Samsung DVD-R135

Pros: great functionality with handycams, price

Cons: picture quality from coax input is a bit soft

Summary: Though it's a little late with hd on the horizon, this unit seems to have been specifically built for those making dvds from their digital camcorders. If you have one of these cameras, particularly any made by Sony, you may have found that the software is horrible. Computer support in general for handycams seems to have been added after the fact. Samsung's DVD-R135 allows the user to avoid this problem by allowing direct to dvd recording via front dv connectors. There's also a front mini firewire/ilink jack, but I haven't tested this yet.

The dvd-r135 allows you to title segments so viewers can navigate different scenes. If your handycam includes the slideshow capability, you can even record a slideshow of your digital photos as a scene on the dvd. My handycam has some professional fade-in & fade-out effects for slideshows - which I never saw a use for until I saw the resulting slideshow on the dvd.

If you prefer additional mastering, you can always rip the recorded dvd to your computer and add additional effects - such as a music-track to the previously mentioned slideshow - using more advanced software such as ulead's movie studio.

If I were just rating this as a dvr, I would probably give this a 7.5 or 8. The upconverting is good but not spectacular. The added features - such as mp3, jpeg and avi support - perform very well. Navigation through functions is more intuitive than most dvd players.

Considering its low price (you can find it for around $130 USD if you look hard enough)and it's great functionality with my handycam, I have to conclude that this was a spectacular purchase. I actually use my handycam now.