Customer Reviews

Toshiba D-R400 Tunerless 1080p Upconverting DivX Certified DVD Recorder

5 star:		(58)
4 star:		(22)
3 star:		(11)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

I looked around for about two weeks before I decided to buy this unit. I wanted to go with a Panasonic because I have always had good luck with the brand, but, after reading all of the reviews on Panasonics in this price range I decided to look at other brands. And I mean I looked at EVERYTHING. It seems that Panasonics have lots of problems reading DVDs burned by other machines. Every brand I looked at had some kind of problem except for this Toshiba. This is a very nice product...

I am impressed with the features/performance of this recorder for $140.00!!! For this small amount of money you get a DVD recorder that up-converts to 1080p. It's a steal! I have played many different DVDs burned by at least five different machines as well as computer DVD burners, and I have not had a single problem. In fact, I can now watch several DVDs that I couldn't watch on my old DVD player!

(Keep in mind that this is my first DVD recorder)
Something that surprised me in a good way... When writing to a DVD +R/+RW and -R/-RW if you select "Auto Finalize" this makes the DVD viewable on other machines. On a computer when you "finalize" or "close" the disc (DVD) you cannot write to it again. This is not the case with this recorder. With this Toshiba when you finalize after your recording you can still go back and record something else until the DVD is full. What this means is you don't waste a 'full' DVD on a 1/2 hour show. This is a GREAT feature. Another thing is that when you load the menu to select your recording, each recording (thumbnail) is showed on the screen. If you click on any of them you get a full video preview of what's recorded. Why is this cool? Let's say you record seven different shows but you can't remember what order you recorded them in, and, you want to watch a particular show. How are you going to find it? The menu lets you look at every recording so you can choose the one you want.

Things I like:

- Highly compatible with DVDs burned by other machines
I have not found a DVD I can't watch yet

- Very easy one touch recording
Hit the button and it does the rest

- Very easy menu creating (auto if you like) and editing
Let's you create and edit your own menus or let it do it for you

- Commercial skip 30, 60, 90, 120 seconds
Very nice for when you record TV shows, just hit the button and say good-bye to the commercials

- Pause live TV, Chasing Playback DVD -RW (go back to the beginning of the show you are watching while it's still recording)
Pretty cool feature for when you get a phone call and don't want to miss anything (just like a DVR)

- Auto finalize feature
Select this and it will finalize (close the disc) after everything you record

- Use the same DVD 1000 times DVD -RW, just format it and record away
You will NEVER use a VCR again

There is nothing I don't like... >;-)

Honestly, for the money, you could easily spend $140.00 for a DVD "player" with up-convert. With this unit you also get a DVD "recorder".

I definitely notice a big difference in quality from my old normal DVD player and this up-converting one. My 57" DLP HDTV showed how bad my old DVD player displayed an image. It was very pixelated. But this looks very nice coming through in 1080p. Since the image is up-converted it is not quite as good as the 1080i HD channels, but still looks much better than the old DVD. I have only recorded to a DVD once and it worked perfectly. I guess I thought I'd be recording more often. I love that it plays DivX files and I use that frequently. Complaints: I don't really care for the remote. It feels a bit awkward and too squarish. But that's not a big deal. The best input is S-Video, so when you record something that was on an HD channel it will not be as good of quality as the original. I don't know if this is the case on all DVD Recorders or not. And when you first put in a disc it spends about 30 seconds loading it befor it plays it. I guess this is because of the up-converting, I'm not sure. That's not a big deal, though, I guess.

I was looking for months for a product that is under $200 range, can upconvert to 1080p and record on DVDs. Toshiba D-R400 is the solution.
The product works great out of the box. I can definitely see the good upconversion quality but to be honest, I cannot tell much difference between 720p, 1080i and 1080p. All of them look almost the same on my 1080p LCD TV.

For those of you who do not know, please remember that you cannot expect the black bars above and below of the widescreen DVD movie to get removed using this upconverter. I was under the impression that an upconverter lets view the picture full screen but that is not true. Only Blue Ray/HD DVD will do that. But hey, still for $140, you get good quality upconversion using D-R400.
I tried recording on one of those cheap GQ DVD RW from Frys and it works fine. The disc preparation is fast enough and does not take forever as my old junk Lite-On DVD recorder used to. This DVD recorder did not complain for a particular branded DVD. The TV program recording was of very good quality.
I have a HD receiver and its HDMI input cannot be given to D-R400. You have to give an S Video or RCA input and record the program and when you are watching the replayed DVD, you see the upconvered quality at 1080p.
One disappointing thing is that there is no HDMI cable in the box. Circuit city and other retail stores sell those monster HDMI cable for $89. What a rip off! But you should be able to find a good HDMI cable under $10 on various sites.

