Samsung DVD-R130 DVD Recorder

• Ultra-slim DVD player/recorder; measures 17 x 2.3 x 9.6 inches (WxHxD)
• Records to DVD-R/RW discs; plays CD-R/RW discs and MP3, JPEG files
• 1-touch recording, timer recording, auto chapter creation, front-panel DV (IEEE 1394) input for direct camcorder hookup
• Connections: 1 component out, 1 composite out, 1 S-Video out, 1 RF in, 1 RF out
• Digital optical and digital coaxial audio output for home theater surround sound

I was attracted to the Samsung R130 by the price and sold on the name. It's a name-brand machine that's being sold at the price of a no-name import, and I think the Samsung name gives it the promise of being reliable for as long as I want to keep it. I have a three-year-old JVC DVD player which I love, but it doesn't record. (Why not a JVC recorder? I would have in a heartbeat, but JVC doesn't make one in this price range.) Also, I absolutely love the slim line and the color. The Samsung's finish is classy and is either black or very dark gray depending on how the light hits it. I love it because it matches the rest of my simple set up, a JVC TV with rabbit ears, my DVD player, and a Panasonic VHS recorder, all of which are black. Most DVD recorders I've seen are very bulky, but the Samsung is only a hair taller than my JVC NBK50 player and an inch less deep. I do think its interface isn't as "friendly" as the JVC's, meaning there's no "hello" when you turn it on, and there's no comforting and adjustable blue light, but the starkness of it isn't something I can't live with.

It must be told that the Samsung has a HORRIBLE remote control that cannot control your television set. I found myself juggling remotes, which I hate passionately. Recording isn't that difficult once you figure out where all the damn buttons are, in fact the chapter selection is really neat. When you use DVD-R discs, you cannot edit so much. You can rename the disc and delete chapters, that's it. Therefore, I'm now looking for a good universal unit to control all my devices with.

Setting up was fairly easy, although I found out that there is an important difference between how a VCR connects to TV and how the Samsung connects. My VCR had only the two antenna connections and could transmit sound and picture to the TV. The Samsung won't do that; in fact the manual says audio and video output must be used. I wondered why this has to be, given both DVD recorder and VCR have tuners. At any rate, because of the need for an audio/video cable, the picture is as beautiful as that from my JVC player, and the sound is actually richer. I've lost my connection to my dvd player, though, because I had to transfer the Monster cable from the JVC to the Samsung.

Cable users should note that the manual has the cable box between the recorder and the TV if there are few scrambled channels, and between the cable box and the TV if there are many scrambled channels. In either case, it says you can't watch something else while recording through the cable box. Since I don't have cable, I don't have that problem.

Making recordings, at least, is very similar to working a VCR, but with a few quirks even so. It takes 15 seconds to load the disc, which is not interminable, but definitely must be planned for especially when doing timed recordings. I also noticed that sometimes if you delete a title or chapter, it doesn't register unless you first open the drawer and close it again so it can update the information. It also doesn't like for you to name a DVD before you've recorded on it, and if you use DVD-R like I do sometimes it doesn't understand that even after erasing everything on the disc, there's nothing on it anymore, and it tells you there's no more free space. So, if you've never done DVD recording before, be prepared to sacrifice a few DVDs in the process of learning. Buy a spindle of quality discs; I use Taiyo-Yuden.

Dubbing my non-commercial VHS tapes has been fairly straightforward. I find the two-hour setting, SP, the cleanest. I found the sound and picture transferred reasonably well, with no out-of-synch issues that I noticed so far. For off-the-air recording, say, 4 days worth of Oprah, LP is the best setting, although you lose some clarity in the picture. I would not record anything above LP unless it's the news or something where picture quality isn't that important.

Feature-wise, the R130 is really neat! After recording a couple snippets from the TV channels you go to menu, and there it plays a little preview of each chapter. You can set it to commercial skip, and set how much you want to skip, and I set mine to 30 seconds. I found the Samsung tends to run hot, so I put coasters between it and my VCR so that it can get plenty of ventilation.

I've only had the machine three weeks as of this writing, so I can't speak to longevity or reputation. I'm not one of those people who buys a lot of things, burns some stuff, then takes it back to the dealer or sells it, so I can't say there's anything better out there for my purposes. I don't see myself completely doing without my VCR, but I do see myself buying less tape than normal, and since I'm decluttering, that's a good thing.

