Magnavox MRV640R DVD Player/Recorder

Rating:
Summary: Help Please!!
Review: For the life of me I haven't been able to get the edited DVD+R's to play its edited version on any other machines but the recorder. The other machines read the disc but only as one file/chapter where's the recorder reads the edited version with all chapters intact. Can anyone help me with this please?? BTW, this review has the potential to got up to 4 stars because I'm very satisfied with the picture quality (I've only used the 3 hour speed) and everything else was very easy to use.

Rating:
Summary: Works great, when you can get it to work
Review: I have had this dvd recorder for about 3 weeks now. I program it to record a few shows every day. On about every 3rd or 4th one, the screen will have a blue tint to it. But my MAJOR complaint is, it is very picky about the discs. It wont play most of my store bought movies. Today I tried to watch my 2nd season of the Gilmore girls, watched the 1st disc, when I out the second one in, it kept saying disc error. Or it would show no disc at all, tried with 3 and 4 as well, same problem. This has happened on several occasions with many different movies. Even worse is sometimes I will be about 20 mins into a movie and it will freeze, I take it out, put it back in then get disc error. I am returning this DVD recorder in the morning. It is junk.....

Rating:
Summary: Good for some things
Review: I have had this unit for about a month and have had no hardware/operational problems. I use it for recording from analog cable and I've found that the 3-hr recording speed looks identical to the source material. I record to Memorex +RWs, which work fine and play fine on my Samsung DVD player. I use an after-market remote, so I can't vouch for the one that comes with this.

The on-screen menu is fairly easy to learn and the user manual does tell you the info you need. Note that this unit does not have Optical audio-out, only Coax-digital-out. Other than that, it does have a nice selection of Inputs and Outputs. It is worthless as an MP3 player because there is no GUI menu system to select folders from your MP3 disk - you can only go forward or back track-by-track.

This unit seems slow responding to commands sometimes, but as it is my first DVD recorder, most others may do the same thing.

Rating:
Summary: Junk
Review: I haved this unit for 2 days now and still cannot get it to record. Looks like A costly DVD player to me.

Rating:
Summary: Nothing fancy. However a fair DVD+R, +RW Recorder.
Review: Magnavox MRV640 DVD Recorder

There are pros and cons about the Magnavox MRV640 DVD Recorder. However for me, I've not experienced any problems with it while playing DVD's, CD's, and recording DVD+R,+RW's. I like that you have a choice of up to 8 hours recording (depending on what discs you use), I've had no problems using the audio and video inputs and outputs. I've been able to hook up the Magnavox MRV640 DVD Recorder to my Panasonic VCR with ease to make back-up copies of my beloved, wearing VHS's.

The cons of the recorder are it's manual, remote control, and the color of its interface. The manual is black and white with few photos. It has in it what you need to learn how to use the Recorder however it's not excellent. There's a lot to read. The remote control is easy to use once you get a hang of it. There are buttons that do more than one task, which the manual also fails to point out. Last is the Magnavox picture interface that appears on you television screen. The con about this is the colors are blue on blue, which can make it a tad bit difficult viewing the menus, as there's not much contrast. Also the font on the screen is small.

The pros of the Magnavox MRV650 DVD Recorder are that it's a good price for the features it includes, such as progressive scan, up to eight hours recording time, Front-panel inputs. It burns DVD's and finalizes them quickly. It doesn't take long at all to turn it on. It begins recording almost instantly. Also it's not a hassle to set up physically. You can record from television your favorite shows. I've called Magnavox's customer care phone number several times and they were helpful. It's not fancy, if I were wanting fancy I would not choose this. However over all I'd say this is an Ok DVD Recorder. I'm happy with it.

Rating:
Summary: I like it when it works.
Review: Magnavox MRV640 DVD Recorder
When I first got this DVD+R I thought I was going to have to bring it back day one. Then I figured out that the DVD+RW that came with thing unit was either bad or the unit just doesn't like to record onto a DVD+RW. On a hunch I went out and bought some DVD+Rs. These seemed to work better at first. I recorded a fair amount of stuff until a problem started to show up. I've burnt about 8 DVDs at this point and 3 of them have been coasters. After spending the time to record what I'm trying to transfer, work with the menus and such out of the blue when I hit the stop button the thing hangs with UPDT MENU listed on the LCD screen. The unit will not respond to anything after this, I've let it sit for hours on end hoping my hours of editing had not been lost. So far the only way I have found to get it out of this state is to unplug the thing and create a coaster out of the DVD+R I was working on. I tried going to the Magnavox website to reach customer support, but the page only has a front up that says: "A smarter site coming soon"

I wish they had left the older less intelligent site up so I could find an email address for customer support, since I really have no time at all to sit on a phone and wait for customer support that way.

