Philips DVDR3575H/37 160G HDD DVD Recorder w/ ATSC tuner - Page 5  

Let me know when you figure out how to drop an ATSC tuner
into my Polaroid DRM-2001G and I'll bring it out of retirement.

That would be interesting to do but I think you'll need firmware support on the board level to make it work. I do know the digital Polaroid was stereo on the digital tuner at least, I think the analog part was still mono but was hard to tell as it doesn't actually have a mono/stereo display like most recorders of any type have.
My 2001 now thinks it's a Packard Bell and has a PAL tuner thanks to a european firmware upgrade I tried.
the french tuner version even has a stereo mono display that can be toggled with the audio switch but it still is mono no matter what the display states. I actually can get many NTSC channels in by manual tuning then restarting the unit cold, then it locks onto them pretty well after I set channel memory.

Cool.
BTW, I believe ATSC tuners are all stereo by default.
(Not counting if one was in a mono TV. )

A Polaroid with an identity crisis ... who would have thought! Did you notice if it tries to wash dishes or do the laundry or anything else like that since it got that European firmware?!

Well it likes to smoke a lot now and will only record A&E specials...

Well, I decided to run over to Wally World today and see if they had any of these on the shelf (they didn't on Thursday).

Low and behold, there were 2 of them on top of the stack of the older model. Grabbed one and took it home.

The digital tuner is as good as the Magnavox combo DVDR/VCR I picked up in the beginning of April. Analog tuner is better than the old one was. This really only matters for the one station for me. All of the major networks come in fine here digital.

Questions I had that are now answered:

16:9 recording: If the display type is set to 16:9, it will record the full 16:9 signal and play it back properly on a 16:9 set. It does not set the flag, so if played back on a 4:3 set, it will be horizontally compressed. Not a problem for me.

Playback of a timer recording from the beginning of the program while still recording works fine.

Playback of a previously recorded program while another is recording (to the HDD) works fine.

Playback of a DVD while a recording to the HDD is in progress works fine.

Having to explicitly place the unit into "Pause Live TV" mode to buffer the live TV stream so that pause, rewind, etc. works is a little strange, but I think I can get used to it. Don't watch much live TV anyway. From what I can tell so far, there is no way to "save" the live TV buffer to the hard drive, but I need to dig through the manual a little more. Not a big deal for me if it can't be done, but it might be nice from time to time.

The unit seems light. Not the sturdiest component I've seen, but I think it will stand up to living in my entertainment center. It does seem nice and quiet. There is a fan on the back, but I haven't noticed any noise from it at all (yet).

There are only 12 program slots, but I think I can work with that. It does arrange them in order from top to bottom based on the order of recording.

Recording quality is pretty decent. Pretty much what I would expect based on the quality I was getting recording to DVD with the Magnavox. Not a big surprise. I believe they're both made by Funai and use pretty much the same components and software, with the obvious differences.

Took the Magnavox back for a refund. I'll stick with this one. I was hoping for something to replace my dead ReplayTV unit as far as hard disk recording with the added bonus of an ATSC tuner and preservation of proper aspect ratio for 16:9 content. I'm strictly OTA. No cable, no satellite. This fits the bill for now. I could hope for true HD recording, but not at this price. Maybe in a few years.

Do you have cable and have you tried the QAM portion of the tuner? My 0160 Polaroid dropped cable QAM BAD, all 3 of them.
Maybe I should call the stores again...
Well I guess towards the bottom you answered that question, no cable, no satellite.

Thanks for the First Look info!

Please post about editing accuracy and capabilities when you are able. The 3455/37 was less than accurate, and did not remove scenes but rather placed markers that cause the player to Skip those areas during playback and when recording to DVD. But again, it is only semi-accurate.

I have a question about Editing.
Is there a way to edit out commercials (or anything else)
and then merge the sections back together?
It would be nice, but if not I'll use my Lite-On for that
(transfer the recording to the hard drive of the Lite-On
via DVD, then edit).
My DVDR3575H/37 will arrive on 31 May.

Edit:
Is the NTSC tuner stereo? It doesn't really matter
since only two stations I watch are not digital yet...

Well done Tim! It seems that you are the first to get one, you lucky boy!

It sounds promising. I use satellite, but would like to have the option of using OTA some day if I decide to do so, since I watch a lot of shows by ordering the DVDs from Netflix now rather than wade through all the commercials.

So, the remote works, right?!

You mentioned that you have to "pause live TV" before being able to time shift. Is it possible to time shift continuously from when the unit is turned on? For example:

• Unit turned on at 9.00 am.

• Time shift enabled by pressing "pause" immediately.

• Programming watched with varying pauses and delays until 5.00 pm

I guess what I am asking is:

• How long will it time shift (the duration of the buffer)?

• Will it use a continuous buffer, replacing the oldest buffered material constantly beyond the maximum duration allowed, without ever just dumping the paused programming and switching back to live TV or dumping the buffer and starting a new buffer from scratch?

• Essentially, what will it do if the time paused exceeds the buffer length set?

