Sony RDR-GX7 DVD Recorder
Great product.  I am loving it so far...
After fruitlessly trying to set up a miniature movie and DVD burning studio on my computer, I broke down and bought this DVD Recorder.  I absolutely love it so far, and I plan on eventually converting my massive sports event collection to DVD.<br />The product comes with a huge user manual, but I don't know why, because it is extremely easy to use.  It is no more complicated than a new VCR.  All of the menus and commands are intuitive.  Most commands only require you to press three or four buttons to get to a command.  To start using it, you just pop in a DVD, start recording, pause to edit out the commercials, and stop when you come to a natural break in the program.  When you are done, you can name your chapters using the on-screen menus.  I use DVD-R disks, and they are extremely cheap if you get them 25 or 50 at a time, which you will most definitely want to do.<br />This weekend I zapped a football game from my satellite to two DVDs using the HSP recording mode.  I watched a few minutes of the DVD with a buddy of mine, and we both couldn't get over how wonderful it looked, and how crisp the recording was.  I can get 90 minutes to a DVD on HSP mode, and it almost perfectly reproduces a satellite or digital cable picture (if you squint real hard, you can sometimes see rough edges around small objects on the screen when they are moving - that's about it.)  You can get up to 3 hours on a DVD with the LP mode, but you can see the slight decrease in quality from a satellite picture.<br />Before you buy, MAKE SURE THAT YOU UNDERSTAND THE RECORDING MODES!  The technology does not allow you to reproduce a 150-minute movie yet on one DVD (it requires two).  That is, unless, you want to take a quality hit.  If you can get over this, then this is a product that you will want to get.