Philips Rr 498 Stereo Radio Recorder

[Janne Desir]

Captureyour recordings in stereo MP3 or PCM format. The popular MP3 file format allows you to play back your files virtually anywhere and simply share them with others. The PCM (WAV) format allows stereo recording of lossless, uncompressed sound in CD-like audio quality.

The high-capacity Li-polymer battery can be easily charged through a standard micro USB jack. This guarantees extended battery life for extra-long recording up to 50 hours, ensuring that your recorder will always be ready to work when you are.

Enjoy your favourite FM radio programmes whenever you like, as often as you like. Simply activate the record function when you hear your favourite radio programmes and the VoiceTracer records the radio signal in MP3 format.

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The company was founded in 1891 by Gerard Philips and his father Frederik, with their first products being light bulbs. Philips employs around 80,000 people across 100 countries.[2] The company gained its royal honorary title (hence the Koninklijke) in 1998 and dropped the "Electronics" in its name in 2013,[3] due to its refocusing on healthcare technology.

Philips is organized into three main divisions: Personal Health (formerly Philips Consumer Electronics and Philips Domestic Appliances and Personal Care), Connected Care, and Diagnosis & Treatment (formerly Philips Medical Systems).[4] The lighting division was spun off as a separate company, Signify N.V.

The company started making electric shavers in 1939 under the Philishave and Norelco brands, and post-war it developed the Compact Cassette, an audiotape format, and co-developed the compact disc format with Sony, as well as numerous other technologies. As of 2012,[update] Philips was the largest manufacturer of lighting in the world as measured by revenue.

Philips has a primary listing on the Euronext Amsterdam stock exchange and is a component of the Euro Stoxx 50 stock market index.[5] It has a secondary listing on the New York Stock Exchange. Acquisitions included Signetics and Magnavox. It also founded a multidisciplinary sports club called PSV Eindhoven in 1913.

The Philips Company was founded in 1891, by Dutch entrepreneur Gerard Philips and his father Frederik Philips. Frederik, a banker based in Zaltbommel, financed the purchase and setup of an empty factory building in Eindhoven, where the company started the production of carbon-filament lamps and other electro-technical products in 1892. This first factory has since been adapted and is used as a museum.[6]

In 1895, after a difficult first few years and near-bankruptcy, the Philips's brought in Anton, Gerard's younger brother by sixteen years. Though he had earned a degree in engineering, Anton started work as a sales representative; soon, however, he began to contribute many important business ideas. With Anton's arrival, the family business began to expand rapidly, resulting in the founding of Philips Metaalgloeilampfabriek N.V. (Philips Metal Filament Lamp Factory Ltd.) in Eindhoven in 1908, followed in 1912, by the foundation of Philips Gloeilampenfabrieken N.V. (Philips Lightbulb Factories Ltd.). After Gerard and Anton Philips changed their family business by founding the Philips corporation, they laid the foundations for the later multinational.

On 11 March 1927, Philips went on the air, inaugurating the shortwave radio station PCJJ (later PCJ) which was joined in 1929 by a sister station (Philips Omroep Holland-Indi, later PHI). PHOHI broadcast in Dutch to the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia), and later PHI broadcast in English and other languages to the Eastern hemisphere, while PCJJ broadcast in English, Spanish and German to the rest of the world.[citation needed]

The international program Sundays commenced in 1928, with host Eddie Startz hosting the Happy Station show, which became the world's longest-running shortwave program. Broadcasts from the Netherlands were interrupted by the German invasion in May 1940. The Germans commandeered the transmitters in Huizen to use for pro-Nazi broadcasts, some originating from Germany, others concerts from Dutch broadcasters under German control.

Philips Radio was absorbed shortly after liberation when its two shortwave stations were nationalised in 1947 and renamed Radio Netherlands Worldwide, the Dutch International Service. Some PCJ programs, such as Happy Station, continued on the new station.

