Rating: 
Summary: Better than a VHS recorder but is certainly not perfect
Review: The concept of a DVD recorder is one that should offer all the features of a VHS video recorder with the additional convenience of not having a tape and superior image quality.The Philips DVDR80 is probably analogous to early VHS recorders. Impressive new technology, but very much in its infancy. If this player has a processor inside, it must have been stolen from my Commodore VIC20. Switching on from standby takes about 15 seconds.. just exactly what it's doing during this time I've no idea. If you don't stare directly at the display when using the remote, you could easily think it didn't receive the commands - for some reason there's about a 1-3 second delay with everything. As far a quality is concerned, so far I've only used non-branded cheap DVD+RW discs (less than £1 each ~US$1.75) and I've had no problems recording at all. The quality on M2 (2 hours max) is far superior to VHS. Other issues currently include the lack of support for the UK FREEVIEW boxes, although Philips UK assure me that this will be dealt with in firmware upgrades in the "near future". Just how long it takes to program a few macros by the Philips team I don't know, let's hope they have some kind of optimisation procedure though! So, for £300 (~US$525) I'd say this is an expensive piece of new technology that's left plenty of room for improvement. If you want a DVD recorder now though I'd certainly consider this. (The Sony RDR GX3 isn't perfect either - search for reviews on Google and you'll soon discover it has its own problems).
Rating: 
Summary: Lacks Fundamental VCR Functionality
Review: There is a glaring deficiency in this product: timed recording can only be made via the RF Coax feed. So if you use a digital cable or sat box with an S Video feed into the DVD recorder, you are unable to set the timer to use EXT 1 or EXT 2 and record. You must either convert the feed to inferior RF, or never use the timer recording features. Attention Philips - this is VCR 101 functionality ! In addition, it's clear Philips did not bother to hire a native English speaker to proof read their poorly written (and often deficient) user's manual. While I have no qualms with the unit being assemble in Hungary, I think they could have paid an editor to remove the Hung-lish language sentence construction. The manual is glaringly deficient in providing adequate instruction in the simplist functionality i.e. how to change the channel to EXT-1 (secret obtained from calling Philips tech support in Bangalore - hit the MON button before hitting channel up/down). Now with regard to the user interface when navigating to set a timer - GUI design rules 101 - many people are color blind. The fact that a little blue dot on the screen is supposed to equate to a faint blue button on the remote is very obtuse. Never expect a selection to be made based on color alone, this is a very poor user interface practice. And try to be consistent. It is never clear with this device when you are supposed to hit OK and then you need to select > the right cursor icon. Be consistent UI designers ! This is the first Philips product I have purchased. I have a feeling it will also be the last.
Rating:
Summary: Avoid Philips products at all cost
Review: This Philips DVD recorder is just like its predecessors: a waste of time and money. It starts out great, but then over time problems crop up -- too many to cover here. DVD+RW is the way to go, so I am going to check out Sony's DVD recorder which can record in both DVD-RW and DVD+RW. However, I will probably wait until Sony's DVD recorder can edit in DVD+RW format. I will never buy another Philips product again. Their engineers are incompetent, and their tech support staff in Jamaica is a joke. Philips is going to take a big financial hit from all of the angry people who bought their crappy DVD recorders and will never buy anything from Philips again. I'm glad I don't own any shares of Philips stock.
Rating:
Summary: Betatesting for Philips' R&D dept....
Review: What a great player this could have been, with +r / +RW functions like on the fly editing, great video output quality, neat desin. Alas, in true Philips fashion, there are more bugs in this thing than your average Computer Game (there have been 2 new firmware released in July alone!). You cannot timer record from external inputs. External inputs (all of them!) become unselectable when the guide+ system takes over. It doesn't work with Satelite. Recorded material has an artifact bug in the overscan area that will display a thin blue moving line on PC DVD Players and most non-Philips Players (JVC, Panasonic) (looks like bad tracking on the good old VCR). Like the Q50 before it, this unit is just one compromise after the other to make it work. Stay away from it, stay away from Philips. Their support was useless. Too bad, it could have been a great system.
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