Samsung DVD-R120 Progressive Scan DVD Recorder
Great Price Performance, but Read the Manual
This is a great deck for the price I bought it at (Amazon $169 minus $30 for signing up and using Amazon Visa). <br /> <br />I like: <br />1. Slim form factor - fits well in my setup. <br />2. Front panel DV connection for camcorder - A \\"must\\" if you care copying your miniDV to DVD. In fact, I use this instead of my Mac (Computer) to get video because you can just start the recording to DVD and leave it until it is done. Then, you can much more rapidly find and edit portions on the computer later than if you tried to copy the large files directly. My way takes more time in total, but it takes LESS of my time in front of a machine since I can just start the DVD recording and leave. This is also the way we send this stuff to Grandma now. <br />3. The menu system when setting up and doing other tasks is very clear. <br />4. The video quality (out put to TV) is good. <br />5. The component video output appears to be cleaned up so that recordings at SP speed are better than my S-VHS recorder. This only works when playing back on this unit. <br /> <br />What I don't like: <br />1. Control response (open, close, etc.) is much slower than what I am used to. I would say it takes three times as long for the Disc drawer to open and close and load vs. my Denon. <br />2. No DVI or other digital video output. It does have optical and coax digital for audio. Once again, the component out is great, and my primary video watching (as opposed to recording) unit is a Denon 5900, so this is for those of you who would use this as your machine for watching pre-recorded DVD. <br />3. This could be an issue with all DVD recorders, but I found that although I am a pretty techie sort of guy (for a 50 year old) that I HAD to read the manual to record DVDs. For example, if you don't go to the \\"DISC\\" menu after recording and execute a \\"finalize\\" operation, the disc won't run on another machine (this is with DVD-R). There are a few other things you should know, and I suggest you read the manual and get to know them before you proceed. <br />4. \\"No Signal Detected\\" message when using DV input. When recording from a camcorder per the instructions in the manual, the system will stop without recording if your camcorder doesn't start playing back an image soon enough. The recorder has some input detection scheme that will stop recording if there is insufficient video signal for a few seconds. Of course, if you are controlling your camcorder from the DVD, there won't be any signal until the camcorder spins its head up and starts cranking. I beat this by starting the camcorder in \\"Play\\" and then hitting the record control on the DVD as soon as an image appeared. <br />5. Variable Bit Rate feature. Don't use this if you plan on using the disks on other DVD players. What this does is to allow you to fit exactly the amount of programming you want on to a disk. For instance, use the entire surface to record 2.5 hours (the standard times are 1,2,4 and 6 hours). This caused all of my other players to skip badly. Of course, it works fine on the recording unit itself. To be safe, just pick the right length/format and call it a good. <br /> <br />So, despite spending more words on the low points, I would still highly recommend it. I would NOT buy anybody's combo VCR and DVD/R, but would say the next step up is to get one of the combo DVD/R with hard disk/TIVO machines. The hard disk allows for better editing capabilty w/o PC.