Samsung DVD-R130 DVD Recorder
Pretty good price/value ratio
I have had this machine for several months now and I have to say that I'm fairly satisfied. It performs pretty much as expected and the quality of recordings is very good - both from TV and VHS. The only negatives (and reason for 4/5 rating) I have with the product is the fact that it doesn't play VCDs and it sometimes hangs if you press a number of buttons in succession or touch a button while it is initially trying to read a disk. The remote is not much worse than any others I have used - just have to get used to the button placements and functions. I have always used DVD-R/RW disks since they have historically been the most compatible so that was not an issue. <br /> <br />All the negative comments about players not recognizing the disks might be due to three things: <br /> <br />1. Make sure the disk is finalized properly in the Setup Menu, this allows other players to understand the information written on the disk. <br /> <br />2. Most new DVD Recorders seem to format disks as DVD-VR by default. This is great if you're planning to do some minor editing of the footage on the DVD Recorder. If you want the disks to be more universal, reformat the disk to the DVD-V mode BEFORE YOU START RECORDING (if you do it after it wipes whatever you already have), but you loose the ability to edit the shows (eg. take out commercials) unless you transfer the footage onto an editing program on your PC. <br /> <br />3. DVD-VR disks are hard to read on older DVD players (both standalone and PC). I had to buy a new Samsung Double Layer DVD-Burner for my computer so that I can transfer multiple recordings from DVD-VR disks. I could not do it with an older NEC Single Layer DVD-Burner, I could only import the first recorded show, and WinDVD would only play the last recorded show! The newer DVD-Burners should state in the specification that that they read multi-session disks which is what DVD-VR allows you to do. <br /> <br />So before giving up on this machine, try formating disks inthe DVD-V mode, and make sure you finalize the disk using the Setup menu before playing it on other machines.