Philips DVDR3305 trashes an entire disc

I had nearly 6 hours of recordings on a DVD and then decided to use the last
20 minutes of free space for something else. Out of the blue my screen went
blank in the middle of the recording, then the recorder said "timer" because
it had switched itself off. When I switched it back on again it said the
disc was blank.

I knew the Philips DVDR3305 could fail to write the table of contents at the
end of a recording, but previously this has only effected the most recent
recording on a disc. I didn't know it could trash the entire table of
contents for the whole disc, (this one had several recodings on it), just by
me trying to make another recording on a partially used disc.

Are other DVD recorders like this?

Is it a problem with DVD recorders in general, or with Philips machines in
particular, or is mine faulty?

It is extremely annoying. If all DVD recording is like this I can't see any
future in home video recording at all (now that they have stopped selling
VHS). Whatever you thought about the picture quality of VHS at least you
could rely on it. I just can't rely on this DVD recorder for anything. I
never know if any recording I make is going to be playable, and now I
daren't even fill up a disc for fear of the machine instantly deleting
eveything that was already on it!

Even when the DVD recorder does work it's a real pain. Say I've just
remembered that I'm missing a programme I wanted to record. I have to wait
30 seconds while the recorder says, "loading", then press "record source"
then toggle it slowly through all four other input options to get back to
the scart input (because it always resets itself to the analogue tuner),
then right click and select "record new title", then wait for it to respond
then finally it will let me press Record without putting a "not allowed"
symbol on the screen. By the time I've done all this I've missed over 1
minute of the programme which I would have got on VHS.

With VHS it's instant start and no arguments, and it stays on the last input
selected. The way my DVD recorder operates is just insane compared with a
VHS. Why so many obstacles and so much delay before you can start a
recording? And of course with VHS you know that even if the machine exploded
in the middle of a recording, you'd still have what was recorded up to the
point when the failure occured. Not so with my DVD. Any hiccup and it
trashes everything, the current recording and everything else that was on
the disc. It's enough to make you despair.

Can anyone suggest another make and model of DVD recorder which won't do
this sort of thing, and preferably one that starts recording without delay?

"Stephen" wrote in message
...

Is it a problem with DVD recorders in general, or with Philips machines
...

Heard of several people having problems with Philips earlier machines such
as my DVDR70. Mine does not get a lot of use but seems to be OK.

My brother has 2 both with problems. They tell him the disc is faulty. He
as talked to Philips who sent him a disc to run, one machine is now OK but
the other still does the fault. He awaits Philips next move.

Maybe you should contact Philips, I believe hard to get them to answer the
phone, and they stopped e-mail contact at some piont in time. Suggests to
me they get a lot of people wanting help and/or they do not care.

--
Regards,
David

Please reply to News Group

In article , David
wrote:

"Stephen" wrote in message
...

Is it a problem with DVD recorders in general, or with Philips
machines ...

Heard of several people having problems with Philips earlier machines
such as my DVDR70. Mine does not get a lot of use but seems to be OK.

I have a DVDR70. Most of the time it works well, but every now and then it
decides to fall over. This may mean that a disc gets trashed and become
unreadable.

Occasionally a disc will have a 'fault' but play. e.g. a recent recording I
made of a prom where any attempt to go to chapter '6' on the title will
cause the machine to freeze and then shut down. If you just allow the
machine to play the disc, it plays through this section with no obvious
problems, so I assume it fouled up writing the relevant chapter location
data when the recording ended. With such discs it can be what Holmes called
a "capital error" to try to record anything else, or finalise the disc. The
result may be unplayable as it crashes or ruins the writing of the final
table of contents.

My brother has 2 both with problems. They tell him the disc is faulty.
He as talked to Philips who sent him a disc to run, one machine is now
OK but the other still does the fault. He awaits Philips next move.

I did a similar firmware update, and it reduced the frequency of problems,
but they still occur on occasion. Not clear if it might sometime be an
imperfection of the disc itself.

Maybe you should contact Philips, I believe hard to get them to answer
the phone, and they stopped e-mail contact at some piont in time.

In my case I ended up phoning then four times, over a period of more than
two months. Long wait on the phone each time, promise to send an update
disc that didn't arrive. Then three update discs arrived in the same post.
:-

Slainte,

Jim

--
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Audio Misc http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/AudioMisc/index.html
Armstrong Audio http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/Audio/armstrong.html
Barbirolli Soc. http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/JBSoc/JBSoc.html

Stephen wrote:
Can anyone suggest another make and model of DVD recorder which won't
do this sort of thing, and preferably one that starts recording
without delay?

