Customer Reviews

RCA DRC8052N DVD Recorder

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(16)

 

 

Bought this in March of '07 and 5 months later it wouldn't even power on. Regardless of what some reviewers might think it was not because of my stupidity but of the poor quality of the product. Customer service is incompetent and hard to understand. The service policy is to ship it back on your own dime and hope they have it in stock to send a replacement a few weeks later. You are rolling the dice if you buy one of these.

Bought this unit. It will not power up right out of the box. I would not suggest buying this item. I have read several other reviews stating the same thing. It appears this item has serious qaulity issues.

I had the exact same experience as one of the spotlight reviews: Cable reception is worthless, and so is the customer service.

I couldn't get it to recognize my cable signal any better than black and white and fuzzy. If I switched it to antenna instead of cable it would recognize channels 1-13 clearly, nothing above that. There's something wrong here, because I've never had a problem with any other device.

So I tried calling customer service since there was nothing addressing the problem in the user guide or the help website. After being on hold close to an hour I boxed it up and it's going back.

There are aspects I like about it, but without the basic functionality of cable reception it's useless.

Until now Sony was the only brand I wouldn't buy because of serious quality issues. Now I have to consider adding RCA.

For those of you that like it and it works for you, splendid! For those of us that are disappointed, it's not because we don't know any better, it's because it doesn't work.

I wasnt really looking for a DVD Recorder until I saw this product. What I wanted was an upconverting player. After spending $2000+ on a TV, I didnt want to spend another $500+ on an HD DVD player, at least not yet. That is when I saw this on sale at $99. I have never been a fan of RCA, reading different online reviews about different products. I never considered the brand for various MP3 players and other electronics stuff I bought. But seeing this model under $100 with HDMI cable included, I figured I should give it a shot.. After all there arent many upconverting DVD players that sell at that price (add another $20 for HDMI cable at amazon, $60 anywhere else).

It is a week now since I bought the unit. Here is what I found.

The good:
+ It comes with pretty much everything you need(in fact more than what you need) to hook it up to your TV (an HDMI cable, S-video cable and a composite AV cable)
+ Upconversion is good, much better than what I get from my progressive-scan Panasonic DVD Player over Component Video cable. I cant really compare against other upconverting players, because this is the only one I've used.
+ It looks nice, definitely not as cheap as it costs
+ It records quite well in different modes. Similar to good old VCRs it has LP/EP etc that lets you record upto 4 hrs on a DVD. I just tried DVD+R, but I plan to buy a couple of DVD RWs to reuse.
+ It has a AV, s-video and DV port at the front panel (but covered)

The bad:
- It takes a while to 'boot'. After you power it on, it takes some 20 seconds before it starts responding to the remote.
- The menus take a while to get adjusted to, but they have a lot of features as well.

The unknown:
* I have used it only for a week, so I dont know about the reliability yet
* I havent used the DivX play back yet

Overall I think it is a great bargain (Upconverting players sell $70+, DVD recorders sell at $70+, HDMI cable costs $20+ - why not pay $100 for this). The video quality is definitely better(may be not the best) than my Panasonic (480p output). Bonus is you can record DVDs too.

I will post my experience after a few weeks.

***Update
I experimented with the DivX playback as well, from CDs. It plays extremely well, the picture quality is as good as any other DivX player I have seen on display. After using (not abusing) it for about 4 months now, I think the player is quite reliable. I would recommend it, unless you have another couple hundred dollars to spend.

This is my 2nd RCA DVD Recorder in 2 months. The first had issues with overheating and a broken fan (that was model DRC8060N). I returned that to Amazon as defective. Then I picked up the model DRC8052N at a local retailer. There's no fan on the 8052N but it doesn't run as hot as the 8060N...they must be two different animals inside. It Seemed OK at first then I tried to play DVD-R discs I'd burned on my PC and they would not play. They play in every other DVD player I've got. Their burned fine and in spec but the DRC8052N thinks they're blanks. DVD+R and DVD+RW played/recorded fine. Since I have a large library and stockpile of DVD-R the DRC8052N is also being returned to place of purchase.

This recorder's power supply died and blew out my surge protector after 11 months. RCA would not repair it after that late date and asked me to send in $135.00 plus an estimated $16.95 UPS ground shipping fee as part of their exchange program. The customer representative was not aware of any service center in my area. I bought a new recorder for a lot less money, but have not repaired /scrapped this one for parts yet. The mono-tuner is pretty bad, so I did a Video-In in like the previous customers. The ability to play DIVX movies was great while it lasted.

As some others have stated, my player also lasted about six months before it died. Felt like it may have overheated. Sigh. Pretty shoddy workmanship.
As for those that had trouble setting the cable channels, it will find them AFTER you play a dvd (just start and then stop it is enough). If you try programming the channels first, all you will get will be mostly fuzzing, untuned channels. I found this out by trial and error. FYI.

Looks like RCA continues to put out junk for honest consumers. This thing died after 3 weeks. I took it back for a refund. Before it died it wouldn't recognize discs anymore. It amazes me the level of poor electronic engineering that goes into these things. The TV tuner has mono low fidelity sound ONLY! So if you expect to hear your favorite TV show with stereo hi-fi sound, you can forget about it. I guess RCA isn't aware that all TV shows are broadcast in stereo now. The picture quality of the tuner is awful. Its so bad that I had to use my old VCR as a tuner. I connected the output jacks of the VCR to the input jacks of recorder. Even the clock is bad, you have to reset it almost everyday because it its off 10 minutes. RCA stopped making their own stuff years ago, some company in China makes all their junk. Save yourself a bunch of headaches and avoid this junk. I give it 0 stars

We tried 2 of these and could not get the cable input to work properly. Just to be certain we connected the cable to one of our VCR's and did an autoscan and the it found every channel and the picture was excellent. We connected back to this DVD recorder and all we got were fuzzy and black and white channels. Same problem with replacement recorder. We called the service number and ended up with someone in Manila, Philippines who did not have a clue and didn't seem to care either. Final suggestion was to unplug the recorder, wait an hour and then try again. After this, we will not buy another RCA video player or recorder. We are going to try Panasonic.

I agree with those who say that this DVD recorder is great, but I agree more so with those who say that it's a peice of junk. When it decides to work it is great. The problem is it doesn't work just as much or more so than it does.

Sometimes it will recognize DVDs that IT recorded and Sometimes it wont.

Sometimes it will show the correct time and sometimes it wont.

Sometimes it will record according to the schedule and sometimes it wont.

Then when you call customer service you are on hold forever and finally someone anwswers who seems to have less knowledge of how the recorder should work than you do.

The last straw was I turned it on today and the screen said "HELLO" then it flashed the time "12:44" for 2 seconds then the screen began scrolling a series of dots and dashes. Maybe it's Morse code for "I'm Dead". But as soon as I find my receipt I will be shipping this piece of junk back to the manufacturer!!!