- Average user rating: 3.0 stars out of 17 reviews Back to product review
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7 out of 7 people found this review helpful
4.0 stars
"Great for recording from analog cable TV, easy editing"
Pros: Records on DVD-R media in VR mode, chasing playback with DVD-RW
Cons: Missing some playback features usually found on DVD players
Summary: Chose the Sony over a Panasonic because of the better editing features and use it to record TV programs from a regular (analog) cable signal in addition to watching retail DVD's and home videos. After the first six weeks of ownership with almost daily use, I'm quite happy with it!
A main advantage is that DVD-R media can be recorded in VR mode, thus you can precisely edit out those commercials or create playlists before you put your write-once DVD into the archive (most recorders can do this with re-writable media only). The intermediate 150-min LSP and 180-min ESP speeds between SP and LP fit well into many programming schemes (Panasonic recorders obviously have an edge here with their flexible-speed mode). The initial setup was quick and painless, easy handling overall, and much more quiet than the Philips player I had before. Lots of settings for fine-tuning your audio and video preferences for both recording and playback. No problems playing retail DVD videos.
As noticed by others, a couple of nice features (zoom, multiple slow-motion speeds, VCR+, the "forgotten" REC Pause button) are not available. If you want to play back home videos, those have to be well formatted to work: It won't play any video files (MPEG/AVI) on data DVD's and ignores any DVD with PAL format on it. Other vendors are more flexible in this regard. There is a noticeable pause (but less than one second) when switching layers on retail DVD's.
Note that quite a few features available for the "minus" media cannot be used for their "plus" counterparts. Also, loading and handling of "plus" media is much slower and editing less accurate. Easy fix: Unless explicitly needed for some reason (e.g., compatibility or dual-layer capacity), avoid DVD+R/RW and use DVD-R/RW instead.
- 2 replies to this review
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In your write-up you mentioned 'one time burns for the archive' or something like that. The question I have is: In order to burn a dvd that will play on any dvd player, do you need to use a DVD-R or DVD+R for the burn? Will DVD+RW work? I ask because none of my old DVD players will play the DVD-RW discs burnt on this recorder.
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awx! Thanks so much for your detailed review and response to questions. Unfortunately, even though I read your review before purchasing my unit mid-November, it all is just first sinking in as I'm actully using it. I bought +RW discs and they are working fine, but I'm running into the "won't allow CHASE" problem. I wish I would have followed your advise on only using -RW and -R, but I didn't remember it when I started using the unit. I still have a lot to learn, but I've printed out your comments and will add them to my manual.
