Sony RDR-VX560 1080p Tunerless DVD Recorder/VHS Combo Player Review

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(More customer reviews)Finally, a DVD Recorder and VHS combination unit that allows you to view DVD and your old VHS through your HDMI connection. That's right, you read that correctly. One of the biggest drawbacks of earlier upscaling machines from a variety of manufacturers was that you STILL had to use primitive S or RCA cables to output VHS images onto your HDTV.
Like many folks, I still have a large collection of movies on VHS (for some films, it remains the only version in print), but I was not going to buy another VCR unless I could really view them on my Samsung HDTV. Some VCRs connect with component cables, but cost as much (if not more) than this combo unit, which is so feature laden that I'm glad I waited.
The upconversion is very impressive so far for both DVD and factory VHS releases (lets face it, grainy home recorded VHS copies of TV programs will never look sharp at 1080p, so keep that in mind) and the controls are no more complicated than the average machine (which, may in itself be a problem for some already).
I have yet to fully utilize all the features, including the use of my Sony HD digital camera or camcorder, but those were secondary parts of the purchase. For me, the fact that I can now view my VHS library (and non-Blue Ray DVD library) on my HDTV through HDMI with such impressive image quality is more than enough to satisfy me.
If you are in the market for a combo unit to use with your HDTV, then this may finally be what you and I have been waiting for. Stellar product.
Why 4 stars? Well, I've only had the product a week, so it is too early to throw a 5th star onto the score, but it certainly merits 4 right out of the box.

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Sony's new DVD Recorder/VCR - Just what your cable box ordered. Save your favorite TV shows, archive old VHS tapes, even burn photos and personal video from Sony USB based camcorders and digital cameras The RDR-VX560 brings the ability to record your content to DVD to your living room. Do you have old VHS tapes lying around? Well, now you can save space and make them last by burning them onto a DVD. The RDR-VX560 brings ease of use with One Touch dubbing from VHS to DVD, or even from DVD to VHS. It couldn't be simpler.

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Panasonic DMR-EZ47V Up-Converting 1080p DVD-Recorder/VCR Combo with Built In Tuner Review

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(More customer reviews)My setup: HD antenna directly into the Panasonic's coax input, then connected via HDMI, coax and component cables to the back of my LCD panel (a Sharp LC37D62U, a 1080P panel with HDMI inputs).
The tuner in the Panasonic unit, while capable of receiving HD signals, cannot output a full HD signal, but only 480P. If you are looking for a unit to act as a full-on HD tuner, this unit is not for you, but if your TV already has an HD tuner, then this unit offers some cool features. Before I start though, I want to point out that the unit does "pass" a full HD signal - that is, when using my TV's own tuner with the Panasonic set to "TV" (on the "TV/VCR" selection), the TV receives a pass-through of the HD signal coming in over the air to the Panasonic. Other descriptions of this unit had me believing that it would pass-through a 480P signal, but this is fortunately not the case.
Cool Feature #1: Recording HD TV shows over the air. This is one of the first of a new generation of DVD recorders that can record an HD signal onto a DVD disc (although only at the lower 480P resolution). Despite the lower resolution, the picture looks great, obviously not full HD but far better than analog TV. I have recorded "Lost" and "House" and both shows look pretty good. While the unit appears to be able to record on every DVD format known, DVD-RAM format provides some advantages. Using a DVD-RAM disc and the HDMI connection to the TV, the TV switches automatically to a full wide screen picture. Setting the unit on its LP recording mode, I can record 4 hours of HD programs on one disc, and the sound is great.
Cool Feature #2: Chase play. After starting a program recording, you can start watching the recorded program before the entire recording is complete - skipping past commercials and so on until you catch up to the "live" point in the recording. This works only with DVD-RAM discs, but is pretty nifty. By the way, the DVD-RAM discs can (according to the Panasonic manual) be re-recorded up to 100,000 times, so they are ALMOST like having a hard drive in the unit.
Cool Feature #3: Disc navigator. This allows you to see all the programs recorded on a DVD disc on a single screen - you can then use this to select which recorded program you want to watch. Nifty! No more hunting through VCR tapes for the program you recorded you can't remember when...
The VCR output is also fine (although obviously much less impressive that the DVD output). I can't comment on its ability to output upscaled 1080P as compared to other DVD units with a similar feature, but the outlook looks pretty darn good to me, no noticable "jaggies".
Complaints: The auto-channel setup missed one of my local HD stations, instead tuning a secondary station being broadcast on the same signal. Annoying! There appears to be no way to manually select which channels are tuned by the unit. I have been meaning to call Panasonic about this, but haven't gotten around to it. Also, long-ish startup time (like 15 seconds). Sometimes the DVD output seems a little washed out, but this can be taken care of by re-adjusting the TV's color settings. Having to turn the unit off in order to have it launch a scheduled recording.
Overall, quite happy with the performance.
FYI, the first unit I bought (from Amazon) arrived DOA, but they were great about returning it and I had a new unit two days later. They even paid for the shipping to return the first unit. Nice!

