Sony RDR-GX7 DVD Recorder
Great Recordings; Setup Instructions Omitted Important Step
This is a GREAT dvd recorder.  When I first started researching dvd recorders, I was leaning toward the Philips because they were the first on the market.  But after reading so many negative reviews here, I decided to look at other brands.  I chose the Sony because of its great rating with Amazon, and also because of the Sony reputation.  Two of my other dvd players are Sonys, and they both work really well.  I also chose it because having a firewire input was very important to me, since I have a minidv camcorder.  That narrowed my choices, I think, to Philips, Sony, and a Panasonic that uses Dvd roms, which I didn't want.<br />My only hesitation in purchasing this Sony(actually it was a Christmas present from my husband, but I told him which unit I preferred) was that it didn't record on DVD+R discs, and a salesperson at an electronics store told me those were the most compatible with other players.  But I have three dvd players, and a dvd drive on my computer, and the dvd-r discs play in all of them.  And one of the dvd players is over three years old!<br />One thing I wanted to put out there, which might help you if you purchase this recorder, is that the setup instructions skip an important step.  When you connect to the video inputs in the back, you need to go into the &quot;setup&quot; screen and specify whether you are using the video inputs(the yellow cable), or the &quot;s&quot; inputs.  You also may need to tell it to turn off black screen or something like that (I'm going from memory here).  When I first hooked this up, I couldn't figure out why I could get sound but no picture with the rear inputs, but with the front input, I could get a picture (from my Directv broadcast, I mean, not from a dvd).  Nowhere in the setup instructions does it tell you to go to the setup screen and specify which input you are using.  I actually exchanged my first unit for another one because I was convinced the video inputs were faulty.  When the same thing happened with the2nd unit, I decided to read the instruction book cover to cover to figure out the problem.  Somewhere toward the back of the 100+ page instruction book, it told me what to do.<br />Once I got a video signal from all my inputs, I had absolutely no problems operating this machine, and the dvds came out beautifully.  I dubbed an old sp speed vhs tape that was made from a cable broadcast with the 90 minute dvd speed.  The dvd picture was better than the picture on the tape from which it was dubbed!  Then I dubbed another old tape, this one ep speed, at the 120 minute speed.  The picture might not have been better than the original tape, but it certainly wasn't any worse.  Mostly, I have been transferring old 8mm camcorder movies to dvd, and they come out beautifully at the hq 1 hour speed.  I tried doing this with the dvd burner on my computer months ago, and the quality was awful.  The picture quality was poor, and the sound was out of sync.  My computer burner did a great job with the newer digital minidv tapes, but the old analogs just didn't work well there.  With the Sony recorder, the 8 mm dub is flawless; the dvd looks and sounds as good as the original tape.<br />Another plus with the Sony is that it uses 3 different dvd formats.  I've tried them all, and I really have no preference, except that +rw  is nice because it doesn't need to be finalized at the end, which saves about 5 minutes of your time.  Though the rw discs are rerecordable, I don't need this feature because I have Tivo.   My dvd recorder is strictly for archiving, not time shifting, so I won't be erasing.  So I'll buy whichever disc format is on sale or cheapest.  It's nice to have three formats to choose from when you're shopping!<br />In summary, this is a top notch dvd recorder that should meet all your recording needs.