Rating: 
Summary: You get what you pay for...but it works.
Review: If you need to transfer your old 1980's "Matlock" and "McGyver" VHS recordings to DVD ASAP, and you're short on cash, this DVD recorder will fill your need. If you're just a casual TV recorder and just looking to upgrade from VHS, cough up another 200 bucks for another brand or wait a year or more for prices to drop.Look everyone, Cyberhome is not Sony. Cyberhome has some quality control issues so don't be surprised if you intially get a dud. I bought this recorder because it's CHEAP not because it's the highest quality. I mainly use this machine to transfer my quickly deteriorating VHS tapes to DVD, and it does a great job at this task. Recording from my VCR was easy. The picture and sound quality was exactly like the VHS picture quality. The DVD editing features were good overall. I also taped from my digital cable box and the picture quality closely matched. The recorded sound quality was not quite equal to digital cable, but good overall. Playback of pre-recorded DVDs was very good. Picture and sound were similar to my old DVD player (a Pioneer). VCDs, CDs and other disk-based media played well also. Major gripes: The recording timer doesn't always work, so don't depend on it. Also, my recorder runs real hot. If I use it more than 6 hours, it has problems reading the discs. I have to turn it off and let it cool down for an hour before running it again. Be careful what quality DVD+Rs you buy. If you buy cheap discs, 20% of them will not be readable by the recorder. Minor gripes: Fast forwarding over 16x speed doesn't always work. It will randomly skip to the end of the DVD. Also, the sound on the main DVD menus doesn't always play. Editing the recorded DVD titles can be tedious. Too many characters to choose from and you can't delete words in the title, only type spaces over them. I also wish it would record sound in Dolby Digital or something similar, but hey, I got what I paid for.
Rating: 
Summary: a frustrating, inconsistent, unsupported "bargain"
Review: such a deal. (...) (...)if the darn thing worked consistently day to day, if the timer-record function didnt seem glitchy and unpredictable (despite the available firmware upgrade, which, while a lame thing for any manufactuer to have to rely on to 'fix' their product, i've nevertheless dutifully installed), and if, at any time cyberhome's customer service were ever available to assist consumers with their problems (cyberhome sux. soooo much silence... not even a auto email response to my query), this would be a fine machine to own. however, since none of the above actually applies to the cyberhome dvr 1500 in practice, i must reluctantly say: there's no good reason to save a few bucks and buy this machine rather than a competitor's slightly-more-expensive-but-likely-way-more-stable machine. i'm a fairly avid audio/hometheater geek; i enjoy pulling wire, learning new systems and functions, and enjoying the results of my efforts in this regard. that said, i must admit: my cyberhome dvr 1500 still puzzles me, despite hours spent attempting to master its apparently-basic system; it still fails to abide by my programming commands; it still does weird things (records a solid red screen, records with strange vertical bars on screen etc.); still locks up for reasons unexplained, and still makes me regret making the purchase. it's a lame piece of home electronics and not worth the investment, regardless of the price. i would take it back if i could. period.
Rating:
Summary: Lots of Promise and NO Payoff
Review: This recorder has lots of promise - good price, great features. Too bad you can't get it to work when you buy it. I have had two units, and now it is going back for refund. The machine locks up - no button functions, the disk is inside the tray and will not come out. Turn it off, unplug it, push every button - still locked up - BOTH units did the same thing. Each time after an attempt at a timer record. You will see lots of mention of lock up on reviews of this machine - I wonder if anyone has one that actually works - if so, your odds are 1,000 to 1 that you will get the one that works. VERY DISAPPOINTING, especially when you are looking forward to owning a DVD recorder. I do not understand how a company can sell a product that does not work.
Rating: 
Summary: Not happy with product
Review: I too bought this system a week ago thinking I was getting a dvd recorder that would record in dvd quality - I was wrong. First of all when I opened the box and began setting the unit up I noticed a rattle inside the unit itself. Yes thats correct there were loose pieces inside the unit. I thought - well I will plug it in and see if it works anyway. It worked - but the quality of the recordings at the Highest level on my PC dvd was not what I expected. Every recorded dvd that I tried "SP and HQ mind you" lacked color depth. It seemed as if was watching the dvd through a fog. Anyway unit is going back!!! And I will probably pay more for something with quality.
Rating:
Summary: DO NOT BUY THIS PIECE OF JUNK. I HATE IT!
Review: It's a good thing that it has a thirty day warranty. Good for me because I saw how big of a waste of money this was within the first week that I had it. You get what you pay for, this I know, but still - if you're gonna shell out $245 for something, it should atleast give you a little bit of quality. First, it records everything in a dark, kinda black and white tint. You don't get full fledged color at all. Second, it cuts off automatically while taping things and the quality isn't that great. I HATE IT. I'M TAKING MINE BACK TODAY. It also gets overheated, and the discs are so hot when they come out, that its not funny.
