Sony RDRVX515 DVD Recorder
Great Product - ALMOST there
After discounts and rebates, this was a good value at $265. The player/recorder is full featured and works well. Recording DVDs from TV or the VHS player is good and the connection to a MiniDV camcorder to back up tape to DVD worked well too. It has lots of Video input sources (S-Video, FireWire (iLink), RCA on the front, RCA on the back, and VHF/UHF on the back) and output (S-Video, RCA, VHF, Digitial Coax, Ditigal Optical). <br />HOWEVER, it still falls short which is why it's only a good value after discounts. The iLink (IEEE 1394) often chokes, which in the middle  of a DVD means starting over again, and the HQ setting is too much for the on-board processor and the video drops frames. There are also some simple things which the manufacturer could have done in firmware like remember the DVD title of the last movie so that when recording a new one, you wouldn't have to go through a painful character palette excercise to assign a name to a new DVD. Or offer a predictive type utility that remembered your previous entries. Things like this seem to always be missed at Sony which may be why it's \\"beleagured\\" these days. <br />All told, good value for the money spent and no doubt the best DVD/VHS combo out there, but a reminder and warning to the electronics companies like Sony, the convergence with PCs is just around the corner and you won't be able to just get by making stand-alone boxes for much longer.