I can't comment on DVD recorders that will satisfy your requirements, but if
you are using Freeview (you don't actually say), I would suggest that you
look at twin tuner hard drive recorders instead. These are a far more
satisfactory solution for normal timeshifting, and since you already own a
DVD recorder, you have the means to archive anything you wish to keep (and
you can make sure you have a completed disc that works before deleting the
originals!).

Since PVRs/DVRs typically buffer the live output on both tuners, you will
also avoid the delay problem you complained about. You can even decide to
start recording half-way through a programme, and the recording will start
from the beginning, provided that it is still in the buffer. You can record
two channels simultaneously, whilst playing back a previous recording.
Obviously you can also pause and rewind live TV as well.

"Stephen" wrote in message
...
I had nearly 6 hours of recordings on a DVD and then decided to use the
last 20 minutes of free space for something else. Out of the blue my screen
went blank in the middle of the recording, then the recorder said "timer"
because it had switched itself off. When I switched it back on again it
said the disc was blank.

I knew the Philips DVDR3305 could fail to write the table of contents at
the
end of a recording, but previously this has only effected the most recent
recording on a disc. I didn't know it could trash the entire table of
contents for the whole disc, (this one had several recodings on it), just
by me trying to make another recording on a partially used disc.

Are other DVD recorders like this?

Is it a problem with DVD recorders in general, or with Philips machines in
particular, or is mine faulty?

No its normal.
My Sony has done the same thing so it appears likely there is nothing wrong
with your machine.


It is extremely annoying. If all DVD recording is like this I can't see
any
future in home video recording at all (now that they have stopped selling
VHS). Whatever you thought about the picture quality of VHS at least you
could rely on it. I just can't rely on this DVD recorder for anything. I
never know if any recording I make is going to be playable, and now I
daren't even fill up a disc for fear of the machine instantly deleting
eveything that was already on it!

It just can't be relied on.
As you probably know, the likely hood of failure is proportinal to the
importance of the recording.


Even when the DVD recorder does work it's a real pain. Say I've just
remembered that I'm missing a programme I wanted to record. I have to wait
30 seconds while the recorder says, "loading", then press "record source"
then toggle it slowly through all four other input options to get back to
the scart input (because it always resets itself to the analogue tuner),
then right click and select "record new title", then wait for it to
respond
then finally it will let me press Record without putting a "not allowed"
symbol on the screen. By the time I've done all this I've missed over 1
minute of the programme which I would have got on VHS.

Not only that...but...
... if you deicde to stop the recording because you thought the programme was
over- but it turns out there were a few unexpected minutes more, then by the
time its written the file to disk and ready to record again those bits you
didn't expect will be long gone.

Pyriform has suggested the solution. Spend hundreds of pounds buying a hard
drive recorder - the thing we should have bought in the first place had we
known what they take care not to tell you.

With VHS it's instant start and no arguments, and it stays on the last
input
selected. The way my DVD recorder operates is just insane compared with a
VHS. Why so many obstacles and so much delay before you can start a
recording? And of course with VHS you know that even if the machine
exploded
in the middle of a recording, you'd still have what was recorded up to the
point when the failure occured. Not so with my DVD. Any hiccup and it
trashes everything, the current recording and everything else that was on
the disc. It's enough to make you despair.


And, again, not only that...
The unfinalised disk can only be replayed on the same recording machine.
(I don't think it can be played on a machine of another brand)
So if I have captured a clip and want to send stills from it to my friend
then I can't just take out the disk in the lounge and take it to the
computer room and capture the stills and send them off - in no time at
all like I could with tape. Now I have to finalise the disk before it can
be played on the DVD player in the computer room. If its a new disk with
only a few minutes recorded then the choice must be made whether to 'waste'
the remaining space on the disk or not to bother. That problem never arose
with tape, and I'm not sure having a hard drive recorder would help either.

Putting these negative factors together (and a few others I can't instantly
recall) and weighing against the advantage of a more compact medium and
chapter list, DVD looks like a retrograde step, and an expensive one at
that. Of course there is no real choice but to go with DVD as tape is now
obsolete and we have to move forward - thats why the BBC have thrown all
their Betacam SP stuff in the bin.

Roger

"Stephen" wrote in message
...
I had nearly 6 hours of recordings on a DVD and then decided to use the
last
20 minutes of free space for something else. Out of the blue my screen
went
blank in the middle of the recording, then the recorder said "timer"
because
it had switched itself off. When I switched it back on again it said the
disc was blank.

