Page 1 of Philips DVDR610 troubles

Hello, I am new to this forum, reading about all the problems with these machines. I work for a Philips dealer, have been supplying these since they came out. This is as much as I know at present.
The first batch that came out displayed mono instead of Stereo, although they recorded OK. A software upgrade just blanked out where the ident was appearing!
I had people complaining about excess fan operation.
Then came the problem with clock advancing 30 mins.
It does appear that software upgrade "22" addresses these 2 problems.

I am getting some compaints, and I have seen it today! that the machine switches the TV back to external input and then back to TV randomly, with the front display going off as well. The one customer said that she could make it do it by switching the TV on; is there a problem with scart communication? Also some people say that if the machine is powered out of standby, it will affect the TV, but only if the DVDR is on BBC1 or BBC2.
Also there are complaints of timed recordings not doing their full time. At the moment I have no answer to these problems, so if anyone out there has similar troubles, lets hear about them. As a dealer, it is difficult for me to get through to anyone at Philips to discuss problems, let alone customers.
Also, as a word of caution, machines before Xmas were recalled for software upgrade 22 before they were released to dealers; they started coming to us after 13 th Dec, but some since then must have missed the upgrade, as I have had to do some since. I am a fan of Philips, but I do think they have "shot themselves in the foot" !!

Hi and welcome to the forums.

You might be the person us long suffering 610 owners need.

My troubled history with the 610 started back in early Sept. I wasn`t going to go for the Philips recorders (plenty of negetive feedback across various forums), but had to take advantage of Sainsburys pricing error and got my 610 for £99.99.
Overall I`ve been very impressed with the ease of use with the menus etc and the actual recording quality however;
My main issue with the 610 curently is the ramdom switching from `sky` watching (ext2) back to analogue. This happens many times during the day and is winding my wife right up.
I`ve got my sky box plugged into my 610 (ext2) then out (ext1) to my TV (ext2).
You will be watching `sky` (through the switched off 610) then all of a sudden the tv will go back to CH1 (analogue) we then have to toggle back to the tv`s ext2 to get back to `sky`, or the 610 will switch it`s self on for a few seconds then off again interupting the tv viewing.
I`m using `Philex Thor` scart leads for both connections, but have tried the set up with cheap `black plastic` ones and the problem is the same.
I`m currently on firmware BT_22 and this one only seemed to cure the 30min clock problem and made the random switching worse.

How can cheap chinese imports at £99.99 work as they should (my brother has a MIco 311 and is not suffering any probs at all) yet I could have paid £279.99ish for a 610 and have sooooo many glitches?

Hope this info helps. If I can thinks of any more I post it.

Happy New Year

Steve.

This item was edited on Wednesday, 29th December 2004, 20:41

Hello Steve,

Nice to get a reply so soon! Something is happening on scart control, lets see what other messages appear. If I get any useful information from Philips I will advise.

Best wishes. Grahame

Hi I wonder if you could shed some light on my little problem with the dvdr610?

I bought the dvd recorder in Oct this year & has been working perfectly until 2 nights ago the recorder decides it won`t record more than 1 title on the disc keeps recording over & over the first title even when I select an empty title which I normally do.
So this morning I downloaded & installed the firmware update which went fine but has not made any difference,I can still play dvds but only record one title so it doesn`t quite help when you are recording a tv series and would like more than 1 episode on the disc.
I use philips dvd+rw discs also when I want to time record on a blank disc I have to record on it first then delete so it will record but this is not my main concern at the moment as the first problem needs to be fixed.
I have e-mailed Philips but will have to wait until after the new year for a reply.
I have checked the support center trouble shooter but doesn`t really help.

Hope you can help.

Andrew

Hello Andrew,

Sorry to hear of your problems, I assume you have tried more than one disc! I also assume you have done a "Power On Reset". The only other possibility; Has the Record Mode got to say its minimum time eg 2hrs so that you cant record more than 2 hrs?

Otherwise I dont know, perhaps you need to call the dealer who sold you the recorder.

Best wishes, Grahame

when playing back a disc (either recorded on the machine or an original dvd), playback is sometimes interrupted by the machine switching over to whatevers on my freeview box (connected to ext 2), i then have to press the tv/dvd button on the bottom right of the remote to get back to the movie. this can sometimes happen 3 or 4 times during playback. has anyone else encountered this problem?

Hi

I used to have a philips video that did random things from time to time and solved that by using a power spike plug and had no more problems.Another thing to look for is burning on the new 13 amp plugs on the pins ,clean and scratch the contact and you may find it will work ok.The last one works on the Yamadas when they seems to make a lot of errors or failed recording for no reason.

bye

R.B

I have the dvdr610 upgraded to firmware 22.
setup is Panny TV and DVD recorder only, high quality scart between them.
No timing issues at all. and records perfectly all the time.
Main prob:
While watching TV, it flicks to the dvdr610 for a second and then back to TV.
Sometimes once every two hours, sometimes 4-5 times an hour.. random enough to not have definite symptoms.
i`ll start to write down the channels im on when it happening.
it can happen as soon as i turn on the tv, but not all the time.
its like the tv is getting a pulse from the recorder to say "i`m playing a dvd now..."
and then the tv says "alright i`d better switch to av-x" and then the recorder says "only messin.. i`m not really playin anything"
a147.

Hello everyone,

My latest news on this odd scart operation such as comments above; I managed to contact Philips tech in Eindhoven, they were interested to know serial numbers of machines affected, as they had only heard of this problem this week!! And this will be relayed to the factory for them to try and sort out. No immediate cure in sight.

At present I am cutting pin 8 on the scart leads to at least try and stop the TV switching over to External inputs.

I have the same problem TV flicks between DVDR610/2 and the TV.
I have uppdated to 22.
Prod. no. VN1E 0447 0490 50
Steng