April 12, 2005 update. It is still working well and I have had success when trying to play its disks on other players, but I have only tried three other players. Nevertheless it operated on all of them. The somewhat awkward controls,particularly for setting future recordings and changing your mind after setting it once, are a handicap, but a tolerable one. I have experienced some trouble in setting repeated recordings, but usually found careful attention to the manual's instructions helpful in overcoming these (not, however, always). It is not particularly user friendly. The picture quality ranges from very good on the highest settings to quite acceptable on the slowest of its four speeds. I am still satisfied on balance.
This first paragraph is, properly, a part of the update. Over the several days of trying and testing this unit, I have learned quite a bit about it and have materially changed my initial impression. However, I am leaving this review in chronological order of my experiences with this recorder. I think this might be useful to anyone who has, or is planning to buy this product. My own, progressive, experiences might provide a template to shorten the process of coming to grips with this recorder. In addition, it will stand, for me at least, as a lesson in not forming hasty opinions.
It came nicely packaged. It is slim (2.1"), 17" wide, and 13" deep. It weighs a hefty 15 lbs. These dimensions fit into my entertainment center, displacing its predecessor, a DVD player, quite well, with height to spare. It came with a 39 button remote, complete with a pair of cheap, carbon AA cells. This remote promises to control all the functions of the DVD player (plus various other disks) and, also, the recorder functions. It is not a "universal" remote, however, and thus does not replace other controls. The box also contains a three foot, triple, RCA connector, an approximately two foot co-axial cable, and a manual, comprising 32 pages in both French and English instructions. The remote is a standard infrared emitter that controls the power, the single disc (sic) tray, channels on the recorder (for its built in tuner), full control for playing DVD's in regular, slow, or fast motion, in regular or zoom modes, with linear or random chapter access (when it says random, by the way, it means random, not direct), program mode, title, sub-title, setup, A-B input, multi-angle (if available) edit, and various audio choices. This collection of features would be impressive, if only all of them actually worked. (More later.) What the box did not contain, however, was a single recordable DVD. Even given corporate penury, I find this omission inexcusable. What would it really cost them to include one disk (or, as they seem to prefer, disc)? Could it be beyond sixty cents? I doubt it, and I would certainly be willing to shell out a few more cents to have a sample disc that they recommend and that works. Trust me, this last would save a lot of problems as the disks it will accept are limited in type.
PROMISED FEATURES
Playback of DVD, CD audio, MP3's, CD video, and CD super video discs
Progressive scan recording of DVD + R, DVD + RW discs
Four recording speeds, HQ (90"), SP (standard, 120"), LP (180"), & EP (240"). All recording times with reference to the standard 4.7 Gigabyte disks.
Digital audio output
The front panel contains the disc tray, plus both video in receptacles as well as the left – right audio inputs, the infra-red sensor for the control and button controls for power, record mode, channel up or down buttons, ply and pause controls as well as a VFD display.
The back panel contains RF, S – video, and cable video outputs as well as all audio and video inputs.
These duplicated controls, inputs and outputs are very handy features.
The recorder promises 'progressive scan' (480 lines of resolution), a 50 Db. Signal to noise ratio (not overly impressive), an audio response for both CD's and DVD's from 20 to 20,000, Hz. At + or – 3 dB., an audio signal to noise ratio of 79 dB and a dynamic range of 80 dB for both DVD and CD playback. It sports both CVBS and S – video outputs as well as left and right channel or coaxial audio outputs. Although I didn't actually measure all of the claimed specs (I might have, but for the problems explained below) the video and audio output claims looked and sounded reasonably accurate. Its claimed power consumption (also unmeasured) is a modest 15 Watts, maximum, nothing to worry your fuses or power bills. It operates on standard 120 V, 60 Hz house current (U.S.). So far, so good. Oh yeah, fortunately, it carries a 90 day parts and labor factory warranty; don't leave the store without it.
Plugged it in; plugged it up (good old southern vernacular). The 'setup' screens followed the instructions in the manual well and the process was reasonably simple. Then, however, I put in a pre-recorded DVD and cranked it up (good old anywhere in the U.S. vernacular). The sound was good. It should be, I play it through an audio system. The picture had a slight color fringe, primarily with the "pass through" cable signal, much less so with the DVD, but performance was adequate. One immediate problem was that after two successful attempts (out of the first five tries) to turn from DVD to cable input, it refused to relinquish the DVD picture unless it was first turned off entirely. This could be a somewhat annoying feature, particularly considering its implications for quality control (or is it just plain quality).
