Nice but, tuner is unacceptable...

I recently decided to check this unit out after some bad experiences with other ATSC DVD recorders and to see what else is out there.

Unfortunately, I did return this unit right away after noticing that the tuner had trouble picking up several stations in my area. This is unacceptable, because I have a good size aerial for my area and a 20db amplifier to boot. My other ATSC turners in my house are working just fine. Therefore, this tuner clearly needs some work.

The picture quality is pretty good. I would rate this at #3, #2 is the Philips with ATSC and #1 for the Samsung DVD-AR650. The image quality was pretty good, but I did notice that the images seemed to be framy. For example, instead of 24 frames/sec, I was seeing 19 frames/sec. It sometimes seemed like the images were jumpy from one to another.

The audio and video were synchronized and was not an issue like the Samsung DVD-AR650. See report...

The audio sounded pretty good.

The Graph User Interface (GUI) worked well, but the timer function seemed to take a long time to set to the correct time. I found it annoying because if you are at 29 minutes and need to go to 00 you have to press the button that many times. If you held the button down, it was not any faster. That stinks. Workaround - Set the timer around the top of the hour.

I was surprised that there was not a S-video input considering that it would be better than the composite (yellow plug). Oh well, slackers.

I don't like the funky front panel. I found it ugly. I did like the front buttons that seem to be heat sensitive. At first it looks like there are no external buttons, but once to touch it they light up and you can open the drawer, stop etc..... Cool.

Remote looks good and did not see any issues there.