Overall, I would say this is a great value for money!

I agree w/the reviews; this is a great recorder/player. Recording quality is great, menu feature is great (you can even name each title). Actual video editing is available if you use +R discs, which is awesome.

One unexpected feature: Hooking up your cable box to the player (which you'd have to do anyway to record TV) allows you to keep watching TV while the DVD loads. If you choose to take a break from the movie, hit stop and the cable comes back instead of a big DVD logo. Good for when a phone call goes a bit longer than expected; don't keep the family waiting!

However! DVD navigation is SLOW. Just loading a disc gets a progress bar, so having that TV-thru feature comes in handy. Menu to menu navigation is reminiscent of first-gen players. All the Toshiba players I've ever had fell short in the speed department, so no biggie.

Also, some Divx files play back jittery, usually those of higher bitrates (like two-disc movies). Most look superb however, and the menu shows full file names for the whole disc. Nice touch compared to other players out there that truncate the names.

Lastly, the thing weighs close to nothing, and anything you sit on top of it heavier than a DVD will most likely fall through its wafer-thin hood. If you have a stack of AV gear, this player goes on top.

None of these issues are a real big deal. I LOVE this thing. Just thought I'd mention the speed/durability in case you're looking for something for the road. If so, try the LiteOn LVW-5005; that thing's built like a tank.

I was looking for a DVD recorder mostly for my daily tv shows and so far I'm happy. The main diference with a VHS is not so much the quality (at least not for my type of recording) but on how practical it is ti access your recordings. They show up in chapters and you can acces them, name them ans edit them (get rid of the commercials for example) in a flash.

The upscaling is nice, but honestly, I can't see so much of a diference even using a HDMI cable. BTW, you can ONLY up convert if you use this type of cable, it's not possible otherwise; not even with component video cables.

Another good features is that it's DivX compatible, so you can save a bunch of .avi movies on a single DVD disc and play them on the big screen effortless; you can even include subtitles!

The only thing I don't like, is that for some strange reason it DOES NOT record Closed Captions. No matter what input or output you use, the CC get blocked once they enter de unit. I asked Toshiba and they couldn't help, if you can, please drop me a line. I'm aware is not a big thing for 99% of the viewers, but it is for me.

So there you have it, a great dvd recorder with nice features at a rip off price.

LM

I got one of these for Christmas and it's working great. I'd never had a DVD recorder before and thought it would be complicated to operate. But it was easy to learn. The instruction manual is very well laid out. If I need to do something I haven't done before, I read through the appropriate section of the manual and I'm good to go. Once you learn how it works everything is fairly intuitive. The hardest part was remembering what is on each menu. There are four different menus: "top menu" is for playing and editing disks. "Display" is for zoom, choosing the audio track, etc. "Setup" is for formatting and finalizing disks. If you put in a disk that isn't formatted, it formats it automatically, so I just use that for finalizing. "Timer Prog." is for setting the timer to record a show.

I've been using DVD+RW discs. I bought a box of 10 Sony discs and a spindle of 25 Memorex disks, and every one has worked just fine. I normally record in the 4 hour mode. I tried the 8 hour mode, but the picture quality was poor. In the 4 hour mode, picture quality is pretty much indistinguishable from the original TV broadcast, and you can fit two movies on a disk. I edit the commercials out of movies, it's time consuming but worth the effort. You go through the whole movie setting chapter stops at the beginning and end of each commercial break. This takes time as you have to fast forward through the movie, rewind to the beginning of the commercials, slo-mo to the precise beginning, set a chapter stop, repeat until you're done. Then you go through and "hide" all the chapters that contain commercials. Takes a good 15 minutes at least for a two hour movie.

I can play the disks recorded on this machine on my other DVD players just fine. You don't have to finalize them, however if you don't you won't get a menu screen and all the commercials you edit out will still be there. Finalizing solves all these problems. If you don't edit anything, you can finalize a disk in under a minute. If you edit all the commercials out, finalizing can take 30 - 45 minutes.

My only complaint is that I wish there were another input for RCA cables on the back. It comes with one set on the back and another in front. I use the one on the back for the TV input, so if I want to connect a VCR and transfer my VHS movies to DVD, I have to plug it into the front of this machine. Having cables hanging out of the front of my entertainment center looks kind of messy. The unit also gets fairly warm when recording. I had it behind a glass door in my entertainment center, but decided I better move it to an open shelf so the heat didn't build up.

Overall, I'm extremely pleased with this DVD recorder. It does everything it says it does, and I haven't had any problems.

