Samsung VCR Recorder & DVD SuperMulti Format Recorder Combination With HDMI DVD-VR355/XEU

Samsung VCR Recorder & DVD SuperMulti Format Recorder Combination With HDMI DVD-VR355/XEU
Enjoy the dual playback and dual recording options of VCR and DVD in one machine. No need to get rid of your VHS collection as you can enjoy them on the Samsung’s space saving product.
Amazon Price: ?166.98
Used Price: ?140.99

Philips DVDR 3380 DVD Recorder
Region 2 MP3 and Picture CD compatible iLink/firewire connection
Used Price: ?57.99
Customer Review: Philips comes good
I received this DVDR as a replacement for a previous Philips model DVDR which had crashed after a couple of years with a known software glitch. I was somewhat hesitant to deal with Philips after this bad experience, especially as I had to pay approx ?80 for the privilege, but I have no regrets. A new DVDR of this quality would have cost much more and the old one was not repairable. This uprated DVD is a faultless performer, is more user-friendly than its predecessor and can be changed to being region-free in a few easy moves (at no cost and without CDs or software downloads). Soooooooooo simple, I’d need to have been a moron not to be able to do it. Now I can watch films I’d waited half a lifetime to view because they’re only available for Region 1. I have it linked to a freeview box also with its own recordable hard drive and think I have the best combo without selling my soul to Sky+.
Customer Review: Superior DVD Recorder
Well first off this is my first ever DVD recorder, so I knew I was in for a learning curve upon reading the instructions. I know the fundamentals of DVD authoring, but had to read the instructions nonetheless. Luckily they are written out so well, I was recording DVD’s within the first day of operation. And it only took a few practice goes on a DVD-RW to fully learn all the most essential of operations. The good: - One touch recording. In other words, press the REC button several times for getting it to record for 30, 60, 90, 120 mins… and so on, as opposed to continuous recording (When you go to bed, go to work etc) which fills up the whole DVD. Very handy feature which I’ve never seen on a VCR before. - Great (and simple) system and disc menus. The default (and only) disc menu is a little bland and boring though. - Comes with 1, 2, 4 and 6 hour recording modes. 2 is DVD quality and 4 is VHS quality. I use 4 for everything I copy from videotape and many TV shows I record. - Ability to split titles on RW discs. Means you can trim the (unwanted) start or end bits off recordings on these discs. - You can append recordings. Ie- record at the end of an existing title rather than record a new title. Can be done on both R and RW discs. The bad: - The recorder occasionally hangs. Often this happens when you’re disc editing and choose a new index picture. (The thumbnail pic shown in the disc main menu) - No fast forward/rewind ability while in edit mode. Edit mode is used to split titles, add chapters etc. This is more a nuisance than a problem. - “Hiding Chapters” doesn’t work with other DVD players despite what the manual says. Ie- you use the hide chapter feature to “hide” commercials you have recorded, with the intent they don’t show up during playback. Unfortunately, they still do on other DVD players, even though the manual says otherwise. - Automatic chapter creation is ONLY set to 5 mins, rather than being customisable. Ie- a 21 minute TV show would be better with 7 minute chapters which would line up closely withy commercial breaks. - Says that new recorder software can be downloaded via the Philips website, but at the time of this review writing, it can’t. No such new software exists yet. Conclusion: I really do love this recorder despite the cons listed here. The pros do definitely outweight them due to quality rather than quantity. The main gripe I have with this recorder is the chapter functions. On RW discs you SHOULD be able to edit them by removing commercials rather than just hiding them (which doesn’t really work anyway). And it would be nice to be able to do that on R discs by virtue of making the “recorded commercials” into unretrievable space on the R disc since R discs can only be written once anyway. There also exists a need to be able to choose from different disc and system menus rather than the bland default one, and be able to set chapter length rather than settle for 5 minutes only.