RCA DRC8312n DVD Recorder/VCR COMBO
I have a feeling this won't be our last DVD recorder
First, I've not used this to play store-bought DVD's as we have another player for that, so I cannot comment on other reviewer's problems with that. I will say none of the players seem to stand up to heavy use, though.  We have all but eschewed modern television and watch our DVD box sets of classic TV shows exclusively, and have long since learned that our player, no matter what brand it is, will pretty much have to be replaced about once a year and with little or no notice.  They start sticking and jamming one day, and perhaps the next day or the next week they won't work at all.  But that's a subject for another review.      Our objective with this machine was to transfer a MASSIVE video library of classic movies we have collected off of cable TV to discs, primarily for the purpose of saving space.  This is the first DVD recording machine that we bought because it was very reasonably priced at Target and we have had good luck with RCA equipment in the past.    Problems?  You bet!  We've had it less than a month and it's already \\"bang your head against the wall and scream\\" time.  For starters, of the 6 record speeds available, only 3 are worth your trouble.  Once you get to speed 4 (which will put slightly over 4 hours on a disc) you can see pixilation that was not present on the original source, and by speed 6 (about 8.5 hours on a disc) you will transfer a product that is infinitely inferior to the tape you copied and virtually un-watchable. It took us a while to figure this out so we had to start our transfer project over and will not be saving as much space as we anticipated, but at least the DVD is a superior way to preserve the movies, right?    Next comes this machine's extremely finicky qualities.  Good Lord!   Once we started recording on speed 3 (very good picture quality, particularly when copying video tape, which is of course less than perfect to begin with) we started having \\"jamming\\" problems.  Often when you start recording a second program on thedisc, it \\"freezes\\", so you start again, and it freezes again, over and over and over.  The only way to unfreeze it is to unplug the damn thing.  Sometimes you can get past this freezing issue by recording the second feature at a different speed, or, and this is really bizarre, starting from a different spot on the tape.    And sometimes it will just decide to ruin the disc at any given point for no apparent reason.  This is mind-numbingly aggravating when you have spent an entire evening transferring, say, episodes of a TV program, onto the disc one hour at a time, and then when you are finished and you are finalizing the disc, it just ruins it and all your time has been wasted.    Last night this happened, when we finished the last hour, it asked \\"Do you want to stop recording?\\" and we pushed \\"Yes\\" and it just froze there.  It sat there for ten minutes.  It finally had to be unplugged to unfreeze it, and then forever after that was a \\"bad disc\\".       For the price, I think we will put up with this a while longer, but I well imagine that in a few more months this machine will go sailing over the balcony and be replaced by a hopefully better product.   I recommend you pick something else.     FOLLOW UP NOTE:  This machine lasted about 14 months and then bit the dust.  It produced about 800 discs before expiring.