Review on Philips DVDR3576H Recorder 160GB Built by Andrew Davenport

I bought this after I got a completely overhauled Philips DVR3575H whose drive no longer responded. Philips said they would send me another device. A day or two later I got a call that they didn't stock any of these units and offered to buy back my faulty unit. So I bought another HDD DVR. I found the DVR3576H at Revain as a brand new unit. It was about $170 more than a refurbished DVR3575H, but I still wanted a DVR with a hard drive and an HD tuner. I really like this device. It has its pros and cons. But I really like the device. Picture quality is excellent, even in pause and fast-forward modes. Programming is as easy as with a video recorder. I used to pause Live once to pause the program I was watching so the dogs could go out and come back. When I came back and continued playing, I didn't miss a single piece of the program. In fact, by fast-forwarding the ad, I actually caught the live stream backup and stopped recording. The forward and backward buttons are great for quickly skipping commercials. It bounces back and forth for a configurable time. The DTV tuner is excellent. It gets more channels than my DTV Pal and the volume is the same as analogue broadcasts. It has no channel guide other than the currently tuned channel. It was a little disappointing. When switching on and when inserting a DVD, the device slows down a bit. But once it gets into the DVD menu, it becomes very easy to navigate the DVD. I've added chapter markers to some recorded TV shows to make it easier to skip commercials. I put the chapter marker and end of scene before the ad and at the end of the last ad. Then during playback, when the commercial starts, I just hit the Next Chapter button to continue the program. It's a little tedious to set chapter markers, but once you've made a few it becomes easier. The price was about average. However, most of the devices I compared against did not have a hard drive. For those with a hard drive this was on the low end, but there wasn't much to choose from. Tivo has the most options, but then you have to pay a monthly fee. Every dish network and cable company offers a hard drive DVR with a subscription, but there aren't many devices available in the broadcast market with this capability. All in all I would recommend this unit to anyone looking for a DVR with /HDD.