The others: CD only: Phillips,JVC: CD/DVD LITEON
The upconversion and HDMI are only two reasons to like this recorder. I have yet to burn a "coaster" on this machine. The controls are straight forward, the tray opens and closes without the annoying delay of other units I've owned and there is nothing flimsy about the mechanism. I've recorded from mini dvd tape, Tivo and from other DVD's with excellent results. It will be a while before the dust settles (and the prices come down) in the HDDVD and Blu Ray world. This is a nice inexpensive way to fill the time before a smart choice in the HD recorder market arrives.

I'd like to put in a plug for the CD/DVD labeling program Discus here too.
You can make a very nice gift with the beautiful results, easily optained, using this program and a CD/DVD enabled printer.

I have waited so long to convert my Hi8 tapes to digital. I was wanting that special converter and always wasn't sure which one was the best. And, even if I did buy a converter, what will I do after all my 15 or so tapes are converted. This Toshiba D-R400 is a perfect solution. The price of slightly over $[...] is great for what you get - a DVD recorder as well as a DVD player that up converts.

First, the recorder part. You can record in XP, SP and other modes that gives you 1hr or 2hr or more of recording times respectively. My first video, that is about 13 years old, was put to test. I connected my camcorder's S-video output for the best video quality possible. Connecting is easy due to the front input panel. There are audio inputs in the front as well. Leaving every other frils aside, the quality of the DVD created was very good. I didn't really make out any difference between the video outputs from playing the camcorder directly on TV or playing the DVD created. Of course, I am not a professional. For me all that mattered was my then 5 month old son's cherised video still great to look at.

Since my 2-hour tapes had to be split into two DVD in the XP mode, next I recorded a tape in the SP mode to fit all the 2hrs onto 1 DVD. The quality of the video I saw was the same (to the untrained eye). Keep this in mind when you record a DVD from your old tapes.

The D-R400 has some editing features available. E.g., you can edit a title name, add chapters at frequent intervals, etc. But what you can do depends on the media type (DVD+R, -R, +RW, etc). There is a handy chart that lists out the capabilities for the different DVD types.

The user manual is one of the best I have seen so far. Setup was a breeze. No HDMI cables come with it, but getting HDMI cables is not an expensive option anymore.

The other part of the D-R400 is the DVD player itself. So far I was viewing my DVDs using component video on my 1080i TV. With the D-R400, with the HDMI connection, I thought the picture was sharper (again, an untrained eye looking). The remote reminds you of the bigger, thicker ones but doesn't bother me. There is no subtitles button the remote, which would have made it easier as I almost always have the sub-titles on.

Now, I can rest assured that my son's videos (now in digital) can be watched by my family years later. This D-R400 is one of the biggest bangs for the buck I have got in recent years!

This machine has been great so far! Had it for about a week, made two recordings and have had no problems! The machine so far has performed perfectly! Creating two DVD's that I've played on my MacBook Pro and on my Sony DVD player with no Glitches! The features are great with Title previews and remarkable edit features. I was going to buy a Panny recorder but read to many reviews where the DVD's couldn't be played on other machines. With the Toshiba absolutely no problems!

The other thing that is awesome is the 1080P upconverting! Absolutely stunning on my Samsung LNT4661F!!! Obviously it is not as good as a Blu-ray or HD DVD, but it's great enough for me to put off buying those other formats until the prices come down. But with this Toshiba I am very happy watching movies!!!

The drawbacks are: 1.The lack of HD quality. Recorded playbacks looks great on a regular CRT TV. But depending on your recording speed, just looks OK on your HDTV. HD recorders are up in the thousand range so this will have to do for now. But still this so much better than a VCR!

2. The other drawback is, there is no tuner. Neither NTSC or a ATSC. But that is OK since that isn't isn't necessary for me. Besides I've read that the tuners in the new recorders aren't very good...so better to wait for the new generations next year.

Otherwise for the price this is one awesome machine!!

I too searched around for a decent DVD recorder and settled on this one due to the reviews. I'm happy with the choice. I originally just wanted a DVD recorder so I could empty my DVR of recorded series.

It did exactly what it is supposed to do with little weirdness. Good enough.

Then I received a netflix disk that my main player couldn't read. The DR400 had no problem. It also plays other DVDs that my other players can't. So, I installed it as my main player.

The DVR and the DR400 both fed a video switch that automatically switched to the DVD player when it was turned on. The DVR was wired directly into the DR400 and into the video switch. Taking the TV output from the DR400 instead of the switch removed the switch from the system, kept all functionality, and added an up converter.

The DR400 has now replaced my other DVD player AND a video switch. So I have less wire clutter, fewer pieces of equipment, and up conversion too.

Not bad.