Rating: 
Summary: CyberHome DVR 1500 Home DVD+R/RW Recorder and Player
Review: This is a revision of an earlier, positive review. My "Five-star" opinion is now one-star. My unit worked beautifully for two months but about two weeks ago I prchased some Imation DVD+R discs. When I tried to use one, I kept getting an "Error" message. I called Imation, who said return the discs. I did that, getting some HP DVD+R discs. I tried one, getting the same error message. Worse, the machine would not eject the disc. I tried everything, including powering the unit off and waiting 24 hours. No dice. From there, things got REALLY frustrating. I went to the CYBERHOME USA homepage and got the email address. I emailed them and waited . . . and waited. I emailed them again. It has now been two weeks and no one has contacted me. If that weren't enough, consider this: On the Cyberhome website there is a download page. One of the downloads is a list of brands of DVD+R discs that one can use with the unit. Hmmm . . So they know that only certain brands of discs work, but one only finds out the hard way. A product which fails after two months is one thing. Total lack of support or even a way of contacting the company is another thing. Judging from the other reviews and my own experience, I would say if you buy this thing you're taking a huge gamble. I lost. The CH DVDR 1500 went back to the store today.
Rating: 
Summary: cyberhome a solid recorder & player
Review: I bought my unit a couple months ago. It has been reliable but works a bit differently from a VCR and is more complex. It plays every format of CD, DVD and R or RW, and jpegs, etc.. It will only handle the first 250 jpegs or mp3's it finds on a disk you insert. This is a potential nuisance. It records only the DVD+R and DVD+RW formats but can also play the "-" formats. A majority of DVD players and PC's will play the + format but some will only play the - format. A few older players will only play factory DVDs. DO NOT BLAME THE RECORDER for an industry with multiple standards. The RW discs are simpler to use than R discs, but cost more. While recording, the pause contol works very nicely, but plan ahead for STOP. This results in a long delay while the disc index is written and you cannot resume or anything else until this step is complete. You can choose the compression to record with to yield 1,2,3,4 or 6 hours on a single-layer single-sided disc. The 1 and 2 hour modes are very very good. Three hour mode is acceptable VCR quality, but the 4 and 6 hour modes suffer from the high compression. Be sure you let it format the new disk when you first put it in. This takes about 90 seconds. Also allow about 20-30 seconds warm up when you program it to record TV broadcasts. I just set the system clock 30 seconds fast.
Editing takes some practice. I strongly suggest you practice first with material that can be discarded. The menus need to be made more user friendly, but there is not much else to criticise. Recorders will surely become faster and easier to use in the future, but are already much easier than using a PC for recording. I am transferring my 10-20 year old home videos to DVD before they go bad. The DVDs will also take up less shelf space.
Rating:
Summary: DVD Recording at $300!!!
Review: I tested it out the other night and it works great! I used a DVD+RW disc and was able to do some test recordings. Though it does not play in my 1997 DVD player, or game systems, it does play in the recorder itself and also in my companion Cyberhome DVD player, the compact size CH DVD 300/S.
I think the newer DVD players, if one checks if it lists that it is compatible with DVD-R / -RW or DVD+R / +RW, one can be just fine. My DVD player is older, so there is a chance it isn't compatible with any recordable DVD formats. (This recorder records in +R/+RW only)
The player works great! It has many recording speeds, HQ 1 hour, SP 2 hour, EP #?, ELP#?, and SLP 6 hour. I couldn't tell a big difference in HQ vs. SP, so I will most likely use SP. The 6 hour quality is worse than VCD, but the other modes come out real nice. (I would guess the EP or ELP may be in the VCD or digital-VHS like quality area) I did a test from a VCR SP recording and also live off my TV cable and it looks very good, though a TV source is near NTSC 320x240, and DVD is 640x480 or so, it is amazing to capture the TV on a digital disc, for collection purposes.
The RW disc is nice because you don't have to finalize the disc, just record and you are done, there are a few seconds when you STOP the recording, but it worked much like my VCR as to starting the recording, and pausing.
