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The race to bring a DVD video recorder to the UK market has taken many twists and turns, with manufacturers promising imminent launches and then failing to deliver products. But here it is, a DVD that you can buy from your high-street store and featuring that magic record switch.
The Philips DVDR 1000 uses the MPEG2 format (as used on pre-recorded DVDs) to archive video on to a 4.7Gb rewritable DVD+RW disc (9.4Gb double-sided discs will be available in early 2002).
DVD+RW is largely Philips' brainchild (although it has strong support from Thomson and HP, and qualified support from Sony). Further, unlike rival DVD recording formats, Philips claims discs made on this recorder are playable on almost all DVD video players and DVD-ROM drives.
Philips is very keen to bill the DVD recorder as just the digital incarnation of the VHS VCR. It is designed to be simple to set up and use, and many of its features, such as the VideoPlus+ easy timed recording system, will be familiar to VCR owners. However, VCR owners might balk at the price of the discs, which currently retail for around £15 to £20 a pop.
The recorder also connects to a TV in the same way as a VCR in that the majority of users will hook it up via the SCART socket, though there are also S-Video, composite and FireWire interfaces.
It has a built-in video tuner too, so the user can watch one channel while recording another provided it's an analog rather than a digital TV signal.
For the on-screen menu, the recorder uses a series of icons that first debuted on Philips DVD players last year. They can be very confusing and bear very little relation to the jobs they are supposed to undertake - so don't lose that manual.
Prior to pressing that record switch, the user needs to define what type of quality they want the recording to be. Best quality archives around an hour on one disc. This will probably only be used by camcorder owners archiving footage which they have transferred to the recorder via its FireWire socket.
Likely to be more popular are SP and LP which offer 120 minutes at DVD standard, or 180 minutes at around S-VHS standard, respectively.
The recorder uses a variable bit rate of around 9.8Mbits/sec at its peak. It does this automatically, and the only way you can alter it is to change the recording quality mode.
On the whole, off-air TV footage yielded the kind of quality you'd expect for the quality setting. SP images are detailed, steady and rich in colour. They are certainly superior to S-VHS.
Audio performance is excellent too, with the machine recording in Dolby Digital 2.0. Pre-recorded DVDs look good, if a shade worse than using a conventional DVD player.
Accessing that footage is also very simple, as the player shows the opening still of each recorded segment as well as information such as the time it was archived and the channel it was broadcast on.
But what about DVD+RW's famed compatibility? Well, inevitably Philips has overstated its case. A recently released Denon DVD-2800 player refused to read it, while our 1997 vintage Thomson DTH-200 simply said "no disc" when the DVD+RW was inserted. A year-old Yamaha DVD-ROM couldn't read the discs either.
Philips says that, as a rule of thumb, any DVD player that can handle CD-RW discs will be able to read these DVD+RWs. However, our Denon happily reads CD-RW discs. Moreover, there are quite a few DVD players from a year ago and beyond that won't read CD-RWs at all.
What really ought to be an enormous leap for video actually feels like a very small step. Unlike TiVo, which feels nothing like a VCR, the DVDR 1000 apes a video recorder so well that you feel genuinely surprised when a disc, and not a tape, pops out.
So what of the future? Is DVD recording the way forward? Or will hard-disk-based systems such as TiVo become the norm?
From this product we'd say don't write off the optical disc just yet. It offers a seamless transition from a videotape recorder, yet with the advantage of significantly better quality, durability and disc navigation.
Perhaps TiVo will find its niche as the system for time shifters who watch and wipe, while the DVD recorder will fulfil the cravings of those who feel the need to archive. The Philips can't time shift, which is a little annoying.
Best of all is the option that Toshiba launched last year in Japan - a DVD recorder and hard disk system in the same box. Now that takes some beating.
Contact
Philips: 020 8665 6350 www.ce.philips.co.uk
See also:
If packet writing performance is your thing, this drive is nothing short of staggering. 01 Feb 2002
How does the veteran drive manufacturer's new offering stand up? 21 Nov 2001All Optical Drives (CD/DVD Drive)
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