Review on Philips MRV640 Magnavox DVD Recorder by Jon Lesperance

Just bought mine for $175 and spent 3 hours hooking it up to a TV and DVD/VHS recorder. It was mostly my fault, I have to admit I was a little under the curve on the technical scale. Have extra cables and connectors on hand if you're connecting to more than just your TV. The manual is dense and unhelpful until you've worked with the machine for a while. THEN it makes sense. (Maybe due to lack of technical means) The TV recordings (I only have one antenna) are great and the one I made from an old VHS cassette was better than the tape. A bit slow to start recording. I'm afraid I have to get used to it. I think it's a lot of money and so far so good in terms of balance sheet. There are no problems with the hard drives, otherwise it is easy to use. This is the second review in six months. Works perfectly. I've burned about 300 DVDs (you won't believe how much space I have left after the tapes are gone) and it's like a little workhorse. I've had very few discs with things getting stuck. Very little. And you need to "reboot" from time to time like a computer. I don't record by time often, I'm a cinephile not a TV viewer so I don't use this feature. I can't believe how this thing just keeps going. I'm really happy with it all round and would give it four stars simply because of some of the issues I had and its durability. There are many lemons, yes, but I have a good one. And I've never had to call a hotline!