Coby DVD-R1280 5.1 Channel DVD Recorder with 80 GB HDD & Progressive Scan

by Coby

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 17 x 12 x 3 inches ; 10 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 14 pounds
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• Shipping Advisory: This item must be shipped separately from other items in your order. Additional shipping charges will not apply.
• ASIN: B000BJ29NG
• Item model number: DVD-R1280
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #85,200 in Electronics (See Top 100 in Electronics)

Product Description

5.1 Channel Digital DVD Recorder/Player

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A unfriendly digital VCR. No more. No less., January 4, 2007

By 

NY Gadget Guy (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Coby DVD-R1280 5.1 Channel DVD Recorder with 80 GB HDD & Progressive Scan (Electronics)

I used to record shows off the WinTV card in my PC. But every so often, something stop working properly (sound out of sync, filter graph doesn't initialize, screen saver messing up the recording, etc). My wife would be particularly upset if this meant she missed an episode of her favorite series on community cable. So, I figured a dedicated "appliance" would be more stable.

I have an Archos AV420 which can record from TV, but it can only schedule programs in a one-off fashion, which got annoying after a while.

The "Ships in Original Packaging" in the description made me think that it would arrive without an outer Amazon box. But it arrived quickly and the manufacturer's box was inside an Amazon box. However, when I unpacked the product, the clear plastic over the LED display was scratched. This, in spite of the inner box being taped closed with "Coby" tape and a Coby "Quality Assurance" seal. So it doesn't look super-spiffy in my living room.

The remote is not illuminated, so it's hard to make out the tiny labels for the grid of similarly-shaped buttons in low light. Comes with one DVD+RW in the box.

The UI is horribly modal. The "title" button shows the DVD title menu in DVD mode, but the list of saved programs in HDD mode. But if you don't have any programs recorded yet, nothing seems to happen when you press "title". It would have been friendlier to go to the program list screen, even if it were empty.

Similarly, if the unit's in DVD mode, but there's no recordable media in the tray, it'll flash a "No" icon (circle with slash) when you press the record button. It should display a message saying something about putting in recordable media or switching to HDD mode...

If you've had a TiVo or ReplyTV, the primitiveness of the DVD-R1280 will confuse you for a bit. Like a VCR, it can only do scheduled recordings when the unit powered off. If the unit is on when a scheduled recording is coming due, it will display a message so you can turn it "off". But if you just turn off your TV and forget to power off the unit, your programs won't get recorded. That also means that you can neither watch a different show nor the currently recording show from a different time point while recording--something that TiVo and ReplayTV do quite nicely.

Recordings are scheduled like a VCR where you enter the days/times for your shows. No fancy program guide. But no fees either. No support for VCR+.

The unit can write chapter markers at 5, 10, and 15 minute intervals for recorded DVDs. But the chapter skip button doesn't seem to do anything for programs on the HDD.

Although the unit isn't offensively noisy, it does make noise. Not much louder than the ReplayTV. When powered "off" the unit is silent. So this is an advantage in some ways.

Since these kinds of devices will be obsolete in 2009 when Digital TV is forced upon everyone, I'm reluctant to buy a high-end unit. My scheduling needs are simple, so I don't want to pay monthly fees for a program guide to run a TiVo or ReplayTV.

There's a bit of signal noise on some of the community channels which causes distracting artifacts to show up on anything lower than HQ mode. So the 80GB unit is only good for 20 hours of programming for me. If your signal is cleaner, you might be able to use a lower bit rate. There's a format HDD option in the setup screen. So you could easily increase the capacity if you're handy with a screwdriver. (Much less work than upgrading a ReplayTV or TiVo, since that requires copying the Operating System off the old drive onto the new one by hooking the drives to your PC and Linux-based tools off the Internet.)

So the unit works. I don't love it. I don't hate it. If you can spend more, then I'd recommend looking elsewhere. If you just want to spend the minimum, I guess the DVD-R1280 is ok. If the AV420 had better scheduling capability, maybe I wouldn't have bothered with the DVD-R1280 at all.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Works fine; poor user interface, March 1, 2007

By 

Marty (McLean, VA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Coby DVD-R1280 5.1 Channel DVD Recorder with 80 GB HDD & Progressive Scan (Electronics)

The unit works fine and offers a wide range of capability, good capacity and accepts lots of different inputs. The user interface and controls are very poorly done. The unit remembers nothing so you have to keep track of where you are in a program that isn't fully viewed in one sitting. Frequently used functions are buried so that several entries are needed to program, play, fast forward and what have you. The controller is of poor quality and I fear won't last long. Otherwise, seems a fine unit but the poor interface would have prevented me from buying it if I had known of it in advance.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good price and surprisingly good performance, January 21, 2007

By 

Buddha Mountain "Foshan" (New Jersey, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Coby DVD-R1280 5.1 Channel DVD Recorder with 80 GB HDD & Progressive Scan (Electronics)

This is the review of the seond Coby since the first one had no audio output that was needed to return back to Amazon for a replacement. Thanks for Amazon fast shipping service. Before placing the order, I was unable to make the decision since Coby is not a popular brand name like Sony or Toshiba. When I received the unit in Nov 2006 up to now Jan 2007, surprisingly I don't have any problem at all. The hard drive works great for recording any Satellite TV programs except it only offers timer recording. DVD recording seems okay because I use HD recording most of the time. So far disadvantages are this unit is not region free and sometimes it can't play VCD movies. But for a DVD recorder having a 80G HD under $200 is a good choice in the market.