Philips DVDR3455H/37B (160 GB) DVD Recorder

This DVD recorder's design should be standard for all other recorders. The HDD drive is a very elemental idea but it's extremely useful. You record from the TV signal, analog or digital video, and your clips are stacked on the HDD, where you can do some limited editing (create or delete chapter marks, split titles, etc.) and then select several for accelerated DVD burning.

Picture and sound quality are average good, somewhat fuzzier than other equipment I tested.

You can record video directly to DVD-R or DVD-RW, but this negates many of the benefits of the HDD system. I had another Philips recorder, without HDD, and the recording and editing on disc was very troublesome and problematic.

A very interesting feature is the "live TV" option. In simple words, the recorder is always recording the TV signal on a special area of the HDD, and while you're watching TV, you can go backward in time and view the past content in real time. So you can go as many as 6 hours of previous TV signal, and even start recording from any past point, and the HDD catches on automatically. You can even left the thing recording from one source while viewing the HDD clips or even DVD movies. And no, you can't record from DVD to HDD.

On the DVD side, the remote control and options are far better than previous Philips machines. Now you have dedicated fast forward and reverse buttons, instead of using the cursor keys. The controller layout is way improved.

You even get a USB port for direct playing of MP3 and photos. The photo viewing is slow but at least is present.

There are also several quality levels for recording, measured on how much time you can fit on a 4.7 gb DVD-R. The best level is 1 hour on DVD-R, to the last, 8 hours (but of questionable quality). If your HDD clip doesn't fit on a disc, you can split it on two clips and burn them on separate discs.

The burning operation runs in the background, so you can use the unit as normal until the process is complete.

The major flaws I found on this recorder are:

* No support for recording on double-layer media.
* No folders on the HDD, all your material is stacked in one list. When you have hundreds of clips, it gets impractical.
* The USB feature can only read MP3s and JPGs, no video of any kind is supported for playback from pendrives.
* When you zoom in DVDs, the picture gets a strange ghostly effect, this flaw is also present on all Philips machines. It's very noticeable on characters with green and blue eyes.
* HDD es 160 gb, though not user-replaceable.
* No support for media copying to HDD, so is impractical for archiving video from PC or other source.

The machine has an slim design, has autovolt feature and feature several sets of analog and digital video inputs, antena in and out connectors.

Bottom line: An excellent product, minor flaws, somewhat expensive but worth it. ALL TV-DVD recorders should implement an HDD, is a rather simple but powerful idea.