RCA DRC8052N DVD Recorder

• Record from multiple sources
• HDMI w/HD upconversion
• DV-input
• DivX certified
• Interactive user interface

I wasnt really looking for a DVD Recorder until I saw this product. What I wanted was an upconverting player. After spending $2000+ on a TV, I didnt want to spend another $500+ on an HD DVD player, at least not yet. That is when I saw this on sale at $99. I have never been a fan of RCA, reading different online reviews about different products. I never considered the brand for various MP3 players and other electronics stuff I bought. But seeing this model under $100 with HDMI cable included, I figured I should give it a shot.. After all there arent many upconverting DVD players that sell at that price (add another $20 for HDMI cable at amazon, $60 anywhere else).

It is a week now since I bought the unit. Here is what I found.

The good:

+ It comes with pretty much everything you need(in fact more than what you need) to hook it up to your TV (an HDMI cable, S-video cable and a composite AV cable)

+ Upconversion is good, much better than what I get from my progressive-scan Panasonic DVD Player over Component Video cable. I cant really compare against other upconverting players, because this is the only one I've used.

+ It looks nice, definitely not as cheap as it costs

+ It records quite well in different modes. Similar to good old VCRs it has LP/EP etc that lets you record upto 4 hrs on a DVD. I just tried DVD+R, but I plan to buy a couple of DVD RWs to reuse.

+ It has a AV, s-video and DV port at the front panel (but covered)

The bad:

It takes a while to 'boot'. After you power it on, it takes some 20 seconds before it starts responding to the remote.

The menus take a while to get adjusted to, but they have a lot of features as well.

The unknown:

* I have used it only for a week, so I dont know about the reliability yet

* I havent used the DivX play back yet

Overall I think it is a great bargain (Upconverting players sell $70+, DVD recorders sell at $70+, HDMI cable costs $20+ why not pay $100 for this). The video quality is definitely better(may be not the best) than my Panasonic (480p output). Bonus is you can record DVDs too.

I will post my experience after a few weeks.

***Update

I experimented with the DivX playback as well, from CDs. It plays extremely well, the picture quality is as good as any other DivX player I have seen on display. After using (not abusing) it for about 4 months now, I think the player is quite reliable. I would recommend it, unless you have another couple hundred dollars to spend.

Buy RCA DRC8052N DVD Recorder Now

Bought this in March of '07 and 5 months later it wouldn't even power on. Regardless of what some reviewers might think it was not because of my stupidity but of the poor quality of the product. Customer service is incompetent and hard to understand. The service policy is to ship it back on your own dime and hope they have it in stock to send a replacement a few weeks later. You are rolling the dice if you buy one of these.

Read Best Reviews of RCA DRC8052N DVD Recorder Here

Bought this unit. It will not power up right out of the box. I would not suggest buying this item. I have read several other reviews stating the same thing. It appears this item has serious qaulity issues.

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I had the exact same experience as one of the spotlight reviews: Cable reception is worthless, and so is the customer service.

I couldn't get it to recognize my cable signal any better than black and white and fuzzy. If I switched it to antenna instead of cable it would recognize channels 1-13 clearly, nothing above that. There's something wrong here, because I've never had a problem with any other device.

So I tried calling customer service since there was nothing addressing the problem in the user guide or the help website. After being on hold close to an hour I boxed it up and it's going back.

There are aspects I like about it, but without the basic functionality of cable reception it's useless.

Until now Sony was the only brand I wouldn't buy because of serious quality issues. Now I have to consider adding RCA.

For those of you that like it and it works for you, splendid! For those of us that are disappointed, it's not because we don't know any better, it's because it doesn't work.

Looks like RCA continues to put out junk for honest consumers. This thing died after 3 weeks. I took it back for a refund. Before it died it wouldn't recognize discs anymore. It amazes me the level of poor electronic engineering that goes into these things. The TV tuner has mono low fidelity sound ONLY! So if you expect to hear your favorite TV show with stereo hi-fi sound, you can forget about it. I guess RCA isn't aware that all TV shows are broadcast in stereo now. The picture quality of the tuner is awful. Its so bad that I had to use my old VCR as a tuner. I connected the output jacks of the VCR to the input jacks of recorder. Even the clock is bad, you have to reset it almost everyday because it its off 10 minutes. RCA stopped making their own stuff years ago, some company in China makes all their junk. Save yourself a bunch of headaches and avoid this junk. I give it 0 stars