dvd recorders

When I saw this DVD recorder on sale I was amazed that prices had dropped so fast, but after having it for 30 days I just find myself wishing I had been a little less impulsive. At first it worked quite well, the recording quality on HQ,SP and even EP are quite good. I noticed a number of artifacts during quick screen transitions or fast motion, but compared to VHS recordings the colors are much richer, edges sharper, and one of the nicest surprises is the ability to fast forward at various speeds to jump over commercials. How could I give this up? The cons...

1) disc failures with DVD+RW media can render recordings and whole discs unusable (happens 5% of time)
2) startup time is a painful 30-60 seconds (swapping discs can take over a minute)
3) you can only record 3h 50m on 4h disc, 1h55m on 2h disc, etc. This seems like no big deal until you start recording 1h programs and up to half of each DVD is wasted!
4) menus are slow and difficult to navigate
5) DVD+R/W media only plays in DVDs made in past 1-2 years.
6) discs are not spun down when idle, and recorder gets very hot.
7) interface for mp3 and jpeg playback is horrible.

But judge for yourself; go try one out at the store. It does everything it claims to, but given the above problems, I just can't recommend it. If you are considering buying a DVD-recorder I would wait 6 months for the next generation of recorders to come out in this price range.

It worked well when it did work.

1)Poor video output. Output from the recorder is dark and you lose lots of details in the shadow area.
2)Destroy DVD if you attempt to record more than space that you have left on DVD. Not intelligent enough to stop recording when you run out of space.
3)If you hit the record button and walk away and forget to stop it, it kills the DVD media. See #2.
4)It died on me after 6 months of casual use. Was able to record 15 DVD before it died.

I like this recorder, but it has a tendency to overheat if not positioned in a well ventilated area. In once incident, the unit got so hot that it literally cooked one of my DVD's (a DVD+RW) rendering it useless. After I set a fan near the recorder to keep it cool, it had no problems.

Aside from the overheating problem, I'm actually impressed with this thing. Picture quality is better than I expected and far better than a VHS recorder. I transferred some SVHSC camcorder recordings to DVD as well as some miniDV recordings. I tried to use the firewire port, but either it didn't work or the port on my camera doesn't work (I think it's my cam). The recording quality using the S-video input was spectacular though. HQ and SQ modes were both excellent.

When recording, it automatically creates a chapter every five minutes (this is user modifiable) and whenever you begin a recording, it creates a title set. When playing the DVD, the title sets are listed with a screen capture of the first frame along with the recording date. This makes it easy to navigate to a desired recording. The title sets are automatically named TITLE 01, TITLE 02, etc., and I don't think these titles are user modifiable. That would be a nice feature upgrade.

Overall, for the price, this unit can't be beat. I read a recent article in Yahoo, however, that claims dvd recorder prices are expected to plummet this year. So if you're not in a hurry, I'd suggest waiting. If you're like me and have to be an early adopter, go for it, you won't be disappointed.