Customer Reviews

Philips DVDR3400 DVD Recorder with DivX and USB 2.0

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

Now that DVD-DL Discs are affordable, you would think that more DVD recorders would be available with this option. Well, this is it. Philips has made the DVDR3400 recorder consumer friendly, easy to set up, and free from the bugs of machines past. I had been using the Lite On LVW-5005X, which is another incredibly reliable machine.

The Philips records at 6 speeds, plays MP3 DVDs, DivX, and has a front access panel that includes RCA inputs, S-video, USB (input from flashdrives) and i.LINK DV.

No freeze ups, you don't have to finalize RW discs, auto chapters, nice looking video quality and a TV tuner. I personally haven't used the cable input to determine the audio quality of television shows.

Drawbacks: There are small buttons on the remote control and the hand held must be aimed exactly so double button pushing can be avoided. The Menu screen includes only 3 titles at a time on your home recorded discs.

With all the bells and whistles, and inexpensive price, you can't miss with this.

Over the holidays I decided to move up and get a DVD recorder as I've hundreds of VHS tapes that I want to get rid of, upgrade to DVD, and save space. This Philips model is actually the third one I've purchased in just days, the other previous two turned out to be total garbage and were returned to the stores I purchased them for refunds...one was a cheap generic brand which I cannot recall the name, it was no surprise it only copied two tapes before completely conking out...the other was actually a $300+ Sony model, Sony a brand I religiously swear by which unfortunately only turned on and off and nothing else...though I did buy it at Best Buy and figured it was a defective return re-boxed and put up for sale, something Best Buy is notorious for. Well I went with this Philips model and I'm very satisfied with its performence. Other than some VHS tapes which are Copy Protected (anything put out by Disney, HBO, nearly all MCA/Universal, and most 20th Century FOX) I've had no problems transferring VHS to DVD-R and it'll let you know on screen when a tape is copy protected and will not record. This model also plays and records to DVDR+- and DVDRW+-. Taping from TV is virtually the same process as programming a VCR, I use DVD-RW for that so I can use the same disc over and over and you can use different recording modes from 1, 2, 2.5, 3, 4, and 6 hour length. Playback with regular DVDs or CDs is better than any DVD player I've owned. My only complaints which happened to be shared by other reviewers are the slow response remote control...on the bright side its slow response makes it impossible to make mistakes such as finalizing a disc before you're finished recording but it is somewhat aggravating that you have to press each button 2-3 times. Also this is a device that you have to have patience and be delicate with as when you turn it on, it has to update to see if there's a disc in the unit or not, and if so it has to check to see what kind (DVD, DVD-R/RW, mp3, etc.), etc. For example yesterday the machine was off and I just hit the eject button to take the disc out and the machine went crazy as it was lost in the updating, eject, starting, and menu modes...so you have to first turn it on, wait to update, then eject. Other than that everything's perfect, highly recommended for anyone like myself who is just starting out with DVD Recorders.

I got this DVD Recorder as a gift. Initially, I was impressed, its sleek, has a modern looking iPodish remote, and some really neat features and can handle a ton of formats.

Unfortunately, my excitement was short lived. The interface is the worst I have ever used, it looks and behaves like its still in beta testing phase. its slow, often requiring several seconds to boot up, eject a disk, or take any type of command from the remote. It is confusing to use and the manual is poorly written. I was hoping for a firmware update, but non exist as of yet. Fresh batteries and still the remote often requires 3 tries to get it to respond, and when it does, there is a massive delay.

I was able to play a USB memory stick, view photos, play WMA and MP3 music. But again, its so slow and buggy to respond, its flat out annoying. It was able to play DVDs, CDRs, that I had burned on my PC, but again, the controls are SO slow, its painful. I was also able to record to a DVD-R and play back a store brought movie. It has a nice picture.

Its a shame, I think this could be a great unit, but it looks like it was rushed into production with the user interface as a total afterthought. I liked the USB idea, and again, its got great features but its just too slow to use.

I returned it, and got a Panasonic DMR-ES15S, and I might say, its 180 degrees better then the Phillips, while it does not have the same features, the fact that its FAST, EASY to USE, and just does what its made to do without any hassle was worth the extra $'s I paid for it VS the Phillips.

The recorder will record for 2 or 3 hours and at any time stop and give an error msg. Often the recording works fine but when you finalize you get an error. I have tried +R 8x, -R 4X and +R 4X. Some of these black DVD's were the $2.00 last forever variety. When it works it works well but I cannot live with this erractic behavior. I also think the remote is ridiculous with its small buttons and slow response. I plan to return this item.

I recently bought a flat-panel HDTV and an HDMI upconverting DVD-Recorder, the LG DR1F9H. I liked the features of that recorder--the video quality was amazing, and the DivX playback was a nice addition--but the unit was defective: its audio would skip and break up, omitting lines of dialogue, from almost every kind of disc. I returned it and got a second one, which had the same problem, so I returned *that* and tried the Philips DVDR 3400, which looked similar. Again, DivX playback, HDMI output.

