Philips DVDR3455H/37 - Page 11

hot damn! i have pictures for my chapters! dont know what i did but they are there so i will accept that for now! LOL....now we are finalizing....

shred, you are a genius!! LOL...it worked, i have the thumbnails that i wanted so bad.....thank you so much for your time and patience, it is greatly appreciated..and no, it wasnt that hard, just looked that way reading all the instructions! and thanks for the comment nextoo, thats exactally what i'm doing!! i am a happy camper!

Cool - only thing might be that we may be confusing "titles" with "chapters" but who's counting! I'm glad it worked out!

lol...i was wanting the thumbnail chapters..when you start the dvd, it has all the scene selections with the pictures and i have that now...

maybe i was explaining it the wrong way...

It works! That's all that matters.

thank goodness....i was starting to get a collection of dvd recorders here that have to be returned...lol

i'm still debating whether to go to the toshiba which will do it automatically at whatever intervals i want, or to just keep this philips....

llilmama, you are most welcome and I am glad that it worked for you. I am amazed that anyone could make their way thru my long post and get the desired results, but I couldn't seem to shorten it up anymore and say all I felt was required. Glad it worked out for you, you must be a patient person!

I learn mostly by playing around a lot with the unit, interspersed with occasional forays into the manual. I have also learned a lot by reading other's post here, and on the Polaroid thread as well.

nextoo, I was trying to use the terminology in the way I felt llilmama was perceiving it with regards to "Chapters" and "Titles". In a previous post (or it might have been a PM) I actually referred to the Main Segments (Titles actually) as "SuperChapters" because there are the many smaller "chapter" markers within each Thumbnailed Segment.

Anyhoo, I think we have a great bunch of folks here at AVS Forum and I appreciate all the help and inspiration you have given me since I joined! Thanks to all.

When I answered your question in the other thread about the 640 not being able to create CHAPTER thumbnails, I didn't know that divided TITLE thumbnails would suffice. Needless to say, any HDD recorder that can divide TITLES (640 and many others) can do what you just did.

Still, only the Toshibas, AFAIK, can insert true CHAPTER thumbnails rather simply, without all the dividing of Titles that you're doing.

i will be keeping up with the posts on here so i can learn new things with this.....this is the greatest forum i have found.....my husband laughs at me and calls me his techo geek cause i just love all the gadgets and stuff.....lol...he has no patience for it! i felt so stupid trying to learn this thing, but now get me on a computer and i can run circles around most people...lol....so if you ever have any questions there, ask away and i just may be able to help!!

wabjxo, toshiba is the only one i've heard that can actually do that too.....thats why i'm still debating whether to go to the toshiba....its nice to be able to set it to do that automatically.....i was playing with the pioneer 640 today and i have to say, i really wasnt that impressed with it.....

llilmama, does the Toshi do Chase Play of a Preset Recording that is still recording to the HDD? You know, start watching at the beginning while the end of the show is still recording? I know you have Tivo so you may not use the Toshiba for viewing like that.

What model Toshi did you get, and if you don't mind saying, what did it cost? Thanks.....

BTW, No hard feeling if you don't want to say..... : )

i havent gotten the toshiba yet shred, but i am thinking about it....from what i heard, i think it will do the chase play so you can start watching while it finishes recording..i am calling toshiba in the morning because i have another question and i will ask them that, just to be sure......i am thinking about getting the xs35 and i dont mind saying what it will cost.. its regularly $400 but bb has it on sale for $350....

Thanks...... : )

btw, the other recorder i have is the pioneer...

hey shred, i talked to toshiba and they said yes, you can do chase play of a preset recording while it is still recording to the hard drive...

I don't know much about Toshis, but that is a strong point in it's favor in my opinion. But again, with you having Tivo it's probably not a big deal for you. If the Thumbnail/Chapter feature is as important to you as I think it is, the Toshi might be a better fit for you if it easily does those things you want it too.

In the Philips' favor is that it is about $50 less expensive, and does have terrific recording quality. I like the 6 hour "Live TV Cache", but anyone with Tivo doesn't really need that feature either. If Philips would write a Firmware Upgrade that would give me True Chase Play of a Preset Timer Recording Still In Progress, and fix it where I can "hide" or turn off the status bar and/or control the onscreen duration then I would have a nearly perfect DVDR.

Either way you go I am sure you will have a fine recorder. : )

well, i'm now thinking about keeping what i have.....the toshiba will automatically set the chapter thumbnails going from the hard drive to the disc, but not from the external source to the disc which i can do now if i get the yesdvd, which would put them at the same cost....so its either or with each one.....and you said you cant hide the status bar? are you sure??

ToshibaDVDR thread


You might want to read this thread to help you decide........

i havent had this that long yet, which status bar are you talking about? any bar i have come up, i can immediately get rid of by hitting the display button...

Not completely. It will disappear after about 5 sec if I am watching the "Live TV Buffer", but it hangs around on screen for 20 -25 sec when I am watching a Pre-recorded HDD Title. If you know how to cut it off please let me know.

