Wife made a very uninformed purchase and bought this model today at BestBuy. Ugh...

First, she overpaid by $40 (BestBuy is a ripoff).

Second, the idea was to replace an aged and defective VCR with a more 'modern' technology. But there's no way to connect the RF coaxial cable from our television service, making this device virtually useless.

Third, there's no optical digital out plug, meaning that when using this DVR for commercial DVD playback, there's no way to get the surround sound signal from the DVR to the home theater system.

Fourth, there's a high-pitch whining emitting from the machine when a DVD is inserted. Very annoying.

I HAd to buy this because somone I give DVD's to said the Samsung 357
was giving errors.
I was not so sure, but for the price of one of these as a refurb, I cured my error problems ( probably a tired laser).
This recorder offers limited speed options and in video mode (-R)
makes a really plain-jane DVD ( especially compared to the Samsung menus)
unless you use +R ad edit it.
But it is the easiest one I have used ( Pioneer Samsung Phillips) to just insert
a DVD and press "record".
At the end you just name it and finalize. Really very easy to do. A good value.

My husband is the one who does the recording etc. He records things for our son in Oregon and we already had this model and he wanted another to use on our second Directv receiver and this was an easy choice for him since the other did everything that he wanted and we had no problems with it.

I bought this item knowing that it was used. Toshiba DR410 1080p Upconverting Tunerless DVD Recorder The IR sensor on the recorder was defective. I determined this by trying another remote of the same model. It too failed. I returned the unit to the vendor for a full refund including his shipping cost. Unfortunately, I had to pay for the return shipment.

I have a very large collection of vhs home movies and rare vhs tapes that I wanted to convert to DVD. One of the smartest moves I have ever made was to buy this recorder and not tackle this project on my computer. THIS UNIT WORKS LIKE A CHARM. I have seen what computer software (and hardware) produces, and it is, at least, double the money and produces a low quality result (such as audio not matching the video).This recorder has NEVER locked on me (like a computer), never shut down during a project (like a computer),never did something that I didn't ask it to do (like a computer), never said it needed an upgrade or needed re-booting.(Shall I go on)?
Don't get me wrong, I am somewhat of a computer geek (somewhat) and know a good bit about them. But I refuse to believe that they cannot be built to work better than they do.I cannot see for the life of me why someone would choose computer software over this.I have owned this unit for 8 months now.If you want your memories on your computer,you can do that easily, from the DVD you burn from this unit. I could keep going but, bottom line, this is a GREAT MACHINE, and for the money, you cannot beat it.