Customer Reviews

Samsung DVD-R130 DVD Recorder

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(19)

 

 

I was attracted to the Samsung R130 by the price and sold on the name. It's a name-brand machine that's being sold at the price of a no-name import, and I think the Samsung name gives it the promise of being reliable for as long as I want to keep it. I have a three-year-old JVC DVD player which I love, but it doesn't record. (Why not a JVC recorder? I would have in a heartbeat, but JVC doesn't make one in this price range.) Also, I absolutely love the slim line and the color. The Samsung's finish is classy and is either black or very dark gray depending on how the light hits it. I love it because it matches the rest of my simple set up, a JVC TV with rabbit ears, my DVD player, and a Panasonic VHS recorder, all of which are black. Most DVD recorders I've seen are very bulky, but the Samsung is only a hair taller than my JVC NBK50 player and an inch less deep. I do think its interface isn't as "friendly" as the JVC's, meaning there's no "hello" when you turn it on, and there's no comforting and adjustable blue light, but the starkness of it isn't something I can't live with.

It must be told that the Samsung has a HORRIBLE remote control that cannot control your television set. I found myself juggling remotes, which I hate passionately. Recording isn't that difficult once you figure out where all the damn buttons are, in fact the chapter selection is really neat. When you use DVD-R discs, you cannot edit so much. You can rename the disc and delete chapters, that's it. Therefore, I'm now looking for a good universal unit to control all my devices with.

Setting up was fairly easy, although I found out that there is an important difference between how a VCR connects to TV and how the Samsung connects. My VCR had only the two antenna connections and could transmit sound and picture to the TV. The Samsung won't do that; in fact the manual says audio and video output must be used. I wondered why this has to be, given both DVD recorder and VCR have tuners. At any rate, because of the need for an audio/video cable, the picture is as beautiful as that from my JVC player, and the sound is actually richer. I've lost my connection to my dvd player, though, because I had to transfer the Monster cable from the JVC to the Samsung.

Cable users should note that the manual has the cable box between the recorder and the TV if there are few scrambled channels, and between the cable box and the TV if there are many scrambled channels. In either case, it says you can't watch something else while recording through the cable box. Since I don't have cable, I don't have that problem.

Making recordings, at least, is very similar to working a VCR, but with a few quirks even so. It takes 15 seconds to load the disc, which is not interminable, but definitely must be planned for especially when doing timed recordings. I also noticed that sometimes if you delete a title or chapter, it doesn't register unless you first open the drawer and close it again so it can update the information. It also doesn't like for you to name a DVD before you've recorded on it, and if you use DVD-R like I do sometimes it doesn't understand that even after erasing everything on the disc, there's nothing on it anymore, and it tells you there's no more free space. So, if you've never done DVD recording before, be prepared to sacrifice a few DVDs in the process of learning. Buy a spindle of quality discs; I use Taiyo-Yuden.

Dubbing my non-commercial VHS tapes has been fairly straightforward. I find the two-hour setting, SP, the cleanest. I found the sound and picture transferred reasonably well, with no out-of-synch issues that I noticed so far. For off-the-air recording, say, 4 days worth of Oprah, LP is the best setting, although you lose some clarity in the picture. I would not record anything above LP unless it's the news or something where picture quality isn't that important.

Feature-wise, the R130 is really neat! After recording a couple snippets from the TV channels you go to menu, and there it plays a little preview of each chapter. You can set it to commercial skip, and set how much you want to skip, and I set mine to 30 seconds. I found the Samsung tends to run hot, so I put coasters between it and my VCR so that it can get plenty of ventilation.

I've only had the machine three weeks as of this writing, so I can't speak to longevity or reputation. I'm not one of those people who buys a lot of things, burns some stuff, then takes it back to the dealer or sells it, so I can't say there's anything better out there for my purposes. I don't see myself completely doing without my VCR, but I do see myself buying less tape than normal, and since I'm decluttering, that's a good thing.