P.S. I mean completely hide it where it doesn't EVER come up. I get morbidly tired of hitting the "Display" button (twice each time) to make the darn thing go away. I would love to have the default option of No Status bar with pressing "Display" in order to make the status bar appear only when i want to see it.

i'm not sure you can actually turn it off so it NEVER comes up again, but i will play with mine today and see......i was reading that thread and it sounds like there are alot of problems with the toshiba as far as trying to record from cable and satellite and saying its copywrited or can only copy once...that will NOT work for me..lol

i'm talking to philips and seeing if they know any way to do that...i'll let ya know...

they say no way to disable it....i'm recording something right now, but when its done, i will play around with it and see if there is some way to work around it, but i doubt it...

I am pretty sure it would take a firmware upgrade to do it.

Was it hard to get philips on the line?

You didn't happen to mention the No True Chase Play Problem to them did you?

I'm out for a bit. I will catch up later...... ; )

i still need to do the firmware update for mine......and no, it wasnt hard to get them on the line at all, it was pretty quick and painless..lol......and i did mention it and of course he said there was no firmware upgrade coming at this time for that problem...grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

I just got off the phone with Philips Support. I talked with a very nice, efficient person who took down my suggestions and says he will forward them to a "Level 2 engineer", whatever that may be. He gave me a Case reference number. I had already typed out my suggestions, but as fate would have it, Philips Email support was currently down. I am going to post my suggestions here. I only addressed the four major issues that are bugging me at the moment. We will see what happens from here.

Dear Philips Support,

I purchased a Philips DVDR 3455/37 DVD Recorder with 160gb Hard Drive some months ago. Since that time your company has released two Firmware Updates, both of which I have applied to my unit. Unfortunately, neither of these Firmware Updates addressed the most serious shortcoming of this machine - The inability to begin viewing a Preset Timer Recording from the beginning in True Chase Play function. I am fully aware that the "Live TV Buffer" allows this ability, so I am quite sure the unit should be able to "Pause, Rewind, and Fast Forward" during an Ongoing Preset Timer Recording as well.

Please address this serious flaw with a new Firmware Update as soon as possible. I have been unable to recommend the 3455/37 to my family and friends, and further, unable to recommend it on any of the various Internet DVD Forums that I visit because of this glaring omission. Panasonic, Toshiba and Pioneer all have True Chase Play available on their DVD/Hard Drive Recorders, and so should Philips! Please correct this serious problem as soon as possible.

While you are at it, there are several other less glaring but still quite annoying problems that need improvement as well.

First, please provide a way to "Completely Turn Off" the "Display Bar", or at least a way for the consumer to shorten the amount of time that it remains onscreen. A "zero to 20 second" adjustment would be ideal. When I am viewing a Hard Drive Title Playback with the 3455/37, the "Display Bar" "pops up" and remains onscreen for 20 seconds anytime I press the play/pause, rewind, ff and other buttons. That is waaaaaaay too long. I get tired of having to press the "Display" button twice to clear the "Display Bar" from my screen every time I touch another control button, especially when using the Slow-Motion Forward "NEXT" button during editing! Give us a way to turn this thing completely off, please! Even better would be if you would provide a way for the consumer to choose the number of seconds the "Display Bar" remains onscreen. An adjustment range from zero to 20 seconds would be ideal.

Also, there is no Slow-Motion Reverse available when viewing and editing HDD Titles, only Forward Slow-Motion is available, by presssing the "Pause" button and then pressing the "NEXT" button repeatedly. If possible, it would greatly aid in editing to have a Slow-Motion Reverse available, preferably by pressing the "Pause" button, and then pressing the "PREV" button repeatedly.

Finally, the 3455/37 has the most annoying habit of occasionally "Powering Off" at the end of a preset timer recording, even if I am currently in the middle of watching or editing a Hard Drive Title at the time. Then I have to Power the Unit back on, wait for it to "initialize", switch it back to the HDD Menu and then try to find where I was at in my HDD Title when the unit decided to "turn itself off"! That is very annoying. Please fix this so that the unit will detect other ongoing processes and not "Power Off" while the consumer is involved in other activities with the unit.

I would really like to purchase another 3455/37 for myself because the recording quality is excellent, and overall it is a good unit, but until the No True Chase Play Problem is resolved, I simply cannot buy or recommend the 3455/37 to anyone. The other problems I mentioned should be resolved as well, but they are not as important as having True Chase Play of a Preset Time Recording in Progress! Thank you for your attention to these problems.

OK, please forgive me if this has already been asked. I would like to know if there is a place that I can find firmware hacks for this machine.

Since I bought it, it has been one headache after another.

jayvilla

The best thing to do is to go to philips web site and upgrade to their latest firmware. Also this machine is not like the simply burners for a computer. A piece of hacked firmware, if it does exist, could be very dangerous.

I know the programers for this machine really dropped the ball. But trusting someone else to get it right could be a worse situation for you.