Customer Reviews

Toshiba D-R550 1080p Upconverting Div-X Certified DVD Recorder with Built In Tuner

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

I bought my first D-R550 to replace a cheap DVD player. I wanted an ASTC tuner, and I wanted to record like a VCR. The product did what I asked of it, plus a little more. I've since purchased a second for another TV.

Pros:
: Nice looking - sleek and black
: VERY nice recordings
: No-problem setup
: ASTC high-def over-the-air tuner
: Works with my Phillips universal remote control (PMDVR8) - code is 690, if you need it. It's not in the Phillips manual
: Nice DVR-like feature allowing you to pause what you see while it continues recording the show

Cons:
: Took a couple of tries to find a DVD-RW that would work. Memorex didn't work, and neither did Verbatim. I ended up using Imation.
: Manual could definitely use some work. Can be challenging to locate what you want in there.
: I tried to watch a recording on another DVD player, but it wouldn't work. May have been the disk, though.
: Pet peeve - there is no button for switching between aspect ratios. There's a zoom feature when watching a disk, but not for live TV. You have to go into a menu for this.
Hey, Toshiba - not all of the shows are in 16:9...
: No channel buttons on the front of the device - only on the remote. This would be a nice feature.
: Does not include an HDMI cable

All told, definitely worth the money. -1 star because that missing aspect ratio button really ticks me off.

UPDATE 2009-11-21: Toshiba has replaced the (previously) bad link to the user manual on their support site, and you now can get the user manual there.

This unit works OK as a DVD burner. I use it as a DVR to watch shows as they are recorded so I can skip the commercials or record using the timer and watch them later. I wish it had a second tuner so I could record one show and watch another. But, the main reason I bought this unit was for the ATSC/QAM tuner. I have it connected to my projector so it was intended to be my main tuner. It is awful. Analog channels seem to work OK. It takes about 20 minutes to scan the extended cable channels. That would be OK if it the digital channels worked the next time I accessed them. After I scan the channels, I can use the up/down arrows to scroll through them. Several channels it finds are unused or encrypted so I see a blue screen. Digital channel changing is slow but acceptable. The problem is that the next time I scroll through the digital channels or enter the channel by number, they are gone. Blue screen on every channel I enter and it takes about 10 seconds to switch to the blue screen if the channel is missing. If I use the up/down arrows, it scrolls through the 3 aux inputs only. I can not recommend this unit at over $200.

7-24-07 I sent my unit in for repair and was told that it would be fixed in 3 days and sent back overnight. After the 3 day repair time was up they called and told me it could not be fixed so they will be sending me a new unit. Of course, it is going to take 7 to 10 business days to process the paperwork before they will even ship the new unit back to me. What a piece of junk. This will be the last Toshiba product I purchase.

8-15-07 They sent a new unit to me. Same problem. I called for more support and they told me the problem is the signal strength of my cable. They could not explain why I could rescan and the channel would be back. They also could not explain why I have other ATSC tuners that do not have problems finding and keeping the same channels. The person I talked to told me that they have sold over 10,000 of these and I am the only person complaining about it loosing channels. The funny thing is that my first unit had S/N 26 and the new one I just got had S/N 3037. Not sure haw you can reach 10,000 sold if they are only in the 3000's for S/N's! Piece of JUNK!

The built-in tuner didn't work properly and I had to return this to Amazon. When I connected my cable to this Recorder, the picture came out really snowy and unclear. I know it's not my cable connection either because using the same wire connected to my Samsung DLP HDTV which has a QAM Cable/ASTC/NSTC tuner, the picture came out clear. I even connected my cable to my 10-year old analog VCR tuner and again the picture came out clear. So I concluded that the Recorder's tuner was defective. Additionally, when I tried to auto-program my cable's DTV (digital) channels, the Recorder malfunctioned doing that. Some channels got in, some didn't. Even for the DTV channels that did get in, as I was flipping channels using the Recorder remote, periodically, the channels would turn blue screen...I had to turn off the Recorder to get the DTV channels working again.

The remote control is the lightest remote I've ever felt because it felt extremely cheap.

As for the upconversion to 1080p, I knew something was odd when the quick reference manual didn't mention anything about upconversion and had a picture of the back that didn't show the HDMI connection. Anyways, the unit does have a HDMI connection and when I tested the upconversion, I swear that the 480p mode looked better than the 1080p mode which looked pixely. Not what I expected.

The timer program and setup menus were surprisingly very MS-DOS looking (you know that operating system before Windows). I didn't even bother to test the Recording function since the Tuner was defective...the recording would have just came out crappy.

I don't think I will purchase a Toshiba product again anytime soon until I see positive reviews. Trutech and Toshiba might as well be brothers given the poor quality.

I purchased one of these door stops in MAY! I have payed for shipping to send it back to Toshiba under warranty. The device would not remember its programming. The original unit had bad memory. The new unit I got in JULY, has the same problem. DO NOT BUY ONE OF THESE!!!

