Toshiba DVR610 1080p Upconverting Tunerless VHS DVD Recorder

Toshiba DVR610 1080p Upconverting Tunerless VHS DVD Recorder | Great Product

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Toshiba DVR610 108...

	Toshiba DVR610 1080p Upconverting Tunerless VHS DVD Recorder Toshiba Toshiba average customer review:based on 11 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Enjoy the convenience of VCR and DVD playback options without the need for two units. The D-VR610 not only saves space, but also offers 1080p upconversion of DVD content via HDMI to near HD picture quality, and makes copying your videotapes to DVD a snap with bi-directional dubbing! Record your favorite home movies directly to DVD with the D-VR610. An HDMI output enables the D-R560 to play DVDs to your widescreen HDTV delivering sharp imagery on screens optimized for 1080 resolutions, in an upconversion mode. Video Upconversion to 720p/1080i/1080p 10bit Video DAC with 54MHz Processing DivX Home Theater Certified Digital Photo Viewer (JPEG) One Touch Recording makes recording your favorite show simple. Just connect your DVD recorder to your cable or satellite box and you are set to record with the push of one button Auto Finalize with Undo simplifies the recording process by automatically finalizing your recording for playback on standard DVD players Bi-directional dubbing lets you copy from tape to disc, or vice versa, with the push of one button 24bit Audio DAC with 192kHz Processing Plays MP3 and WMA formats (2-Ch) Dolby Digital Recording Features - Instant Skip, Zoom, and Editing (Playlist/Rename Title/Chapter Creation) Connections - Component Out, HDMI Out, Front DV Input, Front A/V Input (including S-Video), Rear S-Video Input/Output, Rear RCA-Video Input/Output, Rear Analog Audio Input/Output, Coax Output Approximate Unit Dimensions - 17.13 (W) x 3.92 (H) x 10.31 (D)

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Excellent Electronics but not very helpful manual

I have had this unit for a week which has been entirely devoted to it. It should be incumbent on anyone marketing a unit with rigid pre-established software routines to carefully explain them to the purchser, which,in my estimation, Toshiba has failed. It is very upsetting to be left without a convenient means of getting out from the all to frequent "Dead Ends". Maybe I need a break; my tapes look fantastic when I manage to "Dub" one. In a nut shell... I love the unit but curse "The Manual"; and suggest Toshiba rectify this severe impediment as soon as possible.

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Great Product

I am pleased with how this product operates. I purchased it with the sole purpose of copying my VHS tapes, but was amazed at the quality of the picture. I honestly cannot see any difference between this and Blue-Ray.

EXCELLENT!!!

This Toshiba D-VR610KU took away my headache and fustration from other DVR/VHS recorders that I own. Other DVR's did not copy to certain brand DVD blanks or if it did copy the quality was poor at all settings.

Pro(s):
I use Verbatim Archival Grade and Taiyo Yuden blanks from Japan in this Toshiba DVR and it copies with NO problem.
Playback quality after recording at all settings. VHS-DVD dubbing is EXCELLENT and picture is very close to Blu-Ray.

Con(s):
Another remote control you do not want to lose. 48 BUTTONS!!!
Owner's Manual is poor.
VHS Rewind is very slow.

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VERY, VERY NICE DECK.....BUT DON'T THROW AWAY YOUR OLD VCR!!

After half a decade of waiting for a machine that'll do merely what I want it to do--transferring my old VHS library to the more permanent DVDs--I jumped at the opportunity to get the DVR-610, at a great price (I purchased it at BestBuy, which allowed me to return it within 30 days for full refund if it wasn't up to scratch).

I must say: it passed the "probationary" period smashingly, though with a few small reservations I will mention later. Supposedly this deck is Toshiba's new improved version of its DVR-600 from last year. That deck brought forth quite a few frustrated reviews from buyers, and with this buyer-beware in mind, I assumed we were still in the Dark Ages as far as preservation on home DVD's was concerned. I initially thought a deck with merely a DVD recorder would do the trick (i.e., wiring my old VCR to its inputs to do duping), but I received conflicting and discouraging reports on these machines, too.