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Samsung DVD-V5650 DVD/VCR Combo Review

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(More customer reviews)I didn't get this player for the DivX capability, I mostly got it to be a good player for vhs and dvd and it has been doing those well. I tried out a variety of DivX/XviD files and all the ones I tried worked fine. Though most of the ones I tried had more standard resolutions, usually 640x480 or 640x360. Seeking through the DivX files worked suprisingly smoother than I thought it would. 2x seek was just a playback at faster speed with no audio, 4x and faster was more of frame jumping but it still worked pretty well, plus the normal chapter jump buttons would move forward/back 5 minutes.
I rather liked the remote as it was fairly simple. There aren't a whole lot of buttons, and most of the more complex toggles and controls are in a menu system. I much prefer this over my previous VCR which had way too many buttons, far too many of which if bumped accidentally could screw things up.

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Panasonic DMR-EH75VS DVD Recorder / VCR Combo with 80GB Hard Drive, HDMI, SD Card, and DV Input Review

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(More customer reviews)I have been holding out on buying a DVD recorder until one came out with VHS, DVD, and a hard drive (HDD). This unit finally delivers! It definitely has some cons, but this unit is the best you'll get if you want to record onto a hard drive first, edit out the commercials, and then transfer to DVD. The advantage to this method is that you can record say 2.5 hours in SP mode (2 hr mode), edit out a half hour of commercials, and then transfer to DVD. If you have to record directly to DVD before editing out the half hour of video, you would have to use a longer recording mode and therefore reducing the video quality.
Some of the things that can be improved upon:
- Consistency of auto-chapters: When copying directly to DVD, I've gotten chapter stops at 5 minutes and 8 minutes. When copying to the hard drive, there is no rhyme or reason. Why is this not consistent?
- Chapters are not maintained when copying from HDD to DVD in different recording mode: After copying to the hard drive, you can set your own chapter stops. These chapter stops are maintained when the video is copied to DVD in high speed mode (and therefore at the same video quality setting). However, if you record to HDD say in XP mode, edit out commercials, and then copy to DVD in a mode where it fits onto one disc (say, SP mode), it makes the DVD without any chapters! It should maintain the chapters that it allowed me to create. (The reason you would use this method to make a DVD is because you might not know how long the program is without commercials prior to editing them out. So you would want to copy to HDD in the highest quality mode possible)
- Loss of sound when "shortening a title": When you edit out a section of video, I have sometimes noticed a loss of sound for a few seconds before and a few seconds after the edited section. It also pauses briefly during the removed section.
- Can't copy a VHS to HDD or DVD and edit commercials on the fly: I should be able to easily play a VHS tape and record it to DVD and press the PAUSE button at the start and end of a commercial to edit it out. My old Go Video VHS to VHS deck has this simple feature... why wouldn't a brand new $500 VHS to DVD unit be able to do this? Are you listening, Panasonic?
- TV Guide built in DVR is not easy to navigate: If you want to skip ahead through 3 days of listings, it's not so easy to do. But for a DVR with no monthly fee, I can't complain too much here.
- Need to use both coax AND RCA cables: Most combo units allow you to use only the coax connections in case you have an old TV. With this unit you are REQUIRED to use both, which doesn't make any sense.
- Bad remote layout: The 'Function' and 'Navigator' buttons are too close to the directional wheel which is used for editing your videos and typing title names. The result is that you will often hit the wrong button by accident and leave the screen you were working in.
There were a few other basic features that you would expect to have, but I can't think of any other drawbacks right now. Overall, this is actually a really GOOD UNIT, certainly the only one of it's kind... I just figured I should tell you of the drawbacks to make sure you can live with them before buying it.


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