Gateway AR230 Progressive-Scan DVD Player / Recorder
Good solid recorder for the money.
For the price you can't beat it. The unit is very basic but works well, similar to a VCR recorder. The recorded disk is as good or better than the original broadcast and much better than a VCR recording. If you are using a DVD+R disk and when you completely fill your disk with the programs you recorded don't forget to finalize (in disk tools) so you can play the disk in other players. Selecting auto chapters is also helpful to jump/skip quicker to the other parts of your recorded program.     This is an update of my review of Apr 1, 2004. I now have two of the same recorders, one for my wife to record her programs and one for me to record my favorites. Knock on wood, so far the recorders have performed well with no problems what so ever. We record programs almost every day, using Memorex 4X brand, +R's and +RW also purchased from Amazon. As stated before this recorder is just a basic recorder and does not have the additional features found in some of the other recorders, but it does the job and in my opinion are as reliable and still way better than a VCR recording. I use the pause button to stop the recording when the commercials come on and have had no problems with this feature. Don't forget to repress the pause button when the program comes back on after the commercials. I have also used the timer recording capability with no problems, you just need to have a little patience in programming the date, time and channel you want to record. I use the +RW disks as a removeable hard drive(HD) and record in the 4hr mode which is about the best alternative to a real HD and still maintain a quality recording. You can erase the disk after you watch your recorded programs and reuse the disk again. I have reuse the same +RW disk about 10 times so far with no problems. I am still amazed at how clear the recording is when played back. The recorder is a little slow initially in reading any disk so you need to take that into consideration and not rush activating any commands until the display stops blinking. When you initially put in a new disk, you don't need to manually format the +RW or +R disks, the recorder will do it it autmatically. I still have not figured out how to make this recorder an all region playback. Prices have gone down quite a bit compared to when I first bought this recorder so as stated before for price you still can't beat it. Panasonic and Sony are also good quality brands, but Sony recorders are way more expensive and the Panasonic recorders uses DVD-RAM disk to re-record and is more expensive to purchase rather than the common +RW's. For now, as long as this recorder works I'll keep using it until the other brands get cheaper with build-in HD's and more feature for the price.