Review on Toshiba DR420 DVD Recorder Black by Keith Montague

If you've been researching DVD recorders like I have been lately, you've come across a lot of mostly conflicting information. I used to have a Toshiba DVD recorder at home which had a long and productive life in my house and when it died I started looking for another one. I started looking at all brands, models and prices. So here's what I need. I needed a basic DVD burner that would allow me to make archival DVD copies, home videos, etc. I also wanted to use it to play DVDs and upscale standard DVDs to 720p (my TV quality). I was NOT planning on using it to record shows off the TV etc while I was away. While doing my homework, it turned out that DVD recorders were no longer state of the art (they were replaced by DVR, Tivo, etc. , accordingly for the most part). This isn't surprising to most people, myself included, but I kept moving forward because I knew what I wanted and what I was going to use it for. My research brought me back to this device again and again. It's reasonably priced, I used to have a Toshiba so it should be familiar so I kept looking. The vast majority of reviews were positive, but there was a list of annoying reviews that gave it low ratings. As I examined them more closely, I noticed that most of them were unhappy with the recorder's ability to record by time (when people weren't at home). Another major complaint was the inability to play pre-recorded discs on other DVD players. It turns out that most of these complaints came from people who didn't initially know that a DVD needs to be finalized before it can be played on other players (I knew this from my previous experience with a DVD burner). I knew I had no plans to use this device for remote recording and I knew about the disc finalization issue so I decided to buy this device. I've had it for a few months now and I've used it to record a few things. This DVD burner has done everything I could have hoped for. He takes well. It plays and scales my DVDs to make them look better on my TV and is easy to work with. You can set your DVD burner to finalize automatically, or you can do it manually. I have used DVDs burned with this unit in Sanyo and Magnavox DVD players and computer DVD drives. There are no problems here! I'm happy! Price, equipment and performance suit me. Maybe they are for you too. 5 Stars.