Customer Reviews

Philips HTS5800H DVD Recorder Home Theater

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I purchased this unit about a week ago at a local Walmart for $348. So far it seems to be a really nice unit for the money. DVD movies sound great as well as music. Recording to the HDD is easy and picture quality is very good. I have not tried recrding to a DVD disc yet.The 3 hour buffer is nice and you can set it to not clear when you change channels if desired. A couple of minor gripes:

When using the buffer, you cannot fast fwd or rewind continously as you can with a TIVO. You can press the arrow buttons to move back 10 seconds or 30 fwd, or you can press the chapter buttons to go back and forth 5 min at a time.
***update** You CAN ffwd or rewd by pressing and holding the chapter buttons

There is a seperate remote for the dvd & home theater units. It appears you always need both. ALthough the home theater remote has buttons to control a dvd I have not found a way to get the dvd to respond to it. Also, I have not found a way to control at least the volume of my Sony TV with either remote.

Overall it appears to be a very good value

I had watched a total of three DVDs using the HDD/DVD recorder when the loading drawer became stuck (as signiifed by a "BLOCKED" message on the unit's screen). I had not yet tried to record a DVD. I actually thought that the "BLOCKED" message was because I was trying to record something from the HDD to a DVD. I'm still not sure if this can be done.

The home theater surround sound works very well in my viewing setting. I don't have a large room, so the relative distortion and audio response profile is not very demanding.

I give the HDD/DVD Recorder 1 star based on reliability and 5 stars based on the premise. Based on my setting, I give the home theater stereo 4 stars for the money. The total best that I can give the entire package is 2 stars.

This Philips HTS5800H DVD Recorder Home Theater
The learning curve is very dificult with this system's two seperate remotes. I've owned this system for 3 months now and I still can not get the DVD player to do anything but play. It will not pause, forward, reverse, find chapters or any other DVD option. The recorder doesn't work either.
The sound quality is good for the price but if I could do this over again I'd choose something a lot easier to use and setup.
I would not recommend this to anyone but a true techhead who can sort out all of the difficulties of this system.

I was skeptical of a "refurbished" item but the price saving enticed me to take a leap of faith. Although it is refurbished is works great. I do regret that it has two different remotes but that's ok, I purchased a universal remote for under $20 and works just fine.

This is not the top of the line receiver or speaker, but its a pretty good deal for the money, The DVR works great and makes life easier.

My new system is absolutely perfect and I don't have any problems with it.
The video is fantastic and the real sorround sound is wonderful.
Recording on the hard drive is a breeze~~~... I have not done any recording on the DVD+RW or DVD-RW which I bought specially for this purpose but I don't really need it since the 80GB Hard Drive is sufficient for my needs... The quality of this unit is great...
I would strongly recommend it to anyone who enjoys true quality...
My purchase on Amazon was also swift and the customer service was courteous... Thank You for such great machine !!!