Philips: DTR220/05

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Comments (25)

What are your views on this product? Tell other Digital Spy users what the strengths and weaknesses are, and don't forget to include your rating out of five!

Matt, London on December 1st, 2007
Box freezes regularly. Menu display occasionally goes almost transparant of its own accord so no channel/programme details can be seen. This is the 2nd box DTR220/05 I've had with exactly the same problems. Avoid.

Ingo, UK on December 26th, 2007
Get interferences almost every time someone switches on another electrical appliance. Especially when tuned into Channel4 and any of the ITV programs in the UK. Avoid.

Graham M. Drinkell on January 10th, 2008
Locks up, poor/crackling sound, non sensical menu system.

Andy, Reading on January 16th, 2008
Same issue with the OSD for me. All but a couple of symbols disappear from the menus requiring a reboot of the box every few hours. Very annoying common fault with an otherwise very good box.

Joanne, Merseyside on January 16th, 2008
I've had no problem with this box. It's quite easy to use. I didn't even use the manual, just browsed the menu. When the TV engineer installed my aerial he said it was a nice box and I agree. I think it's frozen once or twice in three months but just turning the power off helped. Cost me around £35 and it's been well worth it.

Bob, Manchester on January 17th, 2008
I'm on my second one and it's going back to the shop this weekend, like the first one. It consistently crashes, locks up, get black screens, loses the menu. Checked the ariel and TV with other set top boxes and they work fine. It's a shame as it looks good.

Leicester on January 29th, 2008
Disgraceful freeview box. Had it 7 months and it persistently freezes for no apparent reason when switching channels. Thus i have to unplug and plug back in the box to unfreeze. Recently did a search for software upgrade (in hope they might have something stable), but instead it did my box worse. Now channel Five won't appear properly, every time I switch to it, the picture/sound is fine. But when the bottom banner with channel and schedule info dissapears, the screen goes black?! with sound in the background playing. Also philips haven't replied swiftly to my request on this box - shows poor support.

Ed, Liverpool on February 12th, 2008
Problem with channel 5, sound but no picture. Rang Phillips and they say its fault of TV channel. Strange as we have other Free View boxes and working fine. Maybe ours is a lemon, returning it to Currys.

John, Manchester on February 13th, 2008
Terrible box. Menu desapear. When watching program the screen goes black but can hear the TV behind. Do not buy.

Rob, Merseyside on February 20th, 2008
The loss of the OSD/ information banners is a major fault with this box. Philips should withdraw or fix it. The sound with no picture issue affected CBBC for several months and about 14 days ago migrated to Channel 5. It seems ok now though. It was fixable by switching on EPG and exiting.

Peter, Winchester on February 20th, 2008
The very annoying pop-up banner re "Channel changes have been detected.." keeps re-appearing almost every time I change channel. I have restored factory settings, re-scanned channels, etc etc but cannot get rid of it. Another STB destined for the bin. Are there ANY decent STBs out there?

Chris, West Yorkshire on February 21st, 2008
Channel 5 only shows a picture when a menu is up, as soon as menu goes so does the picture - sound is fine. For those with these problem do a 'reset to factory defaults and rescan' this fixes the problem (not sure for how long though) I also keep getting the stupid message saying new channels found blah blah blah everytime I change channel. Bought this box because I've used plenty 'cheap' supermarket boxes and there aweful, this PHILIPS is just as bad.........and at a extra £15 from the really cheap ones this box is POOR, REALLY POOR!

David, Plymouth on February 23rd, 2008
Constant freezing when changing channels, CH5 with sound and no picture. If you want entertainment on your TV then read the other reviews here and don't buy the Philips DTR220. THIS MACHINE IS UTTER RUBBISH!

Eddy, London on February 23rd, 2008
I too have been faced with the "Channel changes have been detected.." box on my first 220 after about three weeks of perfect viewing, a replacement box produced the same fault immediately after the initial install procedure. Not very happy with the firmware either on this box and therefore cannot recommend it at all. I have reverted to a DTR210/05 which is a very good all rounder.

Bob, Bristol on February 23rd, 2008
Terrible. I've had all the problems others have listed. BBC2 and Ch 5 both suffer from the picture disappearing and only audio. OSD regularly corrupts and forces a reboot. Every now and then the whole unit freezes and it has to be unplugged. Mine is going back to the shop. Surely Philips should withdraw this product from sale by now?

