Toshiba D-R1 Progressive-Scan DVD Recorder/Player

by Toshiba

Product Details

• Item Weight: 15 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 14 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• 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: B0000AVBHF
• Item model number: DR1
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #240,185 in Electronics (See Top 100 in Electronics)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

The Toshiba D-R1 is not only a full-featured progressive-scan DVD player that handles DVDs, CDs, MP3 discs, and JPEG-filled recordable discs; it's also a DVD recorder equipped with VCR Plus+ for advance programming. The recorder can store up to eight hours of audio/video--whether broadcast programming or copies of your home movies to share with loved ones--on a 9.4 GB double-sided DVD-RAM disc and four hours on a write-once DVD-R or recordable DVD-RW.

The D-R1 offers the flexibility of recording on both DVD-RAM--perfect for instant chapter access and for multiple rerecordings--as well as DVD-R, the most widely compatible of the many DVD formats (great for sharing camcorder footage with loved ones). DVD-RW compatibility lets you erase and rewrite, though relatively few players and computer drives will play back DVD-RWs. DVD-RAM discs can be read, written, and erased more than 100,000 times.

When recording, the D-R1 captures the first video frame and displays it as the chapter mark. You can then designate chapter marks with custom screen captures or thumbnail images of your choice. The D-R1 also lets you generate and save custom playlists using any title and chapter. Each list of desired footage can be separately titled and edited (for removal of, say, commercials) and then seamlessly played back.

Time Slip lets you use this DVD recorder like a personal video recorder, or PVR. Because of DVD-RAM's fast transfer rate, you can view the recorded portion of an ongoing program from the beginning, while still recording the show in progress.

The D-R1 features a 181-channel cable-compatible tuner and two-month, 32-event programming. Input your own program data or take advantage of built-in Gemstar VCR Plus+ technology for simplified programming. Battery backup retains programming data during power outages, and XDS auto clock set ensures that the recorder will never blink 12:00. In addition to recording new video content, the D-R1 lets you transfer and even enhance favorite video recordings to durable, space-saving discs--a terrific way to archive, preserve, and access your movies and family videos. A convenient front-panel IEEE-1394 input is perfect for direct digital transfers of miniDV camcorder footage.

For superlative playback, the D-R1 is equipped with a 10-bit/54 MHz video digital-to-analog converter capable of great color purity and detail. When connected to a high-definition or HD-ready television through its ColorStream Pro component-video outputs, the D-R1 delivers Toshiba's Digital Cinema Progressive picture. Progressive scanning, referred to as 480p for the number of horizontal lines that compose the video image, creates a picture using twice the scan lines of a conventional DVD picture, providing higher resolution and sharper images while eliminating nearly all motion artifacts.

The D-R1 also performs 3:2 pulldown. DVD mastering introduces a common distortion when adjusting 24 frames-per-second movies to 30 fps video; 3:2 pulldown digitally corrects this distortion, removing the redundant information to display a film-frame-accurate picture. The deck's abundant connections include multiple composite- and S-video inputs and outputs, stereo analog (left/right) inputs and outputs (with a choice, on the audio input, of uncompressed PCM or Dolby Digital 2.0 encoding to conserve disc space), and a pair of digital-audio outputs (one coaxial, one optical) for use with a compatible digital surround receiver.

EAM (Enhanced Audio Mode) offers three audio-enhancements: "normal" mode equalizes regular digital-audio signals; "3-D" provides virtual surround sound through Spatializer N-2-2 circuitry; and "Dialogue" enhances the center-channel frequencies when you're playing Dolby Digital-encoded discs via the D-R1's analog audio outputs.

What's in the Box
DVD player/recorder, remote control, remote batteries, user's manual, stereo analog audio interconnect/composite-video cable, and a RF coaxial video cable.

Product Description

DVD RECORDER

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great DVD-Recorder, if you're patient., April 4, 2004

By 

Michael C. Cipriano "suplex2000" (Freehold, New Jersey United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Toshiba D-R1 Progressive-Scan DVD Recorder/Player (Electronics)

This DVD-Recorder happens to work very well. I know a few people have reviewed it and said that if they can get it to work, it works for a few minutes and then stops, but there is something they are not doing right...waiting.

