Sony RDR-GX7 DVD Recorder
Excellent but some limitations
I have owned this machine for only two weeks, and consumer DVD recorders have a distressing tendency to fall apart after a month or so, so what I say must be taken with a grain of salt.  So far, so good.  This machine offers excellent image quality and is notably more tolerant of different brands of discs than some other recorders I've owned.  Far fewer &quot;disc error&quot; or &quot;can't read disc&quot; messages than my Philips or my Go-Video.  Although this machine bridges the format gap by recording on DVD+RW (not +R) discs as well as DVD-R/RW discs, it does not afford the full functionality of a DVD+RW recorder.  Most notably, one cannot do &quot;thumbnail&quot; picture icons for chapters, and I was also unable to add them using a +RW recorder to a disc first recorded on this machine (perhaps this could be done with a computer).  Also, the editing capabilities of this machine, which are formidable, do not apply in +RW mode.  So this is not truly a &quot;dual&quot; machine.  Another minor note:  the &quot;one-touch&quot; dubbing function, which operates via the firewire connection, does not work unless the tape being dubbed was digital to begin with.  Thus it does not work if you're using a Digital 8 camcorder outputting a digitized signal from an older analog tape.  But these images can be recorded in the &quot;normal&quot; way just fine.  All in all, I'm very pleased, so far.  Hint:  check out the &quot;used and new&quot; merchants before you pay amazon's price.