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They were great to use. I could choose the background color, and I could set the timer for a specific length of time, (like 17 minutes) not just in 30-minute increments. I didn't like the fact that I couldn't choose my thumbnail image. I had two of these (I bought a second one from a 'display' sale at Best Buy). I burn lots of DVDs, so I managed to wear them both out. (You just get to pick the moment that they grab the image in each recording - 3, 10, 35 seconds and so on)
On there was an option. Turns out i had the same problem and that was the discs wouldn't play anywhere but in the recorder. the disc played everwhere, standard dvd player, ps2, even a different dvd recorder. hope you found this helpful.and also, i read the review about Sony DVD-RW's not working. then a week ago i found an old show on that i could not find on dvd. i would have stopped even trying but this was on sale so i gave it a try. Finalize DVD and after hitting it i was able to make a custom menu and finally solved the problem. then i decided to play around with all the controls to get use to them.
Sony DVD-R will work just fine. the strangest label was the best: Easy Navi. I had one before, an emerson which worked terribly. so since vhs's are going i gave the recorder 1 last chance to redeem itself by recording my show. my old one only had basic controls. it is a cheap and reliable recorder.
so now i can safely say: BEST RECORDER EVER. so after i recorded the show, i made a minute of recorded junk with assorted stops. i bought mine roughly a year ago, from boscovs(please read entire thing, in order to avoid confusion). now since it has been a year, i lost the instruction manual, but everything was labeled clearly on the remote. i didn't feel that returning would solve my problem. thus it would have a literal shelf-life.
i'm not sure about -RW's because they never work for me and -R's are cheaper :).
Likewise, these disks often fail halfway through a recording. It has gotten so bad that fast forward has basically become a useless feature because of this. This is actually the main reason I bought this unit--to be able to transfer movies from my video camera onto DVDs for archiving them and watching them on other DVD players. These disks are quite expensive, and I have ruined 4 or 5 of them because of this freeze-up problem. My last complaint: The manual is REALLY bad. (This was back in the days before my machine broke and finalizing a recording was actually possible).Anyway, if this product worked as advertised, then it would be a good one. I eventually figured out how to do it, but then I had to make extensive notes in comprehensible English in the manual so that I would understand the next time around how to actually DO the finalizing process.
For example, to delete a program that you recorded previously is a very clunky procedure--and confusingly, they offer 2 different ways to go about this (and one of the ways requires you to click click click through 3 screens before you can finally accomplish the deletion--then after the program has been deleted you get dropped back out to live television and have to click click click 3 times to get back to the deletion area to delete another program. Don't expect it to help you out when you are trying to figure out the many confusing screens you need to negotiate to operate the product.If you are considering buying this product, please think again. This makes your machine freeze up and there is no way out except by unplugging the power cord from the wall socket (the ONLY way to reset this machine, which does freeze up often). If this product worked properly and did all that it is advertised to do, then I would give it a 5-star review. I am also hoping the remote control that comes with the new unit will have more working buttons than the remote I'm stuck with now. Yet another RAM disk problem: When playing back a program you previously recorded, often the image breaks up, the audio breaks up, and usually a few seconds later the playback freezes completely.
(I have tried using lens cleaners on my unit; that does not help, so it is apparently not that kind of problem but rather is a software problem with the unit).Another huge complaint: Like so many remote controls in this day and age, after a few months the buttons that you use often begin to fail part of the time--and eventually fail completely. I believe this is the worst user interface I have ever seen for any electronics unit of any kind that I own. A case in point: The previously mentioned process of finalizing a recording is (as is everything on this machine) extremely confusing, totally un-obvious, etc. (If you don't know what "disk finalizing" is, it is a process you must go through after you have recorded a DVD to make it playable on all the OTHER DVD players in the world. And if I am really lucky, then even RAM disks might work on this replacement machine--though that would surprise me since they never worked on my first machine right out of the box. This is very frustrating, as I have to press the fast-forward button with all my might, 4 or 5 times, to be able to move quickly through a program. I recently bought a factory-reconditioned unit of this same machine at a far cheaper price than a new unit, thinking that doing this will actually be cheaper than sending my defective but out-of-warranty unit to Toshiba for repair of its many problems). The first few times you do this you will have to consult the manual, as the onscreen prompts are completely confusing and un-helpful.