I knew the Philips DVDR3305 could fail to write the table of contents at
the
end of a recording, but previously this has only effected the most recent
recording on a disc. I didn't know it could trash the entire table of
contents for the whole disc, (this one had several recodings on it), just
by
me trying to make another recording on a partially used disc.

Are other DVD recorders like this?

The fact that it's a Philips says it all.

"Stephen" wrote in message
...
I had nearly 6 hours of recordings on a DVD and then decided to use the
last
20 minutes of free space for something else. Out of the blue my screen
went
blank in the middle of the recording, then the recorder said "timer"
because
it had switched itself off. When I switched it back on again it said the
disc was blank.

[snipped]

Is it a problem with DVD recorders in general, or with Philips machines in
particular, or is mine faulty?

It is extremely annoying. If all DVD recording is like this I can't see
any
future in home video recording at all (now that they have stopped selling
VHS). Whatever you thought about the picture quality of VHS at least you
could rely on it. I just can't rely on this DVD recorder for anything. I
never know if any recording I make is going to be playable, and now I
daren't even fill up a disc for fear of the machine instantly deleting
eveything that was already on it!

[snipped]

With VHS it's instant start and no arguments, and it stays on the last
input
selected. The way my DVD recorder operates is just insane compared with a
VHS. Why so many obstacles and so much delay before you can start a
recording? And of course with VHS you know that even if the machine
exploded
in the middle of a recording, you'd still have what was recorded up to the
point when the failure occured. Not so with my DVD. Any hiccup and it
trashes everything, the current recording and everything else that was on
the disc. It's enough to make you despair.

Can anyone suggest another make and model of DVD recorder which won't do
this sort of thing, and preferably one that starts recording without
delay?


I've had 4 models of DVD recorder from Philips, going right back to their
first offering (think it was the DVDR1000? Built like a tank. Cost around a
grand. Oy!) and I've had trouble with every single one of them. The most
common problem being drive-related errors ("disk error" so recordings lost,
"disk empty" when it wasn't (as confirmed on another DVD player), "no disk"
when I could plainly see one was loaded, and so on and on...)

I said 4 models, but actually if you take into account service swaps that
comes to around 7 different units. Average repair time, when returned to
local Comet service centre, has been around 5 weeks. Mostly they were sent
to Belgium for repair. And most were returned with no indication of what (if
any) repairs had been done. Some units went back 2 or 3 times. In short, a
bad experience.

I came to the conclusion that Philips design and/or manufacturing is shoddy,
and I'd not buy anything of theirs ever again. (Why did I persist for so
long, you ask? Ah, there's a story...)

By the way, all the units (up to my current DVDR75, itself a service
replacement for an unfixable earlier model) had instant record, once the
disk had spun up to speed. Seems like they've taken a backward step and
introduced a "wizard" interface, from what you say. Yuk.

If you do find a reliable DVD recorder, please let me know...I'm in the
market! Cheers.

Pat

"PerkyPat" wrote in message
...


I came to the conclusion that Philips design and/or manufacturing is
shoddy, and I'd not buy anything of theirs ever again. (Why did I persist
for so long, you ask? Ah, there's a story...)



You conclude along my lines.
Would love the story.

--
Regards,
David

Please reply to News Group

Roger R wrote:
Pyriform has suggested the solution. Spend hundreds of pounds buying
a hard drive recorder - the thing we should have bought in the first
place had we known what they take care not to tell you.

Hundreds of pounds? I paid £150 for my first PVR, and couldn't resist buying
a second identical model when the price had fallen to £100. By contrast, I
paid about £550 for my first Nicam-capable VHS deck in 1990 (IIRC). That
would be around £840 at today's prices. I know which technology I prefer.

Stephen wrote:
I had nearly 6 hours of recordings on a DVD and then decided to use the last
20 minutes of free space for something else. Out of the blue my screen went
blank in the middle of the recording, then the recorder said "timer" because
it had switched itself off. When I switched it back on again it said the
disc was blank.

If the recordings are important, don't bin the disk. I'm not sure which
quantifier is correct, but many/most dvd rom drives & writers will be
able to access the previous sessions. I'm also not sure what software
you need, I'm afraid. Something like
http://www.diskinternals.com/cd-dvd-recovery/ perhaps, or if you don't
need access to the partial file from the last session, you might find
something simpler.

--
Michael
m r o z a t u k g a t e w a y d o t n e t