Philip DVDR3380

Bought this almost 2 years ago from HyperCity Argos in Thane. It been invaluable for recording all the TV programs we like.

Its very gratifying to fwd all the commercials and finish 1 hour episodes in 45 min!

Until hard disk recorders become available in Mumbai, this is the next best compromise.

I've given up waiting for a category for LG recorders so I'll just do a head 2 head with my LG HDD / DVDR also.

Pros:

1. A very nice feature that ALL recorders should have is the ability to pause the recording automatically when the channel goes 'off air' [white noise] which can be common during cable TV repairs in your building.

LG recorders do not have this feature.

Philips = 1 ; LG = 0

1. The ability to 'disable' a scheduled recording is very useful since it reduces the need to re-enter all the data again if you need it in the future - its much better than only having 'delete'.

Philips = 2 ; LG = 0

1. It displays the channel name [which you have to setup once], the start time and the duration for each recorded episode which other recorders do not [LG only displays duration but not start time or even channel].

Philips = 3 ; LG = 0

1. It has 'daily' & 'weekend' options for recordings which LG does not [both have Weekly and weekday (Mon - Fri) ]

Philips = 4 ; LG = 0

1. You can turn the power off and on during a recording to verify which channel is being rec.

In the LG you can power on but NOT OFF during rec.

Philips = 5 ; LG = 0

Cons:

There were a number of user interface issues that were NOT present in the Philips DVD player we got over 3 years ago:

1. The biggest irritant was the visual FWD & RWD which shares the same buttons as the PREV & NEXT for chapters. WHY?

You have to hold the button down for a few secs to activate this commonly used feature during playback.

It should have easily been different/dedicated buttons with single press like our player.

Philips = 5 ; LG = 1

1. There is no resume on power off unlike our LG player.

This should be a must for ALL players.

Philips = 5 ; LG = 2

1. There is an arbitrary limit of 9 scheduled recordings which is about a screenfull.

This should have been doubled with page up/down since each entry takes up very little space.

LG has 2 screens worth of schedules that you can insert but its still not enough.

Philips = 5 ; LG = 3

1. There are no 'bookmarks' that you can use unlike our LG player which is useful if you want to pause watching to allow a recording to start.

Philips = 5 ; LG = 4

1. If the recorder is ON, it CAN'T start the recording!

This is totally absurd.

It goes without saying that any scheduled recording should be able to start even when the power is ON.

Currently it just displays a warning saying it can't start the recording and needs to power off first.

LG can start rec even when on.

Philips = 5 ; LG = 5

1. All recorders need to have the ability to 'name' a scheduled recording so we can better track them later.

So if we like to record Simpsons on Star World, we should be able to give a 8-16 character label to that schedule.

1. Unlike LG, this DVDR can't set the quality / resolution for each recording but only for ALL.

You may want to record some programs with higher quality than others to save space.

Philips = 5 ; LG = 6

1. After clicking the TIMER button to list all the scheduled recordings, you can't click another button like MENU or DISC to revert to the DVD contents.

You have to click on TIMER again to exit that screen which seems totally unnecessary.

1. The channel names are restricted to only 5 characters which should have been 10 char instead.

I'm stuck with names like STARW and ZEECA for no good reason.

Philips is half the cost of LG [approx Rs. 15,000] and bought in India [vs. Singapore for LG].

Philips = 7 ; LG = 6

LG has a 160 Gb HDD for about 160 hours of recording which is totally worth the extra price.

Philips = 7 ; LG = 7

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