GoVideo VR4940 Progressive-Scan DVD Player/Recorder with VCR
good quality but complicated and missing features
The good news is it does make good quality recordings onto DVD-R.  The XP (high quality mode) beat the best I got using encoder software on my PC, and the resulting disk played better in standard DVD player.  That would be worth 5 stars, if only it were accepted as usable by my family (including me).<br />It does have some problems reading S-VHS tapes from my video recorder, which it is spec'd to do.  It seems to take a few seconds to get into the correct mode so I lose the first few seconds which is irritating, but after that it works fine.<br />There is no S-Video input at the back, only the front.  Rather odd, but maybe they reckon the only S-Video device in a normal household is a camcorder.<br />The bad news is it is complicated.  The remote has dozens of small buttons and is modal.  The modality is very confusing when dubbing from tape to DVD or vice versa, since at that time both devices are in use and you have to wonder which one is being controlled by the buttons.  It is not really a universal remote it can only handle a very small number of TVs and not much else.  So, it has definately not done the #1 thing needed of it in my household, which is to simplify the A/V setup.<br />When you play a DVD and pause it, incredibly it does not freeze frame on the screen.  It switches to blank screen.  If you like the ability to freeze frame and step frames forward and back, which is on every other DVD player I have used, you will miss it here.<br />One final problem, the DV input is useless from a computer.  The recorder has minimal editting capability, so if you try to use your computer software to edit your DV home video then uplink through the front panel to make a tape or DVD, forget it.  You can't even manually start the tape or DVD to record and then switch on the computer to send the video.  The VR4940 (aka Zenith XBR413 etc.) just complains it can't control the DV device and refuses to do anything with it.<br />The DV capability is input only, a reasonable limitation but disappointing.<br />So, because of complexity this does not satisfy people who just want a simple DVD-tape recorder combo, and because of lack of features it won't satisfy those who want a high end gadget.<br />The manual seems accurate and fairly clear.