Philips HDRW720 DVD Recorder with 120 GB Hard Drive
Have to disagree with most reviews
Aside from a steep learning curve, mentioned by one of the reviewers (it feels more like a PC than a Mac - you do have to read the manual which, incidentally, is quite complete but is written in non-native English and is poorly organized), it is a terrific product. Some of the strength are:    1. Foolproof DVD recording - I haven't had a media brand, DVD+R or RW, that failed to write yet (Fuji, Staples, Maxell, Khypermedia, Imation, Verbatim, Philips, HP, etc.), after hundreds of recorded DVDs .    2. Flexible editing, both on HD and on DVD.    3. Easy archiving: once the footage is recorded to and edited on the HD, you just hit the \\"archive\\" button and the exact replica is created on a DVD at 8x speed - what a welcome change from a stand-alone DVD recorder!    4. Excellent setup for transferring video from a digital camcorder via firewire (iLink); HD editing makes video archiving particularly effortless.    I do not use it directly with cable - it is connected to a cable box with DVR provided by my cable company. Consequently, I don't have to deal with \\"TV Guide,\\" etc. First, I record to a cable-company supplied DVR (80Gb HD) and then dump the  recording to Philips for editing and archiving. Together, both DVRs hold 200Gb holding plenty of programming. Of course, I wish that my cable company offered a larger HD and a built-in DVD recorder to begin with, but I suppose this would be too much to ask...