Confirming other customer reviews, finalized DVD-R discs recorded on this unit will not play on other DVD players. I recorded and finalized several DVD-R discs on this unit. Although I was successful in getting them to play on my PC, I has no success playing them on any other DVD player. Check the customer reviews on the Circuit City web site for this unit. Per one review dated 6/12/06, "Recordings will not play properly on other DVD players. Confirmed this is the case (and no fix) with Samsung tech support."

I also experienced a problem with the timer recording feature. If you set up several programs to record, the unit will record the first one and then power off. Even though the manual states that "When the start time is reached while the unit is powered off, the unit will automatically power on and start recording" my unit never woke up again to record the other programs. So if you plan on scheduling multiple programs to record, either plan on sticking around to power up the unit after each recording, or avoid this unit!

I have had this machine for several months now and I have to say that I'm fairly satisfied. It performs pretty much as expected and the quality of recordings is very good - both from TV and VHS. The only negatives (and reason for 4/5 rating) I have with the product is the fact that it doesn't play VCDs and it sometimes hangs if you press a number of buttons in succession or touch a button while it is initially trying to read a disk. The remote is not much worse than any others I have used - just have to get used to the button placements and functions. I have always used DVD-R/RW disks since they have historically been the most compatible so that was not an issue.

All the negative comments about players not recognizing the disks might be due to three things:

1. Make sure the disk is finalized properly in the Setup Menu, this allows other players to understand the information written on the disk.

2. Most new DVD Recorders seem to format disks as DVD-VR by default. This is great if you're planning to do some minor editing of the footage on the DVD Recorder. If you want the disks to be more universal, reformat the disk to the DVD-V mode BEFORE YOU START RECORDING (if you do it after it wipes whatever you already have), but you loose the ability to edit the shows (eg. take out commercials) unless you transfer the footage onto an editing program on your PC.

3. DVD-VR disks are hard to read on older DVD players (both standalone and PC). I had to buy a new Samsung Double Layer DVD-Burner for my computer so that I can transfer multiple recordings from DVD-VR disks. I could not do it with an older NEC Single Layer DVD-Burner, I could only import the first recorded show, and WinDVD would only play the last recorded show! The newer DVD-Burners should state in the specification that that they read multi-session disks which is what DVD-VR allows you to do.

So before giving up on this machine, try formating disks in the DVD-V mode, and make sure you finalize the disk using the Setup menu before playing it on other machines.

I tried four separate recordings to the Samsung-specified DVD-R media, and each yielded the same result: the DVD plays fine ont he Samsung unit, but will not play properly on any other player if you try to fast forward, skip chapters, etc. The playback skips frames and the audio drops out entirely.

I tried to play my Samsung-recorded DVDs on a 5-year-old Panasonic player, a 1-year-old Toshiba player, and my 2-year-old Mac G4 laptop. Same problem each time.

I made several calls to Samsung tech support, but they were dumbfounded, and only suggested I replace the unit. I did. The replacement unit had the same trouble.

I'd been thinking about buying a DVD recorder for a while but almost all recorders had bad reviews until I saw this one. The reviews looked good so I decided to give it a try. And I was, and still am, definitely happy about my choice.

It took me only a few minutes to set up this recorder (the usual cables and set the clock). I was able to immediately record a TV show without a problem. The images were DVD quality if you set it to SP (2 hours of recording per DVD). With LP (4 hours per DVD), the quantity suffered to slightly better than VHS but still quite good. It also has a feature that will set the speed automatically based on the amount of space left in the DVD. The interface to set up timed recording was quite easy and intuitive.

I also transferred over 20 hours of 8mm home movies to DVD. Again I encountered no problem at all. In fact I have yet had a bad CD or recording or timer not working. Everything is working just as it should. I couldn't be happier.

I do have a few gripes about the remote and the caption. Remote is not universal and the buttons are many, though no more than others. It seems to have problem record the captions in each show. If you try to use TV caption (not the caption feature on DVD player) on the recorded shows, the caption will only show sporadically. The finalized DVD from the recorder also does not show the chapters correctly in my JVC DVD player. It's not a big deal for me but might be for some of you.