Encouraged by their first experimental engine, which produced 16 W of shaft power from a bore and stroke of 30 mm 25 mm,[10] various development models were produced in a program which continued throughout World War II. By the late 1940s, the 'Type 10' was ready to be handed over to Philips' subsidiary Johan de Witt in Dordrecht to be produced and incorporated into a generator set as originally planned. The result, rated at 180/200 W electrical output from a bore and stroke of 55 mm 27 mm, was designated MP1002CA (known as the "Bungalow set"). Production of an initial batch of 250 began in 1951, but it became clear that they could not be made at a competitive price, besides the advent of transistor radios with their much lower power requirements meant that the original rationale for the set was disappearing. Approximately 150 of these sets were eventually produced.[11]

In parallel with the generator set, Philips developed experimental Stirling engines for a wide variety of applications and continued to work in the field until the late 1970s, though the only commercial success was the 'reversed Stirling engine' cryocooler. However, they filed a large number of patents and amassed a wealth of information, which they later licensed to other companies.[12]

On 9 May 1940, the Philips directors learned that the German invasion of the Netherlands was to take place the following day. Having prepared for this, Anton Philips and his son-in-law Frans Otten, as well as other Philips family members, fled to the United States, taking a large amount of the company capital with them. Operating from the US as the North American Philips Company, they managed to run the company throughout the war. At the same time, the company was moved (on paper) to the Netherlands Antilles to keep it out of German hands.[13]

On 6 December 1942, the British No. 2 Group RAF undertook Operation Oyster, which heavily damaged the Philips Radio factory in Eindhoven with few casualties among the Dutch workers and civilians.[14] The Philips works in Eindhoven was bombed again by the RAF on 30 March 1943.[15][16]

Frits Philips, the son of Anton, was the only Philips family member to stay in the Netherlands. He saved the lives of 382 Jews by convincing the Nazis that they were indispensable for the production process at Philips.[17] In 1943, he was held at the internment camp for political prisoners at Vught for several months because a strike at his factory reduced production. For his actions in saving the hundreds of Jews, he was recognized by Yad Vashem in 1995 as a "Righteous Among the Nations".[18]

In 1954, Cor Dillen (of the very well known and prestigious Dillen family) (director and later CFO and also CEO) put Philips on the map in South America introducing them to Color television for the first time [21] in most countries of the Americas like Brazil, although Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay continued to broadcast in black and white until the early 1980s when Dillen was named the company's CEO.

Philips introduced the Compact Cassette audio tape format in 1963, and it was wildly successful. Cassettes were initially used for dictation machines for office typing stenographers and professional journalists. As their sound quality improved, cassettes would also be used to record sound and became the second mass media alongside vinyl records used to sell recorded music.

Philips introduced the first combination portable radio and cassette recorder, which was marketed as the "radio recorder", and is now better known as the boom box. Later, the cassette was used in telephone answering machines, including a special form of cassette where the tape was wound on an endless loop. The C-cassette was used as the first mass storage device for early personal computers in the 1970s and 1980s. Philips reduced the cassette size for professional needs with the Mini-Cassette, although it would not be as successful as the Olympus Microcassette. This became the predominant dictation medium up to the advent of fully digital dictation machines.[citation needed] Philips continued with computers through the early 1990s (see separate article: Philips Computers).

In 1972, Philips launched the world's first home video cassette recorder, in the UK, the N1500. Its relatively bulky video cassettes could record 30 minutes or 45 minutes. Later one-hour tapes were also offered. As the competition came from Sony's Betamax and the VHS group of manufacturers, Philips introduced the N1700 system which allowed double-length recording. For the first time, a 2-hour movie could fit onto one video cassette. In 1977, the company unveiled a special promotional film for this system in the UK, featuring comedy writer and presenter Denis Norden.[22] The concept was quickly copied by the Japanese makers, whose tapes were significantly cheaper. Philips made one last attempt at a new standard for video recorders with the Video 2000 system, with tapes that could be used on both sides and had 8 hours of total recording time. As Philips only sold its systems on the PAL standard and in Europe, and the Japanese makers sold globally, the scale advantages of the Japanese proved insurmountable and Philips withdrew the V2000 system and joined the VHS Coalition.[23]

Philips had developed a LaserDisc early on for selling movies, but delayed its commercial launch for fear of cannibalizing its video recorder sales. Later Philips joined with MCA to launch the first commercial LaserDisc standard and players. In 1982, Philips teamed with Sony to launch the compact disc; this format evolved into the CD-R, CD-RW, DVD and later Blu-ray, which Philips launched with Sony in 1997[24] and 2006 respectively.

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