A neat surprise, the deck came with a leather case with empty sleeves for DVDs, and it came with 3 free +RW discs! It included batteries for the remote, and also had a AV cable and an RF cable for connections. I was happy to be surprised by the extra items. The recorder also has its own TV tuner, for live or timer recordings and multiple inputs. I have a collection of cartoons I have gathered over the years on tape and have dearly wanted to put them on a recordable DVD, but have been waiting for prices to come down in the players. I was so glad when this recorder came available!
Rating:
Summary: This Is Junk. If you want to edit your dvd's.
Review: I originally bought an APEX writer. The first thing I had to do with it was upgrade the firmware. I took it back due to other issues and opted for a Cyberhome. I was pleased when I got it home, it was easier to use than the APEX and it came with 3 DVD/RW's. I commenced to filling allthree up with home videos and was pleased with the quality of the recording. BUT when I put the DVD in my pc it is un readable. I do not know whether this is due to the formatting or the discs. I was furious. I will be returning this one as well and opting for a little more expensive version. I guess you do get what you pay for.
Rating:
Summary: DVD Recorder
Review: This does a very good job on recording from external sources, such as analog cameras, etc. Very good unit for the money.
Rating:
Summary: Think Twice!!
Review: I have had nothing but problems with the CyberHome product I purchased. The machine will not record on timed recordings, sometimes there is color, other times, no. The customer service @ Cyber Home is a joke, no responses. The sound quality leaves much to be desired, and recording quality is not good. You may only use certain types of discs with this machine, I have found only one type to work.
Rating:
Summary: DON'T BUY CYREHOME PRODUCT
Review: This unit works fine but the nightmare begin as soon as u need support. My unit start to lock up a while back. Send them countless emails to ask for help and never get any reply. Finally get a hold of their support phone number and I gave up after being on hold for 2 hrs each - 2 times in a row. If anyone from Amazon is reading this: You guys should stop carrying this brand.
Rating:
Summary: Yup, just like everyone warned me!
Review: DO NOT BUY THIS!!! I figured, hey how much of a piece of junk can this be. I am an IT director I can figure it out and make it work. So I went out to best buy and picked it up. Everything seemed simple enough to understand and setting it up was easy. The firmware didnt need upgrading it already had 128A. I put in one of the supplied CD+RW and tested it out. Recorded a couple minutes and watched the results, not bad. Next step to tape a program on a CD+R memorex(on their TESTED list). Recorded the show and went to standby, recording done. Pressed the standby and never got past the CYBERHOME Screen. Locked up solid. Best Buy had to take it apart to get my DVD out. DO NOT BUY THIS!!!! Going to try the Philips dvdr75 next.
Rating:
Summary: Follow Up Review on CyberHome 1500
Review: Just a couple follow up comments on my earlier review. After 90 days my recorder's read-write mechanism died. The head went back and forth and said either no disc or error. I called CyberHome support and suprise, they answered the phone right away. They asked a few questions, then gave me an RMA number. I mailed it and received a brand new (not remanufactured) unit within a week. The new unit seems to set up and begin recording a bit faster, so the first unit may have been marginal. Before you misjudge CyberHome as low quality, I will mention that when buying DVD players, I had to return three different brands that were defective out of the box. Now that is bad QC. If you encounter ocassional pauses playing recordings on other machines, it may be due to the optional chapter markings every 5 minutes. These are on by default. Chapter markings are great for skipping through a disk, but to my suprise, not all players handle them well. My old Koss portable and recent Phillips player handle chapter markings just fine. My old Panasonic gives a momentary video jerk at each marking. My niece has a player that enters pause at each chapter, but I do not know the brand or age of her player. Auto chapter markings are easily turned off if they pose a problem for you. I still recommend this recorder.
Rating: 
Summary: the jury is still out
Review: I want to change my last review until We reach a verdit. They are going to send me my 4th recorder.I am hopeing that they have one that works.If they dont I will get back to you.
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