This is the second recorder I purchased in what I thought would be an easy quest. After reading reviews and doing lots of research, I purchased a Panasonic recorder. Big mistake. The tuner quality was poor which translated into poor quality discs. Returned it and bought the R130. It saved me some dollars but had less features.

In particular, it can only write to -R/RW media. The Panasonic could write to +R/RW/RAM media as well. No big deal though. Sometimes the R130 takes a long time to finalize whereas the Panasonic was much quicker. Again, no big deal.

I must say the picture quality was far better for the R130. The tuner worked well and the disks were of much better visual quality. But now for the bad part, very very bad.

The disks the R130 creates can only be read reliably on itself. I tried multiple brands of disks but that is not the problem. The problem is with the format of the disk. In my tests, I created a DVD with 4 tv episodes. The R130 creates a title menu for each episode. This works fine when played on itself.

The disk though won't play properly on my Sony DVD player. When you insert the disk, it skips the menu and goes right to the first episode. If you bring up the disk and try and play any other episode, the player gives you an error. I tried creating multiple disks on the R130 and the results were always the same.

Next I tried to play my test disks on my desktop. I have two players, Plextor & Benq and both WinDVD and PowerDVD players. Sometimes the disk would hang the drive (either one). When I got a disk that wouldn read, using either Windvd or PowerDvd on any player, the DVD would start playing and skip the menu. With WinDVD, I was usually able to access the menu and use it to select episodes. With PowerDVD if I was able to get to menu, it would get stuck there. I was not able to select any episode nor go back to play.

Not being able to play the R130 disks elsewhere was a major flaw of this player. The price was great and the disc quality when played on itself was great so if thats all you need maybe this player is ok for you. I wound up replacing it with the Sony GX330. This player does what I would expect and creates high quality discs that are compatible! You get what you pay for.

HAVE THIS RECORDER SINCE CHRISTMAS HAD ALL KINDS OF PROBLEMS WITH RECORDING, FREEZING UP,RECORDING THEN NOT PLAYING BACK,HAVING TO UNPLUG UNIT SIX TIMES IN ONE MONTH.BUT LAST WEEK I CALLED SAMSUNG AND TALKED TO SOMEONE WHO ACTUALY NEW SOMETHING ABOUT THIS UNIT, AND IS EVERYONE WHO OWNS THIS UNIT READY.TO FIX ALMOST EVERY PROBLEM GO TO THE PLAYER AND PRESS AND HOLD THE CHANNEL UP AND DOWN BUTTONS AT THE SAME TIME UNTIL ON SCREEN DISPLAY SAYS UNIT HAS BEEN RESET.DO THIS WITH NO DISC IN THE MACHINE.I HAVE HAD NO PROBLEMS SINCE.NO WHERE IN THE MANUEL IS THERE ANYTHING ABOUT THIS.GOOD LUCK WITH YOURS.

I was skeptical given the half/half reviews so I bought this product at a store instead of online. I used -R disc since I believe most DVD players can play -R better than other disc. This is good since I share most of my disc with my relatives that are out of town. I did not care of the machine can write +R or not. I recorded my first disc the evening I set it up. The setup was easy and I was recording within 20 minutes. The quality was as good as I expect DVD quality. I used the 2 hour SP mode. The only thing that you really need to do after recording is to "finalize" it so that the disc can be played by other DVD players. After that , the disc played in my other Cyberhome DVD player as well as on my laptop. Good experience overall. The only complaint was that I wanted to use the RC cable as output but it did not allow it. I had to use the RCA (Tri-color cables) to connect to my TV.

The Tech Support told me that they cannot guarantee that it works on other DVD player. I tried Sony, Panasonic, DVD player in my notebook, Apex. None of them can play the DVD.

I give it a ratings of 1 since it's a good player.

This unit is a real clunker. Right out of the box it had audio synch problems where the sound was not in synch with the picture. I sent unit out to a Samsung recommended repair shop and it took six weeks for unit to be fixed. When unit was returned it stll was not working. Samsung is stalling in sending out a shipping label so unit can be fixed a second time. The second time around I will probably have to wait another six weeks for unit to be returned. So teach yourself a lesson and don't but this or any other Samsung product, their products and customer service are terrible.