Sony RDR-GX7 DVD Recorder
good but no hard drive and no time slip
pretty good recorder... i think it would be more useful for transferring VHS or DV to DVD rather than as a DVR.<br />Reasons: <br />1) No hard disk.  So if you want to record in SP mode and you want to record a 1 hour program and a 90 minute program, then you got to drive home to change the disc.  It will only accept 2 hours of DVD quality video on one disc.<br />2) Let's say you record a movie from 8pm to 10pm.  You arrive home at 8:30pm.  Tough luck, you can't watch the movie like you can with the Tivo or the Panasonic DVR.  You have to wait until 10pm to watch the movie...  from 10pm to 12am... and maybe tell your boss the next day the reason you are late for work is due to your DVR.<br />3) let's say you watch a program and it looks interesting and you press the Record button to record it.  Ok, then you found that the record mode is set to EP, which is not so good quality.  So now you press STOP to stop the recording and change the recording mode to SP.  It feels like you have to wait 45 seconds for it to \\"write info\\" before you are allowed to change recording mode and record again... [for DVD-R.  if DVD-RW it is only a few seconds].  on the Panasonic DVR with the hard drive, it is close to instantaneous.  <br />4. Even if you record to DVD+RW, you can't edit the recording, such as taking out the blank or commercial at the end.  To do that, you need to use  DVD-RW (minus R) and in VR mode.  DVD-RW in Video mode won't let you do that either.  It is too complicated.  With a hard disk in the other DVR models, you don't worry about any of those... just record and edit to your perfection and then transfer it to the DVD-R like DVD studio would produce them.<br />But recording VHS to DVD is good... you have several modes: HQ, HSP, SP, LP, EP, SLP... which is 1hr, 1.5 hr, 2 hr, 3 hr, 4hr, and 6hr.  So you can choose whichever quality / length that you desire.