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Confirming other customer reviews, finalized DVD-R discs recorded on this unit will not play on other DVD players. I recorded and finalized several DVD-R discs on this unit. Although I was successful in getting them to play on my PC, I has no success playing them on any other DVD player. Check the customer reviews on the Circuit City web site for this unit. Per one review dated 6/12/06, "Recordings will not play properly on other DVD players. Confirmed this is the case (and no fix) with Samsung tech support."

I also experienced a problem with the timer recording feature. If you set up several programs to record, the unit will record the first one and then power off. Even though the manual states that "When the start time is reached while the unit is powered off, the unit will automatically power on and start recording" my unit never woke up again to record the other programs. So if you plan on scheduling multiple programs to record, either plan on sticking around to power up the unit after each recording, or avoid this unit!

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I have had this machine for several months now and I have to say that I'm fairly satisfied. It performs pretty much as expected and the quality of recordings is very good both from TV and VHS. The only negatives (and reason for 4/5 rating) I have with the product is the fact that it doesn't play VCDs and it sometimes hangs if you press a number of buttons in succession or touch a button while it is initially trying to read a disk. The remote is not much worse than any others I have used just have to get used to the button placements and functions. I have always used DVD-R/RW disks since they have historically been the most compatible so that was not an issue.

All the negative comments about players not recognizing the disks might be due to three things:

1. Make sure the disk is finalized properly in the Setup Menu, this allows other players to understand the information written on the disk.

2. Most new DVD Recorders seem to format disks as DVD-VR by default. This is great if you're planning to do some minor editing of the footage on the DVD Recorder. If you want the disks to be more universal, reformat the disk to the DVD-V mode BEFORE YOU START RECORDING (if you do it after it wipes whatever you already have), but you loose the ability to edit the shows (eg. take out commercials) unless you transfer the footage onto an editing program on your PC.

3. DVD-VR disks are hard to read on older DVD players (both standalone and PC). I had to buy a new Samsung Double Layer DVD-Burner for my computer so that I can transfer multiple recordings from DVD-VR disks. I could not do it with an older NEC Single Layer DVD-Burner, I could only import the first recorded show, and WinDVD would only play the last recorded show! The newer DVD-Burners should state in the specification that that they read multi-session disks which is what DVD-VR allows you to do.

So before giving up on this machine, try formating disks in the DVD-V mode, and make sure you finalize the disk using the Setup menu before playing it on other machines.

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I tried four separate recordings to the Samsung-specified DVD-R media, and each yielded the same result: the DVD plays fine ont he Samsung unit, but will not play properly on any other player if you try to fast forward, skip chapters, etc. The playback skips frames and the audio drops out entirely.

I tried to play my Samsung-recorded DVDs on a 5-year-old Panasonic player, a 1-year-old Toshiba player, and my 2-year-old Mac G4 laptop. Same problem each time.

I made several calls to Samsung tech support, but they were dumbfounded, and only suggested I replace the unit. I did. The replacement unit had the same trouble.

I'd been thinking about buying a DVD recorder for a while but almost all recorders had bad reviews until I saw this one. The reviews looked good so I decided to give it a try. And I was, and still am, definitely happy about my choice.

It took me only a few minutes to set up this recorder (the usual cables and set the clock). I was able to immediately record a TV show without a problem. The images were DVD quality if you set it to SP (2 hours of recording per DVD). With LP (4 hours per DVD), the quantity suffered to slightly better than VHS but still quite good. It also has a feature that will set the speed automatically based on the amount of space left in the DVD. The interface to set up timed recording was quite easy and intuitive.

I also transferred over 20 hours of 8mm home movies to DVD. Again I encountered no problem at all. In fact I have yet had a bad CD or recording or timer not working. Everything is working just as it should. I couldn't be happier.

I do have a few gripes about the remote and the caption. Remote is not universal and the buttons are many, though no more than others. It seems to have problem record the captions in each show. If you try to use TV caption (not the caption feature on DVD player) on the recorded shows, the caption will only show sporadically. The finalized DVD from the recorder also does not show the chapters correctly in my JVC DVD player. It's not a big deal for me but might be for some of you.