If you don't finalize the disk, you are only able to play it back on THIS particular machine--so if this particular unit ever breaks down you are left with a bunch of useless, unplayable disks). But in summary it has many serious problems:* RAM disk recording is so error-prone as to be worthless, right out of the box.* The remote control buttons began failing after only a few months, and the problems with the remote are only getting worse.* The finalizing process (required to play DVDs on other machines) stopped working after only half a year, so any recordings I make are NOW only able to be played on this particular machine (and things are failing so regularly on this machine that it will surely be completely dead before too long).* The onscreen type/colors are very difficult to read.* The human interface is very user-hostile and not at all intuitive or even logical.* The manual is very, very opaque and difficult to follow. It is quite long, but in most places is very difficult to understand and is singularly unhelpful. But when you do go to the manual, no light is shed on the process whatsoever; it basically just re-hashes the cryptic onscreen command names (without any explanation) that you see on your screen as you work through the many confusing screens you have to go through to finalize a recording. Well, starting about 18 months ago, every time I try to go through the finalizing process, I only get error messages. In fact, I WAS able to do this for a few months. There are other problems with RAM disks that I won't go into, as it would make this review too long, but suffice to say that all of these problems have been chronic literally since the first day I used this product (I bought it a couple years ago).
Another beef: The overall design is really counter-intuitive. Also, many times when you insert one of these disks with material you have previously recorded and want to watch it, then the disk will give an error message and is unusable. I just received the reconditioned unit but have not set it up yet; my hope is that I will be able to finalize the 75 disks I have recorded in the last 18 months but have been unable to finalize. It is only this one that has been so poorly designed, with such small type sizes and such low-contrast colors, that it is very difficult to read. When you program recording with these disks, more than half the time the program won't end up getting recorded. The colors and teensy type size (and I have a 26-inch TV) is nearly impossible to read; grant you, I don't have fantastic vision, but I am easily able to read the onscreen prompts and messages for my other connected TV peripherals and for my satellite TV service. It truly does seem like back-room engineers designed the human interface for this product, as in so many cases the way you have to go about doing the most common tasks requires you to go through several levels of menus--and in ways that are not obvious or logical as far as I can see.
(In fact, out of necessity I just purchased ANOTHER one of these units. Unfortunately, even out of the box the product was defective--and every few months something else breaks. This may be a small complaint to others, but to me it is very important: The onscreen type on the screen where you program future recordings is SO HARD TO READ. Specifically: This product is advertised to use RAM disks, and after a fashion it can use them--but from Day One I have had many, many problems with these disks (and I did buy the brand the Toshiba manual recommended). Right now, the ON/OFF button on the remote is useless and 3 or 4 other commonly used buttons are on their way out, requiring so much finger pressure to make them work that they are essentially useless. This, unfortunately, has the expensive and irritating effect of ruining your RAM disk. Another terrible problem with this unit is that the "disk finalizing" process was always buggy and error-prone; moreover, when the unit was only about 6 months old, the process stopped working completely.
Anyway, I have been very disappointed with this machine and wonder why Toshiba, which I thought had a good reputation in the electronics world, would place such a poorly designed and error-prone product on the market.
Even tho I had a problem prone laptop from you, this DR4 dvd recorder gets 5 stars. Have used it every week since I bought it to record our family outings from my camcorder. My family spread all over thanks you for the terrific quality of the dvds. How could I miss giving this dvd recorder the thumbs up that it deserves. Sorry, Toshiba. Yes, I recommended it to others while it remains available.
It does a great job archiving VCR and camcorder tapes. When I called Toshiba customer service (1-800-319-6684) about this, the rep sent me a firmware upgrade that fixed the problem.I wish the D-R4 would load discs faster and I wish it could record back-to-back TV shows using the timer without missing the last two minutes of the first show (a quirk that is described in the manual), but overall I like this recorder very much. The 1-, 2-, 3- and 4-hour recording modes provide very good quality. I've owned the D-R4 since January 2006 and have not experienced any problems when using 4x and 8x speed discs from Maxell and Taiyo-Yuden. As pointed out by someone else, the D-R4 records to the 16x media fine but gives you an "ERR 14" when finalizing. Most of the problems mentioned in the reviews can be avoided by buying the recommended 4x and 8x media. I took a chance on the Maxell 16x discs, which were on sale recently at Office Depot, and did have a problem finalizing them. Get the firmware upgrade to use 16x media.
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