If I could find a solution for this problem the unit would get 3 stars. The interface is a bit hard to navigate, the remote is pretty bad, you have to hold down the track forward and track back buttons to fast forward and rewind, so there are plenty of times I change the track when I'm only attempting to fast forward. Play and Pause are the same button, so you can't really stop fast forward/rewind without actually pausing the playback. Text entry for DVD menus is very cumbersome, you can use the letters assigned to numbers on a telephone, but they did not print them on the remote, so you have to get a phone and use it as a reference. While all this kinda sucks once you get used to the stuff it can make some fairly nice DVDs. I really liked being able to set index pics and a background picture for each the I recorded (this is my first DVD-R, so I didn't know that sort of thing would be a feature, it may be on every one for all I know)

At this point I'm hoping I can take the unit back and find a better product, but I'm thinking I will be stuck with this one. Anyone know why I keep getting stuck updating the menu, let me know please.


Rating:
Summary: OK, but just not good enough
Review: The designers, in a moment of sheer stupidity, left off the fast-forward and rewind buttons standard in most designs. A couple of days later I finally figured out that you have to hold down the chapter forward/reverse buttons to search through the DVD. The manual is difficult to read, so it contributed to the problem.

More importantly, I tried to edit out commercials using the "hide chapter" feature, but they showed up anyway when I tried to play the DVD back on my good Samsung DVD player. Also, while the recordings play back OK on this machine, they periodically skip on my Samsung DVD player, which normally plays DVD+R disks fine when I create them on my computer. Disks seem to play OK on an older Toshiba DVD player, so it is probably hit and miss whether or not the disks will play on other devices. I'm not willing to put up with this, so I'm going to pay more for a Toshiba with a built-in hard drive and can really edit out the commercials.

Rating:
Summary: It has its days
Review: This is not a bad DVD rec but it isn't wonderful either.

Let's start with the remote - I have three other DVD players who have an extra button to FWD and RWD. This one, is like all DVD players before they invented proper buttons, you have to hold down the |<<, and >>| buttons down for it to scan.

The manual I don't have a problem with, it's decent enough, though they could give it an overhaul. Read the whole thing before using the DVD player!

Now the player itself. It's nice looking, thin. But, it does have issues. More often than naught, it will show a "DISC WARNING" while recording and you hear the DVDR making a weird noise, almost like it's spinning the disc because it can not read it. Twice the whole system has shut down in the middle of a recording. I've always used DVD+RW's for there deleting factor. Don't want what you recorded? Just kill it. Lovely, but don't over use that feature, eventually the disc will just quit on you. However, on occasion, some of the discs will not play on other machines. (Note: read the manual, depending on your record mode, you have to record x amount of minutes in order for it to play on other machines) The machine is very slow to turn on, change channels and even stop recording.

Now that whole 8 hr recording thing, while it can record for that long, I don't suggest it. The playback is horrible past 3hrs.

So, all in all 2 stars from me, as soon as I can I am getting myself a more suitable DVDR.

Rating:
Summary: Don't be too quick to give up on it
Review: This recorder is a good deal for the capability it has. There are a few tips I came up with that will help you get the most out of it:

1. Stick to using it for recording and don't use it very often to play dvds. Not only do movies tend to freeze up on this thing but it will save on the life of the machine.

2. DVD+Rs are the standard this was designed to use, the dvd+rw's work well also but cost more usually. I've burned over 40 discs so far and have had no problems, the brands I used were Memorex and Philips. Buy them in spindles and you will pay only half as much as w/cases (buy cheap cases separately).

3. Don't over-work the thing. After a couple hours burning, put it on stanby and let it cool off. This is true of any electronic device. Also a good idea is to cover it from dust while not in use.

4. It has the potential to lock up for no apparent reason. When this happens unplug it and go through the set up again. This is a hassle but at least you can fix it.

5. Always refer to the manual, especially if a problem comes up. The trouble shooting section in the back will likely solve the issue. This is good to remember before returning it or getting upset.

This recorder has worked great for me, it performs basic operations well. One thing to keep in mind before buying is this doesn't seem to have a lot of the convenient features that other more expensive ones might. It's a bit slow and you've got to read up on how to do some of the more complicated tasks such as editing.

It's ultimately simple though once you have used it a few times, all you have to do to transfer camcorder/vhs tapes is hook up the cables and press record (not much different than a vcr). For this reason I'm favoring it over dvd burners, which have a lot more going on. However you can't burn a dvd in 10 minutes with this. Shop around and get a good deal, you will get a lot for the money.

Rating:
Summary: Great..if you get one that works
Review: When I bought this recorder back in October, I was extremely happy with it. Yes the interface sucks and the manual isn't much better, but once you figure it out, it rocks. So, why only two stars? The unit began locking up and refusing to either record from the timer, or eject the disc. After calling Customer Care, I was informed to send it back for repair. What I got back was a dented, scratched unit with missing parts that has now been labeled "renewed" (even though I bought it brand new) and the warranty has been shortened from 1 year to 90 days. Repeated calls to customer care only yields
"I'm sorry we've escalated the problem and you should receive a call from us" Well guess what, it's been a month now, and I still
have the damaged unit and no calls from Magnavox. Next stop, BBB.