Cyberhome CH-DVR1600 DVD Recorder

as above, it works well and I got it very soon.

Picture Quality: No complaints. The 2-hour mode is what you should consider "normal". 2 hours is the maximum you should expect to fit on any single-layer DVD and get good picture quality. The improvement offered by the 1-hour mode is practically invisible; and the higher bit rate used in the 1-hour mode MAY make the finished DVD difficult to play in some other older DVD players. The longer-than-2-hours recording times are offered as a convenience; you will definitely notice a loss of picture quality if you record more than 2 hours on a disc. That's the way the DVD medium is.Ease of Use: Disappointing. Choosing an input source requires more keystrokes than it should. Programming a timer recording is fairly easy, but not perfectly intuitive. Naming disc contents was more trouble than I was willing to put up with; if you often text message on your phone you will probably find the interface here similar. Overall, there are too many menus with too many levels, making using this recorder a slow chore.Disc compatibility: I never had any problem with playing a DVD made in this recorder on any other machine. However, this recorder would not work with every brand of blank discs. It refused to work with Maxell and Fuji discs. It liked TDK, Verbatim, and Tevion.VCR compatibility: This was the biggest disappointment. I realize that VCRs do not output a very stable signal, but most consumer gear can deal with it and make a decent copy. This recorder could not sync up properly with any of the three VCRs I tried to use with it, resulting in a color shift across the top of the picture on any DVD recording made from a VHS tape. (Note: This has nothing to do with copy protection; this problem occurred on non-copy-protected tapes.)Features: I really liked the double-speed playback with intelligible sound. Commercial Skip also worked exactly as it should. The player's preview feature on the menu page for unfinalized discs was very handy. The auto-chapter-insertion feature was also very nice.I never had the finalization problem others report. If the recorder was going to reject the disc, it did so at the very beginning during the formatting stage--as I said, it always rejected Maxell and Fuji discs. If it formatted the disc, it would record and finalize perfectly.Because of the poor usability, lack of compatibility with every brand of blank discs, and mostly because of the poor quality when recording from a VHS source, I have replaced this machine with a Panasonic recorder that so far addresses these areas very well. I would not recommend the Cyberhome recorder to anyone unless price is the single most important consideration.

It's a crying shame that this so called recorder can't be rated a big fat zero! This recorder came with the cord to plug it in and that's all. No remote, or way to record from any device! Picture? What picture? I don't know if I will ever buy anything else online! I am absolutely devastated, betrayed, and highly disappointed!

I was looking for a DVD Recorder that I could use to transfer a load of old home movies I have on VHS tape to DVD and this unit looked just right price-wise, i.e. very inexpensive, since I did not envision much further use once I got all the tapes transferred to DVD. But this baby has proven to be a real versatile unit. I have it hooked up to my VCR on one line input and my TIVO on the other line input and I can easily transfer materials from either unit to DVD. I also hooked up the built-in tuner and recorded a couple of programs right off the air to DVD. Again, no problems ... and in all cases the quality of recording was awesome (I used the default 2 hour mode). The built-in MP3 player is a real bonus. I transferred a lot of my MP3's to a DVD Disc with 4.7 Gig capacity (yes, that's a lot of MP3's) and I could easily play them all on this unit. I have not tried the JPEG viewer but if that works as well as the other functions that I have tested then what is there to complain about? For a hundred bucks ... how much better can you expect? I am wondering about all those one star ratings ... this unit is a bit complicated to set up and I can understand someone's frustration if they have a less than satisfactory out-of-box experience. But if you are not technically challenged or if you are willing to spend some time reading the manual and understanding the setup you will not be disappointed. I took away one star from my rating because the remote is not very well organized and has very small keys. But all in all, great product at an unbelievable price!PS. Someone reported that they were able to burn a DVD-R on this unit even though it is advertised as a DVD+R only. If that is true then this is truly one outstanding device!UPDATE 12/21/05 -- Out of curiousity, I went out and got hold of a couple of DVD-R discs to try out with this unit. They worked just fine. Upon insertion of the DVD-R I was prompted to format the DVD-R which I did. Then I proceeded to record a couple of programs off the air, all recorded just fine, each recording in a separate "Chapter." Then I finalized the disc and was able to play the DVD-R on a regular DVD player. So this unit DOES indeed work with DVD-R even though it is advertised as DVD+R only. I have not tried DVD-RW so I cannot say for that type of disc. DVD+RW works just fine. Lastly, what is truly a wild card is the overall long term reliability of the unit. In today's age of rapid obsolescence and cheap, cheap prices for consumer electronics the very definition of "long term" needs to be rethought. To me long term means 12 months. So if the unit dies after 12 months I will have gotten my money's worth since I would be looking to upgrade to the next, new thing anyway right about in the 18-24 month time frame. It is unfortunate that we have come to view consumer electronics items as essentially "disposible" ... but that is how things are. So all in all, I am a happy customer with this unit.The "Version" information from my unit (obtained from the Setup screen) is as follows:UI: C00065MCUServe: DX043D D 037SAdap: V08.00.01.46.R0.2Control: DVR1600CHN1M02540

Great product. Works well.

This is my first DVD recorder purchase. I bought it to back up shows I have recorded on my DVR and also my video tape collection. I have purchased Cyberhome DVD players in the past and have been satisfied with their performance.The player itself is compact and fits well with other components. The remote control is pathetic - the buttons are small, all the same size, equally spaced and grouped haphazardly. I found the on-screen menu to be difficult to navigate and unintuitive. The video and audio for playing a DVD appeared to work well, but I did not pay too much attention to this as the true test was in how it recorded.The first recording I made had a wavy vertical line moving through it for the entire length of the program. I figured it was some type of interference with the RF cable so I switched to an S-Video input and recorded a second time. The second recording filled up the DVD which apparently causes the DVD to become unreadable and therefore useless. I did not attempt to make any further recordings.I decided to return the Cyberhome DVR-1600. I don't mind putting up with some inconveniences as long as I have something to show for it. I wasted about 4 hours with this recorder and ended up with a coaster.