And so, the present model does a very, very nice job concerning the purpose for which I bought it: it will transfer my old (blank recorded) videos I made myself with almost no occurences of the "RECORDING ERROR" message; I had just one instance of this so far, which made me relegate that blank DVD to the "toss-out" pile. Actually, I'm using the discs with abortive recording projects for "test discs": that is, using them to see if a particular VHS video will transfer OK or not. I'm finding most '81-'85 rental tapes (pre-copyguard-era) will transfer OK, but you're up the creak without a paddle as far as dubbing your old prerecorded videos from '86 onward: specifically from the majors (Columbia, Warner, MGM, etc.). If your friends with similar movie tastes still have off-the-air broadcast tapes, by all means tell them to dig them out of storage!

While preserving taped-off-the-air movies has been a top priority, my FIRST DVD project was duping the one-hour tape full of films my old college animation class did. I made it a point to dub it at the high-quality speed (XP), and the transfer came off quite well, though there was a bit of picture jitter here and there. But after finalizing it, I found it played back well not only on the DVR-610 itself, but on my OTHER two DVD decks: my old Samsung player, and my 11-year-old Compaq computer. I used a Fuji blank disc for this one. The playback was smooth, and in time I learned how to make menus for later discs I recorded.

You would do well to reserve, as I did, a small pile of blanks for practice & test purposes; you will want to do comparisons of the sound quality of the highest speed compared to that of the slowest (for music videos--even those taped off a small 14" screen mono TV--the differences in sound reproduction are revealing). For feature films taped from mono television, the picture reproduction isn't that significantly different: not only in comparing your final DVD copy with the original tape, but also at the different DVD recording speeds. (I may think differently, of course,when I finally get a widescreen TV, but newer programs aren't of concern to me).

One thing I'm glad I learned quickly is how you can make individual cue-ups for separate films: unfortunately, you have to stop the DVD recorder at the end of each film. (For a cartoon collector like myself, this becomes VERY complex & involved....patience is mandatory!) At least I didn't find an alternative to this method in the owner's manual; and with my budget, I can only go with the cheapie DVD-R's that can be recorded only once. You CAN separate scenes for cue-up in a feature-length film, but THAT process is complicated by the machine's own automatic insertions of its OWN chapters in anything running over ten minutes. As for myself, I don't even bother separating scenes--only one movie from an entirely different one.

I was apprehensive during my first one or two tries at the "one-touch dubbing" feature, but this proved groundless (I used home-recorded tapes, of course). But I hasten to suggest: PLEASE DON'T throw out your old VCR, for a small number of tapes (yes--even your prize blanks) won't record on the new machine's all-in-one, two-decks-in-one feature.....you will have to wire patch-cords from your old videotape player to the front input jacks on the DVR-610. It is the only way around on these tapes.

One or two things I have to concur with on the other reviews of this machine: the manual CAN stand a bit better organization (it's categorized well, though not necessarily in the order you'd anticipate); two weeks back, when trying to find a mistake I made accidentally (I pushed the input button to "camcorder," or "DV," making it impossible to do tape-to-tape dubbing), the manual didn't list this problem which had me panicking for a few hours till I corrected it on my own. I have little quibble, though, with the English translation, which makes perfect & grammatic sense. AND: YES, the remote IS a pretty feisty critter! I've had about a dozen-and-a-half endings on some recordings where the "STOP" button goes to sleep, and I must rush to the machine itself to use the stop-button on IT. And the remote's own RECORD button is also as aggravating as a toilet handle. They work, alright (and you DO have to wait close to half a minute for the information from a just-finished recording to write itself onto the disc--as well as when you first turn on the deck with a blank disc still in it).

As for recordable discs, I've stuck with NAME BRAND blanks--those from Fuji, Maxell & TDK; and as yet, I've only recorded on DVD PLUS R (DVD+R) discs. All three brands play flawlessly when they're finally ready, and of course you must acquaint yourself with the "DVD MENU" feature which shows the option of finalizing the disc (necessary, of course, to have it play on other decks).

FINE deck, overall: there's still small room for more improvement, but this one gets an "A" for the job I want it to do: it's my main RECORDER now, and I'll be saving the playing for "play-only" decks (which I'll feel confident of buying in the future). It'll at least give me the security of knowing that the only film/TV fare that matters to me will be preserved to the time I kick off.

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The best purchase I've made all year

The DVD play back is exceptional. I realize that upconverts aren't as good as real 1080p. But this is as close to blu ray as you can get without buying one. For the money I got everything I wanted. I haven't done any dubbing from my old vhs tapes to dvd yet but I'm looking forward to getting them done.

reviews: page 1, 2, 3

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