What I didn't realize is that this *isn't* an Upconverting player. The output on this has four settings: 480i, 480p, 576i, and 576p. My TV won't take the 576 resolution, so I'm stuck with just the 480, which is standard DVD resolution--and it looks far grainier and lower-quality than DVD video usually does. Nor does it properly accommodate the aspect ratio of the HDTV: it just stretches out the normal 4:3 image to take up the full screen, which looks terrible. It's not very good about adjusting such settings, either; you can't adjust the playback or resolution settings unless the video is stopped, and even then, not if it's remembering a position--you must hit stop again, so that it begins playback from the start of the disc. It doesn't support resume-from-stop with the other video formats (divx, etc) either. All in all, it seems to be a rather poorly-executed device. I will experiment somewhat further with it, but will probably return it to the store. This whole excursion is proving profoundly frustrating.

The Philips 3400 rates as the worst piece of electronic equipment I ever bought--worse than anything Panasonic made in its worst days. It would be better if you could not turn it on from the get go in order to save frustration and wasted discs. If you record a disc and do not turn it off immediately after finalizing the disc and then unplugging it for 15+ seconds, when you go to record next disc, it locks up and makes that next disc unusable (and still requires pulling the plug, as it wont shut off before trying to record another disc). Probably have wasted 25 discs this way. The remote is klutzy in that much of the time you have to press button several times before the unit responds. It has no such thing as one-touch recording as it requires pressing the source button (despite setting up defaults to record from the DV input) and then the record button. On ending a recording, it has a convoluted way to telling it to finalize the disc. I have a Sony unit a few years old; and it works flawlessly. You can bet that after these two weeks of frustration, the Philips is going back to the store; and I'll spend the few extra bucks for another Sony.

This thing is a piece of junk for the most part. It's recording feature is about the only "GOOD" thing about it. Even though it has HDMI out put it only "Upconverts" to 480p which isn't all that much better than standard 480i I get out of a 2002 Sony Progressive scan player I have. Also the remote is horrible, I hit the button numerous times before it responds and I even exchanged the first one I bought thinking some thing was wrong with the first one but the same issue with the second one. Also not sure if any one else has had this issue with this machine but I have purchased a number of brand new sealed DVD's that this machine just won't play PERIOD, I take it to my kids room and throw it in the old Sony I mentioned above and it works perfect same with the 13" Magnavox DVD combo we have in the kitchen works perfect put it back in this sucker just freezes up after the DVD menu.. PIECE OF JUNK... We ONLY use this machine to record programs/movies/shows from TV we don't actually use it to play DVD's back because it's such a piece... We use a DVD-HD860 from Samsung to play back movies. It works great with my Samsung HDTV and it upconverts to 1080i or 720p... I wouldn't waste my time with this one... Wish I would have done better research before I purchased it

I bought this recorder because it had VCR+ and boy do I regret it. when you set the recorder to record in the future, it asks you if you want the recording to continue and when it begins to record, If you are not there to answer OK, it does not record.

The remote is so insensitive you have to be 3 ft in front of the box to get any response which is incredibly slow. The ergonomics of the unit are devilishly frustrating, which lead me to believe that the unit is really some weird psychological experiment devised by Philips to drive American consumers crazy.

The other reviewers are mostly right. The remote control is pure junk. The poor little featherweight device has to be right in front of the player to work and even then you have to push the buttons multiple times for anything to happen. But even worse are the menus. They are, well, bizarre. I would really love to meet the people who designed them. I am a bit distrubed knowing that minds like this exist. I have a knack for figuring out how to operate electronic equipment without reading manuals or getting any assistance. But this machine stumped me. Nothing is intuitive. To get anything done you have to follow arrows of different sizes up and over and down and to the right and then back again and by the time you've accomplished what you wanted to do your vision is blurred and a headache is developing. That having been said, it is still not as bad as some. The Panasonic that an earlier reviewer recommended is, I found, much, much worse. Put it this way, I kept it. I've gone through about 5 different kinds of DVD recorders in the last month and this one stayed in the house. Once you figure out how to use it it does what you want it to better than most. (The best DVD recorder by far, although that is still not saying much, is the LG. Amazon does not seem to carry it so go to Best Buy or something.)

I just got off of the phone with Philips tech support and couldn't believe what I was told. I rented 2 movies from Blockbuster and neither would play in this DVD player. At first I thought there was a problem with the DVDs and returned them. After round 3 I resurrected my old DVD player and they played fine. The tech support guy asked for the titles of the movies (Pursuit of Happyness and Stranger Than Fiction) and when I told him he promptly replied that they and about a hundred other titles have "encoding problems" and will not play on this DVD player. Of course after 3 weeks, I don't have the original packaging and so I can't return it, they won't authorize a return since there's "nothing wrong with it". Save yourself a lot of trouble and don't buy this piece of junk!