Toshiba D-R4 Multi-Drive DVD Recorder
Excellent Unit
Excellent Unit!  It does most everything I wanted, and a few things I had not even thought of.   <br /> <br />If you use DVD-RAM discs, you can do great stuff on this unit, like marking the commercials as chapters and them removing them after recording the show, and playing the currently recording program from the beginning even though it is recording farther along.  (You can also watch a different program on the disc instead.)   <br /> <br />Of course, these discs don't play on most other DVD players, so you need to use DVD-Rs instead and give up these features if you want a disc that can play anywhere, but it is great to have these features for discs which will only be played on this and compatible units, and for everyday recording. <br /> <br />I had purchased a Panasonic DMR-ES10K originally, and had problems with it playing the second half of my DVDs and with bad support. (See the Panasonic DMR-ES10K for more details.)  I exchanged it for this, and am very happy with the Toshiba unit. In comparison to the Panasonic, it is the same price (slightly less in fact), and has almost exactly the same features as the Panasonic. As a double-check before buying it, I called Toshiba support to ask them about disk editing, and a technical support agent answered within about 30 seconds and answered my question. So the support is there too. <br /> <br />Most importantly, it plays all my DVDs fine. But also, after trying it, I found several features in the Toshiba that had not been on the Panasonic, to my pleasant surprise. They include: <br />- A \\"zoom\\" feature, which lets you magnify part of the screen to see something you are interested in <br />- A \\"replay\\" button, which backs up an amount you can set to hear again what someone on the show said, see something cool again, etc. This is a feature I had missed in my previous DVD player from my TiVo. Replay is much more useful than rewind, wait, play, try to get the timing right. <br />- Shows how long a program is, and what %you are through it. The Panasonic showed how far you are into the program, but not how much time is remaining or what % you are through it. In deciding whether to finish a movie now or hold the rest for later, this is pretty helpful information. <br />- Will record timer programs even if you forget and leave the DVD recorder turned on, so long as there is a disc loaded with space on it. <br />- It even has free shipping, which the Panasonic does not. <br /> <br />In the end, I was quite glad the Panasonic had problems, so I would find the Toshiba D-R4 instead and get these additional features for free. The only issue I found on the Toshiba is that it is only available in silver (which doesn't match all my black Audio Video components well), but that is a pretty small issue.