Sony RDR-GX7 DVD Recorder
Excellent DVD recorder with THE BEST user interface!
Sony gets high marks for the best remote and gorgeous on-screen interface.  Its smooth anti-aliased text looks fantastic when creating titles for your recorded shows and movies.  And for once, Sony has made a remote that worth using (although Sony always goes crazy with lots of little tiny buttons). <br /> <br />The DV/Firewire/iLink/whatever-you-want-to-call-it port works great.  You get super clean transfers from your camcorder.  The One-Touch feature will automatically rewind your camcorder and automatically insert chapter marks at each new scene.  However, this feature seems to work only with Sony camcorders (I can't get the feature to work with my Panasonic GS400). <br /> <br />I also like the flexibility of using DVD-R, DVD+RW, and DVD-RW discs (curiously it does *not* record to the Sony-invented DVD+R format!).  For the most flexibility, use DVD-RW discs (in VR mode) as they give you the option to create custom thumbnails and advanced editing features. <br /> <br />Image quality is quite good as with any single layer DVD recorder, but a 4.7GB DVD can only hold so much data.  This model offers several recording times per disc:  1 hr, 1 1/2 hr, 2, 3, 4, and 6 hour. <br /> <br />The recorder's best HQ setting is gorgeous. It records 60 minutes per disc at a whopping 9.7Mbit/sec (The maximum for any DVD is 10Mbit/sec). At SP/2-hours, the bitrate is around 5Mbit/sec and MPEG-2 artifacts start to become apparent.  The EP/4-hour setting provides a good balance between longer record times and tolerable quality.  It's on par to a VCR's SLP image quality -- just okay for daily recording. At 6 hours, the quality is similar to TiVo's \\"basic\\" setting -- which is pretty blocky for my eyes. <br /> <br />This is a terrific DVD recorder with lots of features and a gorgeous on-screen interface.