Toshiba D-R5 Multi Drive DVD Recorder
Not bad
I was looking for something to work instead of a Tivo. With DVD-RAM disks, this gets close. But it doesn't have an on-screen program guide (best buy's website is wrong in this regard). The TimeSlip feature lets you watch the already-recorded part of the currently recording show--you can't watch any other shows that have already been recorded. The feature also limits you to watch at least thirty seconds behind realtime, no closer. <br /> <br />Please note, that if you're trying to schedule recordings, you can't watch anything except what's currently being recorded. So if you schedule two programs on different channels for 6:00 and 6:30, and you want to start watching the first program at 6:20, you'll get about halfway through the first program before the second program starts to record, and it will force you to stop watching the first and start watching the second. This misfeature is going to make me return the unit for something more capable. <br /> <br />The unit is also rather slow and choppy while fast-forwarding or rewinding while recording, making it tedious to use. I've had it for two days, and once it's frozen on me for about thirty seconds while skipping through chapters before continuing. Also, there is no easy way to activate the TimeSlip feature and go to the end of the currently recorded track. As soon as you activate timeslip, it takes you to the beginning of the track and you have to move forward chapter by chapter (automatically created at 5 minute marks) or fast forward. This is quite annoying. <br /> <br />There is a feature that lets you quickly put in which chapter to jump to without having to traverse the intermediate ones. It would be a really nice feature to use during TimeSlip, but for some reason you can't use it while using TimeSlip, and this makes using it to buffer live TV quite slow and tedious.