Toshiba D-R5 Multi Drive DVD Recorder

by Toshiba

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 12 x 16.9 x 2.4 inches ; 7.7 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 12 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• Shipping Advisory: This item must be shipped separately from other items in your order. Additional shipping charges will not apply.
• ASIN: B000ELG8PG
• Item model number: D-R5
• Batteries: 2 AAA batteries required. (included)
• Average Customer Review: 2.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #96,533 in Electronics (See Top 100 in Electronics)

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

DVD players are preferred over VCRs because of their ease of use and their quick access to content without fast-forwarding or rewinding. Still, many who have left VHS behind miss the ability to record their favorite content. With the Toshiba D-R5, you get all of the recording versatility of a high-end VCR and the convenience of a progressive-scan DVD player. It even delivers some of the best functions of a DVR.

Multi-Drive Playback and Recording
The D-R5 is designed to record and play back video using DVD-RAM, DVD-R, or DVD-RW recordable discs formats. The DVD-RAM disc, due to its flexibility when recording, offers the best value when using the time-shifting functions of this recorder, such as timer record, chase play and instant replay. DVD-R is a disc type to which content can only be written once, but it is also the most widely accepted format by other players, so it's ideal for recording and sharing home movies. The DVD-RW format generally fits between them in that it's more widely accepted by players than DVD-RAM though not as easily rewritten.

The D-R5 provides a range of recording options. It lists five recording modes with trade-offs between time capacity and video quality. It has an auto title/chapter/thumbnail creation feature, but you can create your own titles with the help of an on-screen keyboard. Front panel composite and S-video input ports make it easy to record straight from a variety of other video sources, such as a camcorder.

HDMI Compatible
High-Definition Multi-media Interface (HDMI) is an interface format that provides uncompressed digital audio and video directly to a digital television. It represents the current state of the art in high-definition video and sound because the information never has to be converted into an analog format. Another benefit of HDMI is that it puts all that information into one cable and one easy-to-use connector.

An added benefit of connecting the D-R5 to your television with HDMI is that the unit can "upscale" commercial DVDs, which are rendered at 480p resolution, to a digitally interpolated 720p resolution, which makes for a much sharper picture. Also, the unit's built-in MPEG decoder is able to display your JPEG files at higher resolution when connected HDMI display.

Lacking an HDMI connection, however, the D-R5 offers 10-bit digital-to-analog video conversion at 54 MHz and ColorStream Pro component video output for a clear image. This player is also DivX Home Theater Certified, which means it display popular Internet video formats that have been burned onto a CD, such as DivX, AVI, and MPEG4.

Audio
For home theater audio hookups, the unit provides optical Dolby Digital and dts surround sound output 24-bit analog conversion at 192kHz. The D-R5 also plays MP3 and WMA files recorded to compatible disc media.

Product Description

MULTI DRIVE DVD RECORDER

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not bad, July 23, 2006

By 

Markus Keller (Texas) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Toshiba D-R5 Multi Drive DVD Recorder (Electronics)

I was looking for something to work instead of a Tivo. With DVD-RAM disks, this gets close. But it doesn't have an on-screen program guide (best buy's website is wrong in this regard). The TimeSlip feature lets you watch the already-recorded part of the currently recording show--you can't watch any other shows that have already been recorded. The feature also limits you to watch at least thirty seconds behind realtime, no closer.

Please note, that if you're trying to schedule recordings, you can't watch anything except what's currently being recorded. So if you schedule two programs on different channels for 6:00 and 6:30, and you want to start watching the first program at 6:20, you'll get about halfway through the first program before the second program starts to record, and it will force you to stop watching the first and start watching the second. This misfeature is going to make me return the unit for something more capable.

The unit is also rather slow and choppy while fast-forwarding or rewinding while recording, making it tedious to use. I've had it for two days, and once it's frozen on me for about thirty seconds while skipping through chapters before continuing. Also, there is no easy way to activate the TimeSlip feature and go to the end of the currently recorded track. As soon as you activate timeslip, it takes you to the beginning of the track and you have to move forward chapter by chapter (automatically created at 5 minute marks) or fast forward. This is quite annoying.

There is a feature that lets you quickly put in which chapter to jump to without having to traverse the intermediate ones. It would be a really nice feature to use during TimeSlip, but for some reason you can't use it while using TimeSlip, and this makes using it to buffer live TV quite slow and tedious.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars D-R5 Toshiba, October 21, 2006

By 

Don- somewhat geeky - See all my reviews

This review is from: Toshiba D-R5 Multi Drive DVD Recorder (Electronics)

I always appreciate the people who take time to write reviews. It helps me decide what to buy.

I purchased two of these units. I've always recorded to VHS tapes. This is my first DVD recorder. Both units will record from TV cable. The first unit (let's call it U1) records OK except when I schedule a recording from 17:30 to 17:59, then 18:00 to 18:59 and then one for 20:00 to 21:00 on the same day, the unit will record the first 2 just fine then start recording at 18:00 and keep recording until the disk is full. Very annoying. The other unit (call it U2) works fine.

If you try to interrupt U1 during a recording session it will ignore you completely. You have to pull the power plug to finally get it to stop. U2 will politely ask if you want to interrupt the recording and then stop like a good machine should.

What I found interesting is you can record TV shows to the unit and then select an item called "finalize" and this will create all the data structures for a true dvd. Then this disk will play on any dvd.

Entering recording times and dates is somewhat awkward. I think this could have been designed better.

If you have an older TV which does not have separate audio inputs then you cannot play back the sound from this unit. I happen to have old TV's so I connect the D-R5 to an old VHS recorder and output the audio and video thru it.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Works well-- what's not to like?, December 2, 2006

By 

B. Geist (Michigan, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Toshiba D-R5 Multi Drive DVD Recorder (Electronics)

I purchased this unit after reading reviews of a close cousin to this recorder, its predecessor, which is apparently very picky about the specific -r, -rw or dvd ram disk you purchase for recording media. I've had no issues in this regard. I followed the purchase recommendations in the manual for blank media, and the recorder has worked well for me. Even when recording to 1-16 X DVD -R's, something I thought might cause a hick-up, I found no problem.

I have this unit hooked up to a Panasonic Plasma TV. I use it as the tuner for my non-high-def cable signal. I have an alternate input for a television antenna. This whole system plugs into a Bose surround sound home theater system. Since the DVD recordings cannot be in high def anyhow, using the Toshiba DVD recorder for a cable box works out well. Were it not for this DVD player, I'd have to reprogram the Panasonic HD tuner for cable stations when I wanted to switch from the high def antenna input to standard cable. (I don't want to pay for high def cable service, otherwise this would be an option as well.)

One issue I have run into, that was mystyifying at the time, is that if I have a disk ready to record in the dvd player, and I turn to the History channel here in Detroit, the copy protect mechanism in the DVD recorder messes up the reception. If I simply open the disk carrier, so that recording is impossible, the signal clears immediately. This is the only channel that I have this problem on. I believe there is some sort of digital protection on this particular cable channel that the Toshiba responds to by distorting the signal so it cannot be recorded.

I use this recorder to record many shows I like. Unfortunately, I cannot record the history channel shows, for reasons discussed above.

Other than this glitch, I really like this recorder. The image it produces for my 1080i plasma when playing DVDs is outstanding-- as good and maybe better than a much more expensive unit from Bose. The HDMI and optical output is nice to have, and the price is outstanding.