There was a rather more upsetting problem, however. After five days of trying two different brands of recordable DVD's and probably 10 or 12 brand new disks from these DVD's, I was unable to convince the "recorder" to record anything. Even more disconcerting, the unit would not usually recognize the presence of a disk, most of the time. That is, most of the time it would not enter record mode. Twice in forty or fifty tries, it entered the mode long enough to tell me to put a disc (sic) in the tray. As it did that once with each brand of disk that I had, I don't think that this was the controlling factor. If this had happened consistently, I would have had a better opinion of the process. The manual was relatively clear regarding the procedure to follow, that is, If, "put in record mode" meant to push the record mode button. The circumstances and procedures that preceded the instruction to enter record mode were clear. The VFD screen read what it was supposed to read, but pushing the 'record mode' button on either the front of the unit or on the remote had as much effect as talking to it (which I also tried). Or, maybe, it was yelling at it; I don't remember. Finicky, choosy, exclusive, I can live with. I could even (almost) get over the waste of the 125 disks that I own if I found a type of disk that worked consistently. At this point, it should be emphasized that the unit only promises to work with the R + or RW + types of discs (sic), a limiting factor in itself. One type of the disks that I tried were old (but unused) disks that did not code anywhere on the packaging for + or - DVD's. It is likely that these have the R - characteristics and that new R + disks might work. I must, also, confess that all of my disks, while still in their original, pristine packages, were over two years old. However, this does not explain, readily, the erratic (and rare) willingness to enter record mode. I intend to test further, with other brands and types of disk and report back, through an update, immediately after doing so. Keep watching this space, gentle reader.
I genuinely feel that it is unfair to condemn an entire brand based on experience with only one machine, anyway. Some of them must work. The real questions, I guess, are the percentage that work out of the package, and the length of time they continue to work. I will attempt to have the obliging sales personnel at Circuit City (where this unit was bought) demonstrate a working one. I shall also report the results of this back in an update. Then, I'm going to go out, probably return this unit, and get the Panasonic I should have bought in the first place, (regardless of the results of the additional trials).
Critical update
After consulting further with the sales personnel at Circuit City, I have been able to find a disk that it recognizes. This is a Memorex RW + disk that the saleslady said they had good luck using in this unit. Indeed, it recognized this disk and allowed entry into record mode. The placement of this blank disk even increased its willingness to switch back and forth into the TV or monitor mode. However, I am planning to spend the next several hours providing a fair test with the new disk. I have, also, acquired others that I shall try. Given the most optimistic results, however, some problems remain (and I hate to waste 125 unused disks). I shall complete this update later tonight, but for now, I have at least found some better functioning, softening my hard heart against this product. I would like to note again, though, that inclusion of a single disk with the unit, would have saved a lot of time and trouble, not to mention hasty conclusions.
The several hours have now passed. I have been able to record programs successfully. The four speeds for recording provide four clearly different qualities of picture, but standard mode was adequate for most purposes, and even the slowest mode (EP) produced watchable results. The picture on the fastest recording speed (HQ) was good.
I have also now discovered that among the new generation of DVD recorders, only those that are considerably more expensive will use virtually any DVD disk. The Panasonic that I am tempted to buy only uses the DVD - disks (which I have in abundance) but it will not use the re-recordable version of this disk. To be fair, it does have a re-recordable function, but this uses only RAM disks that will typically not play on other playback units, limiting it to the Panasonic player and your computer. I cannot help but believe that this is an unnecessary limitation deliberately imposed for commercial purposes. On that note, all new machines have a feature that allows playback of only the appropriate 'regional' disk code. This is in response to the cheap pirated disks that are produced and distributed from other countries. Old DVD players (at least those that have survived the last few years) will play most DVD's, but the window is narrow; if you go back far enough, the older models will not play most of the new DVD's distributed in the U.S. (and related) region.
On balance, I have found it necessary to change my overall rating of this unit. Moreover, considering the price, I would now recommend it to a friend. I have reservations (based mostly on some erratic responses) concerning the quality control, but I shall allow time to test that and will update this review (again) when I have more data. Those readers still with me may infer, accurately, that I now plan to keep this recorder at least for a while. If it continues to work adequately, I shall swallow hard and donate my treasured 125 disks to some worthy person who can use them.
More update
Updating this might get to be a hobby, but it really does take a while to gather data. Anyway, here is more:
1)I have now gotten all features to work. They are still a little raggedy in two ways. First, there is some inconsistency in response to the commands, but it isn't as bad as it was at first (when it was affronted by my choice of disks).
2)I have to say that accessing some of the features is a little unnecessarily awkward. The screens and sequences are not brilliantly designed and could be a little more intuitive and 'user friendly.'
3)At the excellent suggestion of our astute leader in this category, I shall list the disks that failed. I must admit to some culpability in this failure, because some of the disks were, if I had looked in the right place, actually marked "DVD -." For the sake of completeness, I shall list it, anyway, although no minus disks work. These were Hypermedia disks (which have been less than brilliant performers on my computer, also). The other brand that didn't work were 'CD technology.' On my apparently false assumption that marketing is the main difference between the expensive (multi-speed, music) disks and the cheapest ones, I bought these off the internet about three years ago. They were the cheapest available at the time. Anyway, I have now tried them, too, in my computer drive, which is supposed to accept all types. They didn't work there, either.
*Lesson learned: If you buy this machine (and I don't think that would be remiss), ask the vendor what type AND BRAND they have found to work in the unit. Actually, this is a very good practice for any of the new generation of DVD recorders.
I shall add even more to this non-stop review when I have data regarding its reliability and durability.
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