Philips DVDR3576H DVD Recorder with 160GB Hard Disc and Built-In Tuner

I am one of the few who still is recording TV programs but not on cable, satellite or other. Just good old fashioned free TV over the airwaves. Since all broadcasts will be digital in Feb of 09, I needed a new Digital video recorder with a digital tuner built in. I also wanted to be able to record, TIVO style, hours of programs without having to worry about a DVD filling up after 8 hours. This is the only recorder that I found that did not require a monthly or annual fee for a service for programming the recorder such as Tivo or Dishnet. After I figured out how to hook it up, not too difficult, i found that it works well. It plays DVDs and it records programs in digital format to a harddrive. It does not record in hi def, but i knew that going in and am quite satisfied with the recording quality. You can transfer programs from the hard drive to DVD if you want and do some editing. I have only had mine for a month, so I havent worked with all the features, but for recording programs and playing them back at my convenience, it works better than the previous DVR recorder i owned. When you want to find the recorded program, you can choose from a list by dated recorded or you can actually watch a small video of the recorded program as an icon and I can actually Identify my programs on sight. I bought it refurbished which has a 30 day warranty, but i gambled to save about $100.00. I may find out that was a poor choice when it has to be repaired but most electronics are only warranted for a year and I like my chances for it to go at least a year since it is refurbished.It is the same size as my previous DVR and it looks brand new. In fact I see no tell tale signs that it is refurbished.

After doing considerable research on DVRs that didn't require a subscription, I decided to give this unit a try. It arrived in a timely fashion in good condition. Out of the box and set up was simple and straight forward. The large picture insert made it easy enough to follow the setup procedure. I tried recording off TV in the first hour. It worked like a charm, very quiet as others have mentioned and the timer setup was similar to any VCR (of the good ol days) to select the date, time, channel and recording speed. Everything worked as advertised. It is easy to delete unwanted programs also. I haven't tried the editing or repeated recording aspects of the device, but it looks pretty straight forward. If you have ever used a DVR from other cable companies, this works similarly. I haven't had the problems that other reviewers have mentioned, nor have I had a need to contact the service department. I will agree with other comments about the size of the remote buttons, it is easy to press the wrong button. If this was illuminated, it would be a plus as well. All things considered, this seems to be a good investment (especially that it doesn't carry a subscription with it) and it seems to be appropriately priced under $300.

I bought this after getting a remanufactures Philips DVR3575H whose disk drive would not respond. Philips indicated that they would send me another unit. A day or two later I received a call that they did not have any of those units in stock and offer to buy back my faulty unit. So, I again went shopping for a DVR w/ HDD. I found the DVR3576H on Amazon as a new unit. It was about $170 more than the remanufactured DVR3575H, but I still wanted a DVR w/HDD and HD tuner.I really like this unit. It has it's pros and cons. But, I think the unit is very good. The picture quality is excellent, even when in pause mode and fast forward. The programming is easy to setup, much like a VCR. I have used to pause live TV once to pause a program I was watching to let the dogs out and back in. When I got back and continued the play back I did not miss a single bit of the program. In fact by fast-forwarding through the commercials, I actually caught backup to the live feed and stopped the recording. The forward and backward skip button is great to quickly skipping the commercials. It jumps forward and backwards a configurable amount of time. The DTV tuner is superb. It picks up more channels than my DTV-Pal and it's audio volume is the same as the analog broadcast. It does not have a channel guide, other than what is on the currently tuned channel. That was a bit disapointing. The unit is a bit slow when powering up and when inserting a DVD. But, once it gets to the DVD menus, it as very easy to navigate the DVD. I have set chapter marks on a couple of recorded TV shows to make it easier to skip the commercials. I set a chapter mark and the end of the scene before to commercial and at the end of the last commercial. Then during playback when a commercial starts I simply press the next chapter button to continue the program. It is a bit teadious to set the chapter marks, but once you have done a few it becomes easier.The price was about mid-range. However, most of the units I compared it to did not have an HDD. For those with an HDD it was on the low end, but there aren't very many to chose from. Tivo has the most choses, but then you have to pay a monthly charge. Every Dish Network and Cable company offers DVR w/HDD when you subscribe, but there are not very many units available with this feature on the over-the-air market.All things considered I would recommend this unit to anyone looking for a DVR w/HDD.