Customer Reviews
Compared to Samsung 357 It's a HUGE DOWNGRADE 
2008-06-27
If I didn't own the earlier model Samsung 357 it would be a 3-4* item based on the other combos I have had (LG/SONY/TOSHIBA). However,I fell in love with the 357 & have been unable to find it for its previous price-this was released & the 357 went up in price $50-100. So I bought this one. These combos die too fast to spend more than $150. I use an HDMI cord/to an LG HDTV/run thru a Samsung Dual tuner DTV satellite DVR. Viewing quality is excellent-recording is another story.
CON (Compared to 357)
*The LP recording is equal to EP quality on the 357 - very poor-blurry for any text on the screen-so if you are keeping DVDs for long term quality recordings you are forced to use more discs since you have half the time per disc.
*it loads slower
*it is extremely loud, when loading it wooshes/stops/ whooshes/stops & whooshes again. The whooshing actually woke up my husband the first few nights I used it.
*Everything you do to a disc viewing menus, loading, removing,etc. everything causes a square to pop up while it registers the information. 357 is a quiet quick load and unload, no time between menus etc.
*When you delete the 1st title on +RW disc, you don't gain the time back-on 357 (and every other +RW recroder I've tried)you can re-record another show in that time frame without deleting the following titles
*When you record on a 4x +RW disc, it reads as dirty when you try to play in any other machine (except for 1 of my 2 phillips players) any higher speed is fine
*You have to go to the menu & then the information pg to find out how much time is remaining on a disc-on 357 you press a button on remote & it shows what record mode you are in & time remaining for each mode.
PRO (compared to 357)
*Much cheaper now that 357 price was raised
*finalizes faster
*It auto formats a blank disc(357 requires going through menu)
*has more settings LSP/SPP/ESP etc. in addition to SP/LP/EP of the 357
*Dividing and editing on +RW is much faster-so slow on 357, I stopped editing out commercials-this is very fast-but not instant like on an LG
*records everything from my DVR to disc, no copyright problems that rquire you to qatch a show or movie right away(357 has no copyright problems either but its something you should know before buying a combo-many are so sensitive you can't record a soap opera.
For anyone who hasn't had the pleasure of using the 357, you'll like it just fine. But the downgrade in quality from the 357 is heartbreakingly obvious and a huge dissappointment - but admittedly better than anything else in the price range.I just hope it doesn't die as fast as the 357-about 18 months-2 years of heavy recording. Perhaps that's why they made a lower quality version-to make it last longer.
Takes time to learn to operate 
2008-06-26
For a "simple" machine, I found it a little complicated. The directions in the manual are not helpful. In fact, the manual lost me within a few pages. At first I thought I made a mistake buying this machine, but I am finally achieving some mastery over how to operate it. I had to call Samsung technical support twice, but the product works as promised and I am now copying my home VHS tapes to DVD. One negative is that the font on the front of the machine is really hard to read (it is small and pales against the shiny blackness of the device). The font on the remote is even smaller.
See my review for the DVD-VR357...this was even worse! 
2008-06-22
This was another replacement option I considered when trying to replace my lemon Samsung DVD-VR357 (see my review for that for the full horror story). I figured since this was the same brand and a newer model, at least it would play the discs I recorded on it, and hopefully they had worked some of the kinks out.
Nope. Not only did it not play the DVD-RWs from the VR-357 any better than any of the other machines (in other words, they started stuttering the further you played them on here too), but this machine was even worse! While, to be fair, they did add more recording speeds than the old model, they also deleted some of its most convenient features (selecting a specific start and end point for VCR to DVD dubbing, for example), and this thing could not even make ONE decent recording without flaws! Went back to Circuit City immediately.
Again, I cannot recommend a DVD recorder with a hard drive option, like the Philips DVDR3575H/37 I eventually settled on, over a DVD/VCR combo like this enough. Much more flexibility and editing the titles on the hard drive, then burning them to a regular DVD-R, means the finished discs will not give you compatibility nightmares!
Recorder 
2008-06-22
This recorder is exactly what I wanted....to record my VHS tapes to DVD....works very well....many thanks!!!!
Great player but still learning how to record 2008-06-21
This is a great player and the few things I've recorded off VCR tapes are better quailty than the tapes recorder from. I don't quite understand this, but it did seem too take quite a bit of noise out.
The most problems I've had are with trying to figure out what will copy and what will not. Some movies I've recorded from the TV will not transfer to DVD because of "restriction" laws. These were movies I had recordered on my older Samsung DVD player and VCR recorder. Is the problem due to new Advance technology? Still trying various ways of recording and when it does work, the quaility is superb.
Finally got one that worked 
2008-07-19
I read reviews of several different styles of DVD-Rs before trying this one. It seemed to do everything I wanted it to. After getting my first unit I hooked it up that afternoon and was very disappointed. There was no picture. It just blinked "loading" on the front display. When I finally got the DVD drawer to open it held onto my DVD for two days. I talked to Samsung during which the drawer opened for a second time and I retrieved my DVD. Samsung did take the unit back for "repairs" and kept it for one week before I was notified that there was a delay in recieving the parts. After two weeks of waiting, I called and they said that they would send me a new unit. I called two days later to talk to the exchange dept.(as instructed by the repair dept.)and was then told that it would be 7-10 days before my new unit was even shipped. The good thing about the whole story is that I was happily suprised by a new unit arriving two days later. I installed it last night and so far it has done everything it is supposed to.
The only other thing is that our TV is a Sylvania and the remote will not control the TV and it has been very difficult in trying to get the remote to control our cable box. There is an IR cable for the remote that I guess I haven't figured out how to hook up correctly.
Never Buy from this company 2008-07-18
Yet again, I end up with a Samsung product that fails to be worth half the money that I was charged for it.
My biggest complaint is that I only got this in late March, and this cheaply built, pathetic excuse of a machien is on the fritz, saying, "Cannot read disk" when I not only put in the same kind of recordable disks that I used before, but also ones that I recorded on earlier in the day.
To be honest, One Star is far more generosity than Samsung deserves.
Excellent conversion tool for VHS to DVD and DVR to DVD 2008-07-10
I purchased this item primarily to copy from my DVR to DVD. It works well for that. I also recommended it to my brother for converting old family VHS tapes to DVD and it is working well for that as well. It is much easier than copying the old VHS tapes to the computer and then burning DVDs. The DVDs have also been playable in all of my DVD players which is a plus.
Nice up-Scaling 2008-07-03
Plays older DVD's perfectly. Only problem I have is playing older VHS tapes ( recorded in the early 80's ) I get alot of stuttering. I understand that this is a common problem with the newer VCR's. So I still need to hook up an older player to copy to DVD,not to happy about that hence the 4 stars.
Nice equipmet! 2008-07-01
Originally seen this at WalMart, but they were out of stock on them and I would have had to wait 4 to six weeks for one to come in. Went to Amazon and got the item in less than five days at a better price. I am real happy with the unit and it does make a difference in standard DVD's.