You simply can not use this DVD-Recorder just like you would a VCR, where you can turn it on, and then immediately start recording something. I'll tell you how I figured that out. One time I set it to record a show that started at 9:00pm, so I put in a DVD-R and turned the power off. Well at exactly 8:50pm the unit turned on (at first I thought I did something wrong, but I didn't) and you could see the Zeros for the counter on the front of the unit (00:00.00). Then at exactly 9:00pm they started to count up to indicate that it was recording. Bottom line is that the Toshiba DR-1 needs about 10 minutes to warm up before it records something, otherwise...if you record right away...then you will get the problems that people have talked about. Once I learned to be patient and turn the unit on in advance (like if I am going to copy a VHS tape to DVD) I never had a problem with it again.

Oh and by the way, I have used VERY cheap DVD-R's like "Princo", "Ritek", "Optodisc", & "Dup-EZ" (mostly Princo) and they all work fine. Only thing is you should really go with what the manufacturer recommends for DVD-Ram, that being: Panasonic LM-AB120U (for 4.7gb single sided), and Panasonic LM-AD240U (for 9.4gb double sided).

There is one thing I am not crazy about, but I think that it happens to be this way with any DVD-Recorder. You can't do any editing (like cutting out commercials) if you use DVD-R, or DVD-RW (DVD-Ram only). You also can't edit if you are dubbing, like if you are recording from a VHS tape that has commercials in it and you want to pause them out while you make the DVD. It just doesn't work for some reason. But if you are recording a show on TV through the DVD-Recorders tuner, then "pause" will work just fine. I wish you could edit a little better, but I have learned to deal with it.

Lastly the "Timeslip" feature is just amazing (this too only works with DVD-Ram Discs). Let's just put it this way, if you are recording a show that is on from 3:00pm to 4:00pm and you get home early at 3:30pm, you can watch the very DVD-Ram disc that is currently recording from its 3:00pm start time and it will still finish the recording until 4:00pm. If that was a VCR you would either have to watch from 3:30 to 4:00, then at 4:00 rewind and watch the first half hour, or you would just have to wait and watch it all at 4:00. With DVD-Ram technology, you can watch the same disc that is currently recording.

That is amazing, and if you just leave a DVD-Ram disc in the unit while you are watching TV, you can pause live TV and rewind it and even fast forward it up to the point where you initially paused it. Then you can finish watching the program whenever you want.

So just have a little patience and you will love this DVD-Recorder from Toshiba. I think it's the greatest.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Expensive but useless, February 19, 2004

By 

McBain "wgars1234" (Kirkland, WA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Toshiba D-R1 Progressive-Scan DVD Recorder/Player (Electronics)

1. RF out does not work. Had to connect TV to S-video.
2. It would record for a while, then fail and render the blank DVD unusable.
3. If you leave the machine recording on a blank, when it reaches the end, instead of stopping, it renders the DVD unusable.
4. Machine crashed numerous times, necessitating pulling the plug out and putting it back in to get it back.
5. Finally got a short show recorded and finalized. It would not play on a Pioneer Elite DVD player, although DVD-R's created with a panasonic DVD recorder worked fine on the Pioneer.
6. I wish these DVD makers would add a PS/2 keyboard jack on the front, as their remotes are painfully impractical at inputting text.

I'm very disappointed. Box is headed back to the vendor tomorrow.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Giant disappointment, January 27, 2004

By 

cowboy "wskay" (Chandler, Arizona United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Toshiba D-R1 Progressive-Scan DVD Recorder/Player (Electronics)

Bought this unit with great expectations, but..
1. Bought expensive Memorex DVD-R's. First insertion recorder refused to recognize the disk.
2. Bought more expensive Fujifilm DVD-R's. Discs recognized by player but.. after <1min recording time the recorder shuts down and says recording failed, DVD might be dirty. Created three expensive coasters.
3. Tried another Memorex. It worked but picture stutters badly.
4. Supplied DVD-RAM. Works, but again picture stutters.
Unit was returned within 5 days.