Page 1 of Philips DVDR890 Nightmare

Hi people !
I have a one week old DVDR890 from empiredirect.
Lots of disc errors with both Datasafe and Traxdata DVD+R discs, either during recording or when editing afterwards.
Finalised discs will not play at all on Samsung 616F DVD ROM drive with latest firmware, and only play jerkily on my Yelo800 player, which usually plays everything I can throw at it !
The DVDR890 has firmware version 13, the latest as far as I know, so I don`t think this is the problem.
Does this recorder need to be returned ? (I know Philips have had some dodgy batches of various machines floating around ....)
Thanks for your time, having scoured the net for hours I`m at my wits end.

Hi,
It sounds like you have a bad machine, like countless other people. Myself included. I have just returned my 5wk old 880 due to disc reading errors. It`s not just on +r/+rw`s either. Mine freezes and skips on pre-recorded discs as well. I think it`s more down to faulty lasers and drives than the version of firmware, as people have reported the same faults on 11, 12 and yours on 13.
Sorry, but I think you`ll have to return it for an exchange.

I have to say I`m surprised there`s not more widespread coverage of the problems with these Philips recorders, in home cinema magazines or mainstream media such as TV shows like Watchdog.

Going by the volume of anecdotal evidence and my own personal experience it seems there are hundreds of people suffering with faulty machines. If it was a model of car that was affected this way you can be sure it would have been pulled from the market long ago.

The other annoying thing is that these Philips standalone recorders are seemingly selling very well yet have a monopoly on DVD+R, so if you want to adopt this increasingly popular format you`ve currently no choice but to buy a machine that has a good chance of being riddled with problems and bugs.

Desk

I would not buy Philips if it was the last make on earth, having had numerous problems with there equipment & zilch help from them. All the top manufacturers I have read about are going with the DVD-R system.

There is no definite decision on which format will `rule` in the recording world yet. But why on earth do people buy into this at present? It is much too costly and in a couple of years time these machines may be obsolete ( remember Betamax and the Philips 2000 systems?).

My advice would be to take the Philips DVDR890 back to the shop, get a refund and wait for the `dominant` format to emerge and prices to drop.

Don`t forget that pretty soon Blu` Ray and Blue Laser technology will be raising it`s head and the DVD world will once again be in a spin.

This item was edited on Sunday, 12th January 2003, 19:16

Hi there DJPD
Just read your post from earlier.....Im having same problems with DVD Rs in so far as they keep crashing out and scrapping disk if I go to edit the title name or sometimes the image.....even had a disk error and another scrapped disk a few seconds after simply starting up a recording.... did you send yours back??

Also have you hacked recorder to make it multi region???

BTW bought mine from empire Direct as well

This item was edited on Monday, 13th January 2003, 17:38

Hi Lee,
I haven`t sent mine back yet as I`m not sure if it`s a faulty machine, or whether it`s just the firmware, or just cheapy discs. I`m up in the air at the moment.
It plays prerecorded Region 2 films fine (unlike lots of others I`ve read about that freeze when the laser changes between layers) Again this makes me think it could just be the firmware, not the actual laser or any other faulty part.
I haven`t tinkered with region settings as I already have a fine multiregion player, I`ll just use this as a recorder.
Will I get a refund or have to get another 890 as a replacement ? Any idea ?

No idea as yet Im afriad.......im reading a lot about similar problems with this type of thing ... i have made mine multi region so wondered if that could be part of it but I dont think it is.

Im still waiting for a phone call from phillips engineers as they say they havent come across this before.....mine does play R1 and R2 fine and records DVD RW with editing etc perfectly....its just when recording and really the editing of the DVD+Rs....

How can you check which firmware version its has ? I have read somewhere its also possible to upgrade that by downloading it (I assume from philips) to CD-R and running this disk in the machine....

Im not sure which version of the firmware mine is....

Im still waiting for a phone call from phillips engineers as they say they havent come across this before.....

Now where have I heard that before.....

Hi Paul

Have you had same problems too?