Any info would be greatly appreciated

Yup! I would love to know about the editing possibilities too! I basically want to be able to do the following:

- Place a chapter marker at the start of commercials.
- Place a chapter marker at the end of commercials.
- Hide or delete the chapter with the commercials.
- Record to DVD without the commercials hidden or deleted.

Thanks again for all that preliminary info! I think everyone here is quite excited about this latest arrival on the no subscription DVR scene!

Can the Digital and Analog tuners get their antenna signal from a single input?
I'm OTA only also, so I prefer not to have to add a splitter, with the associated signal loss to drive both tuners. It appears that you have to do that with the Polaroid.
Is their an antenna-out that can be connected to a ATSC/NTSC tuner equipped TV for direct OTA viewing?
It would seem best for my situation, if a single antenna lead would feed the recorder and an antenna-out from the recorder would feed my TV.

The Polaroid has a built in splitter that can feed the digital. I hooked my cable to the analog part and the rf out I looped back to the digital input, worked fine as long as you have good quality cables.

Post #126 in this thread and someone finally got one.

OK, haven't done alot more playing with it, but maybe I can address a few things.

Looking more closely at the manual, it seems you get 36 program slots, not 12 (or maybe it was 32... I'll have to go check again, but it's over 30).

The manual says that once you put it in "pause live tv" mode (what I believe you mean by time shifting, it will buffer up to 12 hours if there's not a recording scheduled prior to that or you run out of disk space. I believe my initial impression was correct that there seems to be no way to save this buffer. Not a big deal for me as I just schedule what I want to watch to record, then start chasing it from the beginning if it's not finished when I want to watch.

There is one antenna input that serves both analog and digital and an antenna out that simply passes the antenna feed through to whatever you want (TV).

I haven't attempted any editing on the HDD, but it appears you can either hide or completely remove any sections you choose. Your choice.

Oh, and before anyone asks, it does NOT pass HD out via HD or component if you just want to use this as a tuner. No surprise there.

Unless a HDD based HD recorder appears in the next few months, which is almost as likely as monkeys flying out of my butt, this one's a keeper as far as I'm concerned.

The only things I could really wish for would be a program guide, and maybe the ability to set an "expiration date" on recordings, so they would auto delete if they aged beyond a certain point without being watched.

How fast does it change channels? Is it really slow like the non HDD phillips?

This does sound very promising, Tim, but, before you get too excited, beware: the RCA DRC8030N could, in theory, accomplish the above tasks also, but, in practice, I found it to be almost impossible to do accurately (or even at all).

P.S. If you ever see those monkeys, could you please try and capture them on a camcorder and post a link? That should really be worth it!!

Does this Phillips do CLEAR QAM as well as ATSC?

Have not found out yet.

Is it listed in the manual?

I hope this shows up in my local Walmart before those Monkeys...

Yes it does according to page 26 of the manual.
If it's like the 3505 it probably takes up 5-7 seconds to change channels.

I can't post the link for the manual because I haven't made 5 posts yet...

According to the manual:
"You can program the unit to record up to 36 programs
within a month in advance. Daily or weekly program
recordings are also available."
Not quite like TIVO's "Season Pass" feature but close enough...
At least you don't have to pay a monthly fee.

Here's the link for the support page:
http://www.usasupport.philips.com/pr...=7&Submit=true

This should be the direct link for the manual:
http://www.p4c.philips.com/na4/d/dvd...37_dfu_aen.pdf

Channel changes seem fairly quick. Quicker than the Magnavox was at any rate. 2 to 3 seconds is what I'm seeing in general, though I think it depends on how good the signal you're getting is. The tuner is definitely better than the Magnavox was. I can pick up a few channels that I wasn't getting before, both digital and analog.

Did a quick & dirty edit test this morning. Seems reasonably accurate when it comes to placing markers and deleting unwanted content. Cut to within about a second of when I wanted it to. Certainly good enough for removing commercials and archiving.

Page 22 of the manual says it does have a "DTV Program Guide".

Calling it a program guide is a bit of a stretch. It will show you info on the program you're currently tuned to. Nothing like an upcoming program grid or even a list of what's on on all channels at the moment you check. Pretty useless unless you just want to find out what it is you're watching.

Its gone from Walmarts website again http://www.walmart.com/catalog/catal...catNavId=62055
Good or bad ?
Joe

Interesting that it's disappeared from the site, but Walmart's not the best when it comes to keeping things up to date. Stopped in to pick up something this morning in my running around and wandered by electronics. There is only one left in North Olmsted and the box has been opened. There is no shelf tag for them, only for the old version sans digital tuner, which is marked at the same price.

So... how do you plan to record upcoming programs?

That's really weird. I'm glad I ordered mine the first day,
and will receive it via UPS on 31 May.
I can understand it being out of stock, but the listing removed?

The old fashioned way... check the TV listings on-line or in the newspaper and program it like a VCR, time, date, duration... It does support repeating programs, daily, weekly, etc. so as long as I keep an eye out for odd times and such, I'll be fine. Probably check the listings once a week.

Not an awful thing. I actually spend less time vegatating in front of the tube when I have to plan what I really want to watch.