Best DVD-R for the price

I spent months looking for the perfect DVD-R. I needed
to transfer shows off of my Tivo onto a disc so that I
could view or share them with friends. I also needed
a device that I could simply dump my camcorder footage
to.

I needed something simple but of quality.

Trust me, I spent months looking for a pracitical
video recorder. I poured over reviews only to find
that many of the cheap models out there had all sorts
of problems or were missing much-needed features.

By sheer accident I came across the Samsung DVD-R130.

It seemed to have everything I needed, and the fact
that it was a DVD-R/RW recorder (the most compatable
of the disc formats) made this an attractive buying
option.

The DVD-R130 is an ultra-slim, lightweight player
and recorder. It easily fits itself into the smallest
amount of space that may be available on your audio
and video rack. Its dimensions are 16.9 in(W) x
8.5 in(D) x 1.9 in (H) and weighs a mere 5.5lbs.

The DVD-R130 has RCA, S-VID and Component video
output as well as analog and optical/coaxial digital
audio output. There is no HDMI output.

There are convenient RCA input jacks in the front
of the player -- perfect for hooking a camcorder to.

The player arrives with RCA connecting cables, an
RF cable for the TV and a slim remote with batteries.

The instruction manual is perhaps the most detailed
I have seen which makes the usage of this device simple
enough for novices -- however most of us will never
need to reference the manual as hooking the recorder
up is as easy as hooking up a VCR.

The first thing I did upon hooking up this recorder
was to take a look at how good playback of DVDs look
through this progressive scan player. Overall, the
image quality was quite good on my 57" display and on
par with most standard DVD players I have seen.

The next step was to transfer content off of my Tivo
to the DVD recorder. I was unsure this would work as
I have a High Definition Tivo, but I managed to figure
out how to make it work by essentially changing the
video output on my Tivo to 480i output. The only
restrictions I had was that the DVR required the use
of RCA cables to transfer the video, not letting me
go from S-VID to S-VID. I am assuming this is the
same restriction I would have gotten with any recorder
of this type.

Basically, I put a blank DVD-R in the player, selected
the recording speed and hit RECORD. It's that easy!
A counter on the front of the DVD-R130 display tells
you how many minutes you are presently recording. The
player automatically inserts chapters every 5-10 minutes
letting you easily skip through the disc to view
specific recorded content.

Image quality of recorded material is quite good.
I saw very little evidence of video noise or
compression in the best recording speed. I have
not played around with the slower speeds as of yet,
but I can guess that once you opt to squeeze more
material on the disc at a slower speed there is going
to be an increase in video noise.

What is great about the DVD-R130 is that it is a
very basic DVD recorder for the very simple needs
of recording off of a TV, PVR or camcorder. What
makes this the perfect choice for most is that the
ease-of-use and quality of this recorder is very
good.

Highly recommended!