I am interested in buying a stand alone dvd/hdd recorder.The brands I am interested in are JVC - PIONEER - TOSHIBA and SONY. I am interested in your experience with ease of operation, editing controls and features, vcr plus etc. Any comments are appreciated. I am not worried that much about price.
Read some reviews .. http://www.dvdrecorderworld.com/reviewlist.php Out of the four choices you provide, the JVC and the Pioneer are by far the best .. Some 'Fatal Flaws' on the four units .. JVC •Issue: "Loading" error on DR-M10 and DR-M1V. Power supply related. See this thread and this thread for more info. Easy to avoid for most people (enable POWER SAVE mode). •How common is it? It only affects a relatively small percentage of machines (JVC techs have verified this several times). It mostly affects the DR-M10 units, and even then, mostly units manufactured in mid 2004. While both NTSC and PAL units exhibit this problem, it seems to affect USA NTSC models the most. The new DR-M100 and HDD units do not seem to have this problem. •Can it be fixed? Yes. Take it to JVC center, will be done for free. •Will it break again? No. They use a totally different part which is better rated to fix the power issue. •Related myths: (1) JVC is "too light". That is simply not true. (2) JVC has a TBC. It does not, regardless of what the Japanese pamphlets say. Pioneer •Issue: Picture drop-out from VHS sources. •How common is it? You will hear about it, but not many people ever see it. The PAL units seem to garner far more complaints that the NTSC ones. It does not seem to be an issue in the newest Pioneer units that started to surface in summer 2005. •Can it be fixed? Unknown. While it seems plausible that a firmware fix could correct it, that has yet to happen. •Will it break again? N/A. Toshiba •Issue: IRE errors, causing image to be too bright and washed out colors. •How common is it? Affects all units, flaw of the unit. Some people claim to not see it, but this is likely due to having a bad IRE on players and using the recorder as the player. •Can it be fixed? No, hardware error. •Will it break again? N/A Sony •Issue: Bad drives. The Sony burners give out relatively easy, much like the computer ones (they are actually the same drives). •How common is it? This is very common. An educated guess of about half of all units is probably pretty accurate (lots of returns on this model, lots of user complaints on the drive inside). •Can it be fixed? Yes. New drives can be put in by Sony, or you can do a custom job with a non-Sony drive (results may vary). •Will it break again? Yes, if Sony does it. A custom job, using a good burner like Pioneer, will probably not die, at least not prematurely like the stock drives. Hope all of this information helps you .. Good Luck and happy burning!