Rating:
Summary: REGUARDLESS OF PRICE
Review: I BROUGHT THIS RECORDER IN DECEMBER OF 03 I WANST OFFERED THE 26.00 "KEEP AS NEW" Warranty and on april 02 the recoreder just stopped working i dont want to send it out because i may not ever get it back so when it did work it record fairly well no it wouldnt get pass protected movies ok i can live with that but i'm seriously disappointed with this machine and i havent heard from cyberhome yet
Rating: 
Summary: GREAT DVR
Review: This DVR is great for the price. You can get it at walmart.com for $248 or Radio Shack for $250, if they don't have it in stock they'll UPS it to you, no shipping fees. There is firmware to upgrade it and it's easy to use, just follow the directions on Cyberhome.com's website carefully. It writes good quality DVDs and played on all DVD players that we tried it on, it records in +R and +RW, although -R and -RW are more universal, we had no issues.
Rating:
Summary: Immature Product
Review: I hope the CyberHome engineers who designed this product will read this review as it may help them fix some of the fundamental flaws in this product.
Lockup problem: - as other users have reported, any unknown disk issue, which the firmware does not know how to handle, such as unfinalized CD, non English MP3 file names, some VCD CDs, certain brands of blank DVD +RW disks - causes a lockup, i.e., the recorder will go into disk "Read" mode and stay there forever. It will lock up and not respond to any command, not even after a long power off that should normally reset MOST computer controlled devices.
I suggest the following design solutions:
a. Inititialize the software program at every power-up.
b. let the "stop" and "eject" commands have absolute and unconditional priority. If the software/firmware does not know how to handle a disk, let the controller go to the error handling mode and ALWAYS allow the disk to be ejected.
c. provide a pin hole in the front panel to allow a manual emergency disk eject, similar to PC DVD/CD drives.
d. provide a RESET button on the back panel. My final advise to CyberHome: please, test, test and test again your prototypes before you release them as products to the market. DGAL, NJ USA
Rating: 
Summary: an ok product for the price
Review: First, this is not a perfect dvd recorder. Second, it's only $248. Third, it will do what it advertises: burn dvd's, and do so rather painlessly. I bought this dvd recorder through Wal-Mart.com for $248, at least $50 below the next lowest priced recorder, and several hundred below name brand models. I bought it primarily to burn dvd's from vhs tapes I have recorded for my classroom. It does that flawlessly. I use only DVD+RW's and have never experienced a problem. I plug the cable through the VCR then into the DVD recorder then into the tv. It will directly copy any tape that is not copy protected onto a dvd with good resolution, no matter the quality level I choose. Having said that, it does its fair share of quirks. The clock ONLY works in the 24 hour format, despite upgrading the firmware. With the upgrade, you can switch to a 12 hour format, but it will not display the correct time, often displaying bizarre times such as "17:34 AM". It also does not have a lot of editing capabilities. You cannot delete sections of a dvd, only hide them. The remote, which you use to create titles, chapters and such, is very basic, which means lots of button pushing. It is also only "mono", or at least "kinda mono". It will take a stereo vhs tape and burn a stereo dvd. But it will only play it in mono, and will only record directly from the tv in mono. Very odd. More expensive models will have more extensive features. The old adage is true, you get what you pay for. Most of the quirks you can work around. Given that three years ago, DVD recorders were running $1,000, this is a very good deal. For $248, this is an ok basic recorder.
Rating:
Summary: watch out for the upgrade!!
Review: I have now had the third Cyberhome 1500 for a month now.This is the THIRD one I have brought back from Wal-Mart.Here is what I did wrong and what I did right....First thing I did was not to READ the specs for the unit as it calls for +r or +rw disks.Sony +r disks were bought and would not finalize.Second oversite was on Cyberhome,I could not edit the dvd title as the instruction book clearly stated I could.So back to Wal-mart goes the first recorder...Second recorder:Found the website for Cyberhome and read all there was to read,downloaded the upgrades(both)and installed,now clock will not keep time,but now able to edit movie title on dvd+r or +rw (Memorex DVD's as website calls for).
Back to wal-mart goes the second.Third recorder:Went back to the wesite and downloaded the first upgrade (U0226200401XA.ZIP)burned to cd and ran upgrade.All works!!Clock has right time,dvd's finalize,titles are editable on +rw or +r(Memorex)and disks I have burned will play on the Cyberhome,Emerson,Sylvania and JVC players I have.So hard lesson learned,read the specs on the disks to be used.Follow the upgrade instructions to the T!.Decide if you need or not need the servo upgrade after looking again at the version you have.That is what messed up my second recorder as you really have to figure out what version it is and what YOU have.I also have used the "new picture"function and the edit title on both +r and +rw Memorex DVD's as well as about all the other functions this unit has.Also there is a hack to make the player region free but as for now have been unable to
find one for Macrovision.And finally dvd+rw disks DO NOT have to be finalized to play in the above mentioned players.That is a good thing because if you get tired of the movie you burned you can always get the full disk back and record something else to it.I found one problem I could not correct.When recording open air the sound is very low,no fix for it YET..Hope someone will find this usefull and remember,wal-mart has a "keep it new" warranty for $26 and some change on their web site.If you mess it up,take it back........
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