Magnavox MRV640 DVD Recorder
I like it when it works.
Magnavox MRV640 DVD Recorder <br />When I first got this DVD+R I thought I was going to have to bring it back day one.  Then I figured out that the DVD+RW that came with thing unit was either bad or the unit just doesn't like to record onto a DVD+RW.  On a hunch I went out and bought some DVD+Rs.  These seemed to work better at first.  I recorded a fair amount of stuff until a problem started to show up.  I've burnt about 8 DVDs at this point and 3 of them have been coasters.  After spending the time to record what I'm trying to transfer, work with the menus and such out of the blue when I hit the stop button the thing hangs with UPDT MENU listed on the LCD screen.  The unit will not respond to anything after this, I've let it sit for hours on end hoping my hours of editing had not been lost.  So far the only way I have found to get it out of this state is to unplug the thing and create a coaster out of the DVD+R I was working on.  I tried going to the Magnavox website to reach customer support, but the page only has a front up that says: \\"A smarter site coming soon\\" <br /> <br />I wish they had left the older less intelligent site up so I could find an email address for customer support, since I really have no time at all to sit on a phone and wait for customer support that way. <br /> <br />If I could find a solution for this problem the unit would get 3 stars.  The interface is a bit hard to navigate, the remote is pretty bad, you have to hold down the track forward and track back buttons to fast forward and rewind, so there are plenty of times I change the track when I'm only attempting to fast forward.  Play and Pause are the same button, so you can't really stop fast forward/rewind without actually pausing the playback.  Text entry for DVD menus is very cumbersome, you can use the letters assigned to numbers on a telephone, but they did not print them on the remote, so you have to get a phone and use it as a reference.  While all this kinda sucks once you getused to the stuff it can make some fairly nice DVDs.  I really liked being able to set index pics and a background picture for each the I recorded (this is my first DVD-R, so I didn't know that sort of thing would be a feature, it may be on every one for all I know) <br /> <br />At this point I'm hoping I can take the unit back and find a better product, but I'm thinking I will be stuck with this one.  Anyone know why I keep getting stuck updating the menu, let me know please. <br />