I am now on my fourth DVD Recorder, the reason being that the previous three all developed faults and became unreliable. Unfortunately the Philips is no exception.

I've had the Philips DVDR for 3 months now.

The physical design I think is good, it can be operated using the remote and the basic features can also be operated using the front buttons.

Several manuals are provided, each written in a different language which I think is good.

However the installation instructions for connecting to Free view were incorrect and did not work with my set-up. I did get everything working but not using the instructions given!

Playback and quality are both fine.

It works wonderfully well on new discs but problems occur when using the same DVD+RW disc. After a period of time, the disc appears to become corrupt and is not recognisable by the DVD Recorder. You cannot do anything with the DVD disc except throw it away!

This has now happened twice, so cannot be a one off. I've had two lost recordings out of 120 giving a 1-2% failure rate.

Note the problem occurs on branded Philips DVD+RW Discs and without warning.

I cannot comment on it's reliability when recording on DVD+R discs but based on my experience I think it would be OK.

To summarise, this would be great were it not for the disc corruption. It is however more reliable than any of the other machines I've had but still not reliable enough.

Personally after four unreliable DVD Recorders, I don't think the technology is able to consistently do what it says on the box.

I am now seriously considering purchasing a Hard Drive Recorder.