I bought this for my girlfriend so she could get digital tv on her anolog CRT, since converter boxes are not out yet. The tuner has good antenna distance reception, and changes digital channels faster than any I have seen. Broadcast image quality is ok, but a bit dark compared to my Pioneer Elite HD tv. Since the reviews warned about losing presets, I have been testing it for her. Worked fine for 2 weeks, and yesterday when I turned it on...NO TV CHANNELS! As every other brand of DVD recorder/tuner combo has multiple shortcomings, I was hoping this one was going to work (I am really sick of testing them). I will call Toshiba and see if they have a fix for the problem yet, but I'm not optimistic.
Other cons: Can't delete one minor digital channel without losing all of same major #, can't scroll anolog and digital channels without changing tuners, no tv control on remote.

I was in the market for a DVD recorder to replace my Magnavox which was killed by lightning. My old recorder was one year old and in that year I have come to realize several things:
1. If you look at the reviews; it seems all units, all manufacturer's have their problem.
2. The main problem is the consumer's buying and writing the unfavorable reviews. These units are not as simple as operating a VCR. This is new technology and it requires that you read the manual or at least the quick start guide.
3. DVD recorders are basically computers focused against a single task. As such, things happen. the computing world is not perfect. Out of 100 discs recorded, I had a problem with 1 and it could have been the media or my own error.
4. There seems to be only a few companies manufacturing DVD recorders and they brand them differently. The file menu and choices for this unit are very similar to the Magnavox. Plus this unit will finalize my old discs for play on any DVD player.

With that in mind, let's talk about the Toshiba D-R550. It performs as advertised, it records DVD's and also plays multiple formats including Divx.

The menu is easy to understand and timer record is what you expect until you reach the quality setting. Should you record on the highest setting? Dunno, disc's are cheap and I encourage you to try all but the poorest setting. For me, the 6 hour option works well for cable TV recording. After all, this is not a HD recorder and if it were the only true HD to be recorded is over the air. Cable HD is not true HD. Recording HD movies is not possible so my question is why would you record a the highest setting? Oh yeah, discs are cheap and organization may be easier.

Overall, I am very satisfied with this recorder especially when you consider the price.

Don't forget to finalize your disc if you plan on viewing it on a normal DVD player.

I am amazed at the quality of recordings off my cable. There is no perceptable loss of quality at all, it look as good as the original at least in XP & SP modes.

No problems with the cable input as mentioned in other post I get a clean signal, I am not feeding it through anything else first that could introduce interference, but I don't think that should be a problem?

So far I have recorded on DVD-R and DVD-RW and the disks have played back in several set top machines and computer drives that I have tried them on it also played back on my Apple. So great compatibility.
It even played back a disk I could not get to play back on any of the machines I tried. That was impressive!

The menu settings are easy to navigate and intutitive, if your not sure just leave the settings as they come from the factory, default is usally for the broadest use possible.

The remote has the one button record on it but I use the timer program
to record most things. Timer program is a push button and then just follow the prompts its easy to setup just make sure your clock is set correctly!
The remote could be easier to read the letters are a light grey on black and don't jump out at you, but it looks good.

The hookup is straight forward and easy and the connections in the front of the unit make it easy to hook up a DV camera or othe device. I even run my MP3 player into the audio inputs, works great.

I don't use the HDMI function as my TV is not capable so cannot comment.
Over all I would say I am quite happy with this recorder/player.
The only thing I wish it has was an extra audio out in the back, this is not an issue with a HDMI TV.

I read all the other reviews and I can say I have had no issues with this product. My goal was to replace VHS recorders with a DVD Recorder. I needed the capability to record on one television and playback on any of 3 other televisions, so a Tivo-type recorder wouldn't work. The Toshiba D-R550 has worked flawlessly. I use DVD+RW disks and have had absolutely no problem watching recorded television programs, without finalizing the disks, on other DVD players (even a 4 year old Sony DVD player). Recording is easy and the picture quality is excellent.

I really expected better feautes and a better picture. This recorder/tuner should have had more features than my old over-the-air receiver, my older dvd recorder, and my upconverting dvd player. I wanted a QAM tuner for my COMCAST basic cable because my over-the-air HDTV box isn't compatible with the COMCAST cable digital signals. I have a Toshiba 46" HDTV with a HDCP connector which with the over-the-air HDTV receiver displays a beautiful picture at 1080i. I tried the component cable output to my HDTV first and the quality of the picture was significantly less than I had experienced with my old HDTV reciver. I purchased a conversion cable for HDCP to HDMI and the picture still isn't as good as my old HDTV receiver. I was unable to test the 1080p output because my tv doesn't go to 1080p. The analog and digital channels work OK. When the digital channels get lost with the up/down channel buttons (which happens) I press the TV/DTV button twice and try again, and it finds them without having to rescan.
The features my old systems had that the D-r550 doesn't are:
1) create a miniguide/full channel guide of scanned channels
2) A digital signal strength meter
3) An aspect ratio button on the remote
4) A channel favorites button on the remote
5) A return to last channel button.
6) button back lights
7) Larger and higher contrast button labels
8) And probably more.
The recorder seems to work well. Nice menu features. The time slip feature only works with DVD-RW VR disks and I bought the wrong DVD-RW disks. I am keeping the R550 but wish it worked better. For the money it is the best out there that I could find.

This was my second DVD Recorder and its leagues better than the Magnavox one I owned previously. I've had it for a month now and have had no issues at all. It records wonderfully and I've had zero issues with playback.