UK'

After the Philips DVDR610: VHS is NOT dead!

I finally gave up the battle and took my DVDR610 back to Makro and got a full refund - they are now refunding these with no question. To cut a long story and a long list of problems short, the bottom line is there were just too many problems with this machine. I spent a lot of time downloading updates, researching and trying different types of media etc, but I could just never rely on it. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. Often it would crash when starting a recording, sometimes it would record but the recording wouldn't play back. Sometimes recordings would play on some machines but not others. It was just a load of hassle.

So we went back to using VHS tapes for recording. The quality isn't as good but it has one massive advantage - it just works.

I don't think I'll be trying another DVD recorder. Makro said they are getting loads of returns of all the makes. The Philips DVDR610 is a piece of junk - the user interface is awful and the software has too many bugs (I was on V26 when I gave up). But I think the technology is fundamentally flawed: The media is too fragile for a domestic environment and there are too many incompatibilities and intricacies that families are just not interested in learning about. The wife can pick up a box of video tapes in Tescos and the whole family can use them. I could never get them interested in learning about +R/W/-R/W, finalising, and all that stuff.

Whoever said the video recorder is dead got it wrong. I'll be keeping mine until I see something that works without all the hassle of DVD recording.