Review on Efficient and Versatile Funai Combination VCR and DVD Recorder: ZV427FX4 by Douglas Davis

I have had this converter for 3 years since I bought it to cover my many TV recordings when I retired . It makes excellent DVD copies, but the model I have is not without problems, which I'll list below.1. If you connect the unit to a wide-screen TV with an HD cable, the aspect ratio is not suitable for 4:3. It is therefore important to use standard cables with colored connectors. I used a good quality cable with green, blue and red for video and another with white and red for audio. So on the back of your car you should see the connectors in this color order from top to bottom: who have tried an HD cable and think there is no other way out because when you use an HD cable the picture becomes so distorted that it fills your widescreen TV. So using old cables works, but the only problem is that there are gray bars on either side of the image, not black ones. If you want to use it as a VCR to watch videos, you can, but the gray bars get in the way. A DVD recording has black bars on both sides when you watch it on a separate DVD player or Blu-ray player.2. The VCR in the car is not self-cleaning, so keep all the head cleaning tapes, you may have with older VCRs. If not, you can gently hand-clean the heads with a cotton swab and rubbing alcohol, but that's not as practical. If you suddenly don't see the image, this may be the problem. Most later VCRs had a self-cleaning feature, so this was a disappointment to me. There is also a high probability that most people have not saved cleaning tapes.3. You can't pause the recording, which means you can't cut commercials. You don't want to hold him up all the time or you'll end up with too many chapters. I know some models allow this, but the one I bought doesn't.4. When renaming chapters, you cannot use the spacebar if you set it to numbers, but only set to letters, but if you use the arrow keys, it will move along the space. It takes some practice to get it right. Punctuation marks are automatically inserted as you write letters. What's really handy about this device is that you can leave it unattended to record. When the hard drive runs out of space, the machine will stop automatically, so you can just play the video where it left off with a new hard drive. I shot all my videos with SP to get the best possible picture to make up for the lack of digital video quality and it worked pretty well. I definitely recommend this recorder, but be aware of its limitations. The machine will stop automatically so you can just play the video where it left off with a new disc. I shot all my videos with SP to get the best possible picture to make up for the lack of digital video quality and it worked pretty well. I definitely recommend this recorder, but be aware of its limitations. The machine will stop automatically so you can just play the video where it left off with a new disc. I shot all my videos with SP to get the best possible picture to make up for the lack of digital video quality and it worked pretty well. I definitely recommend this recorder, but be aware of its limitations. so you can just play the video back where it left off with a new disc. I shot all my videos with SP to get the best possible picture to make up for the lack of digital video quality and it worked pretty well. I definitely recommend this recorder, but be aware of its limitations. The machine will stop automatically so you can just play the video where it left off with a new disc. I shot all my videos with SP to get the best possible picture to make up for the lack of digital video quality and it worked pretty well. I definitely recommend this recorder, but be aware of its limitations. so you can just play the video back where it left off with a new disc. I shot all my videos with SP to get the best possible picture to make up for the lack of digital video quality and it worked pretty well. I definitely recommend this recorder, but be aware of its limitations. The machine will stop automatically so you can just play the video where it left off with a new disc. I shot all my videos with SP to get the best possible picture to make up for the lack of digital video quality and it worked pretty well. I definitely recommend this recorder, but be aware of its limitations. I shot all my videos with SP to get the best possible picture to make up for the lack of digital video quality and it worked pretty well. I definitely recommend this recorder, but be aware of its limitations. The machine will stop automatically so you can just play the video where it left off with a new disc. I shot all my videos with SP to get the best possible picture to make up for the lack of digital video quality and it worked pretty well. I definitely recommend this recorder, but be aware of its limitations. I shot all my videos with SP to get the best possible picture to make up for the lack of digital video quality and it worked pretty well. I definitely recommend this recorder, but be aware of its limitations. The machine will stop automatically so you can just play the video where it left off with a new disc. I shot all my videos with SP to get the best possible picture to make up for the lack of digital video quality and it worked pretty well. I definitely recommend this recorder, but be aware of its limitations. I definitely recommend this recorder, but be aware of its limitations. The machine will stop automatically so you can just play the video where it left off with a new disc. I shot all my videos with SP to get the best possible picture to make up for the lack of digital video quality and it worked pretty well. I definitely recommend this recorder, but be aware of its limitations. I definitely recommend this recorder, but be aware of its limitations. The machine will stop automatically so you can just play the video where it left off with a new disc. I shot all my videos with SP to get the best possible picture to make up for the lack of digital video quality and it worked pretty well. I definitely recommend this recorder, but be aware of its limitations. to make up for the lack of digital video quality, and it worked pretty well. I definitely recommend this recorder, but be aware of its limitations. to make up for the lack of digital video quality, and it worked pretty well. I definitely recommend this recorder, but be aware of its limitations.