Toshiba DR-2 DVD Recorder/Player with Simultaneous Play and Record
Incomprehensible user interface
The Toshiba DVD recorder seems like it was created as a textbook example of how not to engineer a user interface. The underpowered remote, which will not work unless pointed directly at the recorder's sweet spot, is covered in a bewildering array of incomprehensively-labeled buttons. I'm a smart guy, but seeing buttons labeled &quot;*&quot; and &quot;O&quot; really puts me off. The virtual keyboard was evidently designed by a sadist; combinations of moving the cursor around the screen merge with strange elections like &quot;pause&quot; to toggle caps lock. Should you make a mistake (easy with the box's slow response times to its weak remote), you'll need to flip a little door open on the remote to find the &quot;delete&quot; button. Just be careful not to press the identical &quot;clear all&quot; button that's right next to it.<br />When I tried to edit chapter information, I got highly uninformative error messages about the option not being available. I had to dig through the 150-page instruction manual to find that I was getting the error because I was trying to add chapter information to a DVD-R, which is verboten.<br />The picture quality is decent. The built-in line doubler works tolerably well. But using this thing is like pulling teeth, and in fact I've barely touched on the pounding headaches this device will give you. <br />Mine is going back to the store. I'll get a DVD recorder manufactured by a company that actually hires people to create usable UI.