Matt, London on February 28th, 2008
Thought I'd update everyone on my latest experiences with this box since my original post on 1/12/07. The OSD and crashing problems continued, and the box was also plagued by the sound but no picture issue that others have mentioned. But things got worse at the start of February when the automatic message "an update to the channel list was detected..." appeared EVERY TIME the channel was changed. This has made recording from the box when I'm away impossible as the whole TV screen is obscured by this message. So I decided enough was enough and called the store that I bought the box from to say I want a refund. After 2 or 3 calls and some reluctance on their part, they have agreed to refund me my money. Philips should be uterly ashamed of this box.

Robert Lowestoft, Suffolk on March 3rd, 2008
I bought one of these DTR 220/05 on12/02/08 setup was very easy, picture and sound excellent no problems at all. But now when i select channel five the banner at the bottom of the screen comes up followed by the picture then the banner goes off and so does the picture have phoned PHILIPS on the phone number given for support ,unable to speak to technical the person gave me a report number and said that the box had a fault and they are trying to rectify it and that i would get a return call in about three to four weeks. It seems that they have no idea what to do , but i have found a way to get channel five. If you select five on the remote wait for the picture to go then press EPG you will see that five is highlighted now press OK button the banner will go off and the picture will stay on, this is not very satisfactory and if PHILIPS do not get it sorted the box will go back

Mik, Norwich on March 3rd, 2008
Ah. Now I see others are having the same trouble as me! Channel 5's picture goes off after the info screen at the bottom disappears, just leaving the sound. 'Channel changes have been detected' is another frequent hassle. Back to the shop it goes...

Vish, Leicester on March 5th, 2008
Following my previous comment on this box, I got rid of the black screen on channel 5 some how by doing random things on the box...Think I searched for another software upgrade and it sorted it out for me (can't garuntee it will work for others). Emailed philips about the new channels popup message and they replied the automatic update feature cannot be removed. Ridiculous as to how they answered my question, which was how could I stop these messages appearing everyday on my box. I also sent them a link to the disscussion forum. I still think they are a waste of money, I spent £40 on this and I think its worth £25 (next to the cheap ones).

Colin, Coventry on March 6th, 2008
Since yesterday, I have also experienced the problem of the CH5 picture disappearing. Thanks to others for the tip of restoring it by pressing the EPG key and then exiting. This however does not help if one wants to record a CH5 program using a timer. The timer works but then the picture disappears making the recording useless. Before this happened, I thought some of the comments were a bit harsh but now I wonder.

Robert, Lowestoft Sussolk on March 19th, 2008
Further to my comments on the 3rd march I sent a very strong email to philips about their after sales service and told them that as they had caused the problem by FIRMWARE they should fix it why should we buy a perfectly good product for them to reck it I received an email back with a full apology and that I would get a phone call in three days IT NEVER HAPPENED ,But now the box works fine no picture drop out ,no new channel banner the only thing that annoys me is that when you switch on the box you have to wait for it to load then its ok. Will up date this report as things progress its only been working for 17 days so will have to keep my fingers crossed it stays that way

EB, Hertfordshire on March 22nd, 2008
We have the same problems with CBBC. We have tried changing the length of time the info banner comes up for, but ended up reverting to factory settings. It stopped for a while but has just come back.

Mark, London on April 13th, 2008
this box it not worth the plastic it came in having to regularly search for channels every time i turned it on the display goes transparent the box freezes out having to regularly reboot the box then one day it just rolled over and died my advice NEVER EVER buy one!!!!!!!!!

Markus B, Birmingham on April 29th, 2008
Much the same problems as everyone else who has reported issues here. The box is a pile of c... it is forever freezing up, menu displays disappear and the remote control interferes with the Philips TV. Support information on the Philips website is poor and all-in-all I would rate this piece of equipment as rubbish!

Dick, East Sussex on May 9th, 2008
Rubbish piece of kit from a well known quality manufacturer. Surprised that these boxes do not bear any of the usual quality components known from this manufacturer. First box came with a faulty scart socket, returned to supplier. Replacement unit remote fails to work, this has gone back. Will now buy another brand.