Philips knowingly selling faulty equipment

jennyjelly

On Sunday we bought a Philips DVDR3380 recorder. We have a pile of (mostly outdated) audio/video stuff and it took us a while to insert it in the chain with all the connections going to and from the right places, but we got there in the end.

Then we tuned everything in and it all seemed fine, Sky working, pre-recorded DVDs playing ok. We congratulated ourselves and opened the pack of RW disks. But could we get the b****r to record? Could we flip. It just gave an ‘update’ message and whirred for ages. It couldn’t be stopped before it was ready either.

Well we fiddled about for a couple of hours and read the manual but nowhere did it mention this problem. We concluded it was faulty and would have to be returned but having spent so much time setting it up we didn’t want to give up. Finally in desperation we turned to the support website and there it was.

It seems that the machine has been sold unfinished, and the buyer has to download a patch onto 2 disks, stick them in the recorder and follow 2 pages of instructions before it will do its job.

So not only are we doing their work for them, but we are having to struggle to find out what is wrong in the first place.

Faulty equipment should not be for sale in shops – they should have withdrawn these machines and re-issued them when the fault was corrected. Failing this, why can’t they give some sort of clue that this might happen so that we do not have to waste so much time and temper on it.

I don’t think I’ll risk buying Philips again if this is their idea of acceptable.

OK, rant over, I feel better now.

If you have been, thanks for reading!

exec_2

I have had 2 Philips DVD recorders. Both died on me after a short while.

Lots of forums on the net would advise you to steer clear of Philips DVD recorders, I won't ever buy another of theirs.

jennyjelly

I'm keeping my receipt safe just in case!

moonrakerz

I am on my second Philips recorder, the first one lasted 2 weeks. (Good replacement service from Amazon !)
The second one has lasted about 18 months so far, after I updated the firmware. It does throw little "tantrums" now and again which require power to be switched off and on again.

However, I have to say the quality of the recordings on this machine are absolutely first class, far better than any others I have seen. Which is why I have stuck with it.

I must agree with the OP, if Philips were to sort out their machines they would sell like hotcakes, instead of people shunning them because of the firmware problems in them.

TankEngine

If it's a software update, the technically it is not faulty. It's a patch. Happen all the time. Just look at Microsoft!

gyzmo

A product recall is not always practical or reasonable. In a case like this, a patch is usually acceptable if it will make the product work. They could have advertised it a bit better though!

JohalaReewi

i am on my 3rd phiips DVD recorder and like moonrakerz, the recording quality is brilliant. However, they do seem to 'wear out' after a year or two, usually, they stop playing prerecorded DVDs. Something to do with the laser unit according to Philips. Not a problem if you get a free extra year warranty cover on your credit card. Allows you to get it repaired/replaced free.