Toshiba DR560 1080p Upconverting DVD Recorder with Built-in Tuner by Toshiba
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Our Price: $329.99 Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Category: Home Theater See more digital camera details and other models |
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Digital camera reviews of Toshiba DR560 1080p Upconverting DVD Recorder with Built-in Tuner
Digital camera Review: DVR that is worth the money
Summary: 4 Stars
This is absolutely better than I was expecting. It has no problem recording my weekly TV shows on DVD-RW. The digital tuner is slow. The analog tuner is fine. The DVD seems built flimsy, but use the open and close button to open the tray and you shouldn't have problem. Definitely worth the money.
update Mar 2010 - I've had this over a year, and it is still working great. I still recommend this in place of any VCR recorder.
Digital camera Review: Decent DVD Recorder
Summary: 3 Stars
There are a lot of reviews on this, so I'll just give you a short take on what I like and don't like about this unit. I had previously owned a Panasonic DMR-ES20S, and some of my comments are based on this fact. It was quirky but good in several ways, and finally gave up the ghost. This Toshiba was at my price point, so I gave it a try. Keep in mind that I do not have an HDTV - my television is a 32" Sony flat CRT Wega.
Pros:
- Digital TV stations from the built-in digital tuner are very crisp. I am very happy with this because my TV does not receive digital stations, and I use the unit rather than a digital set top box.
- While performing some operations such as disk formatting, you can still see the stations from the built-in tuner.
- Record quality is decent; I have no complaints.
Cons:
- The manual could be improved. For example, the pros/cons/uses of different available disk formats is not clearly explained.
- The record menu is simple enough, but I've seen better. I believe it allowed me to record more than what was available on the disk, rendering the disk useless, but this is an unproven suspicion that I don't feel like testing out.
- No DVD-RAM recording. I realize now after losing my Panasonic how much I liked that format. Maybe it's because I have a stack of disks laying around now, or maybe it was the Panasonic's record interface, but this does not seem quite as flexible.
- Whine from the unit. This has a high-pitched very quiet whine that most people will not notice. I do, and it is annoying. It is there when the unit is OFF. My Panasonic used to run a fan when it was OFF. This is a pet peeve of mine. Can't these things be designed to be more "OFF" when OFF?
Final thoughts: I don't regret the purchase considering the quality and price of the unit.
Digital camera Review: Decent, but Look Elsewhere
Summary: 3 Stars
The Toshiba was to function as my secondary TV source (if my OTA digital signals didn't come through, I would watch TV via the Toshiba's connection to cable). Unfortunately the resuting picture isn't as crisp as I'd like when watching TV or DVDs via the Toshiba. However the price is right, and I liked the fact that when I watch a program and press 'Info', it displays not only the channel and TV program's title, it offers a brief description of the program (not even my HDTV does that). Again, the picture isn't has crisp compared to feeding the cable/antenna directly into the TV.Digital camera Review: Digital tuner didn't work
Summary: 3 Stars
I bought this based on reviews as a digital tuner. I have cox cable and this unit did not see any of the local HD channels through coax as suggested. I was able to find another unit made by panasonic which did work. Once I found I couldn't use as a digital tuner I returned therefore I can't speak for the DVD player/recorders performance.Digital camera Review: Does the job, but some annoying limitations
Summary: 3 Stars
I purchased this recorder to replace my analog VCR & bare bones converter box. I wanted to be able to record multiple channels on the same night. This unit can do that. I like the chasing playback feature.
However, the tuner in this unit is very limited. You can block an entire channel, or include the entire channel. Even my bare bones converter could do better than that. I might want to include another city's main channel but delete the weather sub-channel -- can't do that.
I'm also unhappy that I'm unable to watch TV while the unit is recording a different program. That's what I miss most from my VCR. I have another TV in the house, but someone else might not be so lucky.