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Papua New Guinea, Port Moresby
1 Level
678 Review
39 Karma

Review on ๐Ÿ“€ Samsung DVD-VR375/DVD-VR375A DVD Recorder VHS Combo by Mark Tompkins

Revainrating 4 out of 5

Good inexpensive recorder

Since there is almost no choice of cheap DVD/VCR recorders with ATSC digital tuners, I bought three of these Samsung DVD-VR375 recorders and hooked them up to three Channel Master digital converters. I bought them specifically for recording off-air TV programs onto DVD-RW so I can record programs for my wife. I have already used two Magnavox units for this purpose and had a set of dedicated DVD+RWs that allowed me to burn, erase and rewrite more programs. I was disappointed to find DVD-RW discs to be the disc of choice for these Samsungs. which required setting up another set of formatted drives. For my purposes, they had to be formatted in Video(V) format. There is a VR format that is used for data and/or other purposes. I find them trustworthy when burning my DVDs (I didn't buy them for the VCR's recording feature) as long as you limit the recording time to two hours. . Sometime after two hours, the resolution gets really soft. On the other hand, if you record a program in HD and then play it back via the HDMI outputs of the television in order to take advantage of the device's scaling options, the result is a very good picture, although no DVD, no matter how recorded, can record the real picture. . HD. Since my recording needs are fairly basic, it was pretty intuitive to set up and use, which is a good thing because the user manual could have been nicely rewritten. Some of the advanced features of these devices, including use without video, require careful reading of the user manual. Another downside is that once the entry has been viewed and is ready to be deleted, a two-step manual operation is performed. which is not clearly explained in the manual. I have all devices set to stop recording when finished as they always play on another player only computer. To prepare them for rewriting, you must manually unfinalize the disc and then manually erase the tracks. Overall, while not perfect, they record as you would expect from a budget recorder and so far, once you've learned the right procedures, have worked reliably. The only errors are user-caused. Jim B

Pros
  • Nice
Cons
  • There are disadvantages