Customer Reviews

Toshiba DVR610 1080p Upconverting Tunerless VHS DVD Recorder

5 star:		(57)
4 star:		(36)
3 star:		(13)
2 star:		(10)
1 star:		(22)

 

 

After half a decade of waiting for a machine that'll do merely what I want it to do--transferring my old VHS library to the more permanent DVDs--I jumped at the opportunity to get the DVR-610, at a great price (I purchased it at BestBuy, which allowed me to return it within 30 days for full refund if it wasn't up to scratch).

I must say: it passed the "probationary" period smashingly, though with a few small reservations I will mention later. Supposedly this deck is Toshiba's new improved version of its DVR-600 from last year. That deck brought forth quite a few frustrated reviews from buyers, and with this buyer-beware in mind, I assumed we were still in the Dark Ages as far as preservation on home DVD's was concerned. I initially thought a deck with merely a DVD recorder would do the trick (i.e., wiring my old VCR to its inputs to do duping), but I received conflicting and discouraging reports on these machines, too.

And so, the present model does a very, very nice job concerning the purpose for which I bought it: it will transfer my old (blank recorded) videos I made myself with almost no occurences of the "RECORDING ERROR" message; I had just one instance of this so far, which made me relegate that blank DVD to the "toss-out" pile. Actually, I'm using the discs with abortive recording projects for "test discs": that is, using them to see if a particular VHS video will transfer OK or not. I'm finding most '81-'85 rental tapes (pre-copyguard-era) will transfer OK, but you're up the creak without a paddle as far as dubbing your old prerecorded videos from '86 onward: specifically from the majors (Columbia, Warner, MGM, etc.). If your friends with similar movie tastes still have off-the-air broadcast tapes, by all means tell them to dig them out of storage!

While preserving taped-off-the-air movies has been a top priority, my FIRST DVD project was duping the one-hour tape full of films my old college animation class did. I made it a point to dub it at the high-quality speed (XP), and the transfer came off quite well, though there was a bit of picture jitter here and there. But after finalizing it, I found it played back well not only on the DVR-610 itself, but on my OTHER two DVD decks: my old Samsung player, and my 11-year-old Compaq computer. I used a Fuji blank disc for this one. The playback was smooth, and in time I learned how to make menus for later discs I recorded.

You would do well to reserve, as I did, a small pile of blanks for practice & test purposes; you will want to do comparisons of the sound quality of the highest speed compared to that of the slowest (for music videos--even those taped off a small 14" screen mono TV--the differences in sound reproduction are revealing). For feature films taped from mono television, the picture reproduction isn't that significantly different: not only in comparing your final DVD copy with the original tape, but also at the different DVD recording speeds. (I may think differently, of course,when I finally get a widescreen TV, but newer programs aren't of concern to me).

One thing I'm glad I learned quickly is how you can make individual cue-ups for separate films: unfortunately, you have to stop the DVD recorder at the end of each film. (For a cartoon collector like myself, this becomes VERY complex & involved....patience is mandatory!) At least I didn't find an alternative to this method in the owner's manual; and with my budget, I can only go with the cheapie DVD-R's that can be recorded only once. You CAN separate scenes for cue-up in a feature-length film, but THAT process is complicated by the machine's own automatic insertions of its OWN chapters in anything running over ten minutes. As for myself, I don't even bother separating scenes--only one movie from an entirely different one.

I was apprehensive during my first one or two tries at the "one-touch dubbing" feature, but this proved groundless (I used home-recorded tapes, of course). But I hasten to suggest: PLEASE DON'T throw out your old VCR, for a small number of tapes (yes--even your prize blanks) won't record on the new machine's all-in-one, two-decks-in-one feature.....you will have to wire patch-cords from your old videotape player to the front input jacks on the DVR-610. It is the only way around on these tapes.

One or two things I have to concur with on the other reviews of this machine: the manual CAN stand a bit better organization (it's categorized well, though not necessarily in the order you'd anticipate); two weeks back, when trying to find a mistake I made accidentally (I pushed the input button to "camcorder," or "DV," making it impossible to do tape-to-tape dubbing), the manual didn't list this problem which had me panicking for a few hours till I corrected it on my own. I have little quibble, though, with the English translation, which makes perfect & grammatic sense. AND: YES, the remote IS a pretty feisty critter! I've had about a dozen-and-a-half endings on some recordings where the "STOP" button goes to sleep, and I must rush to the machine itself to use the stop-button on IT. And the remote's own RECORD button is also as aggravating as a toilet handle. They work, alright (and you DO have to wait close to half a minute for the information from a just-finished recording to write itself onto the disc--as well as when you first turn on the deck with a blank disc still in it).

As for recordable discs, I've stuck with NAME BRAND blanks--those from Fuji, Maxell & TDK; and as yet, I've only recorded on DVD PLUS R (DVD+R) discs. All three brands play flawlessly when they're finally ready, and of course you must acquaint yourself with the "DVD MENU" feature which shows the option of finalizing the disc (necessary, of course, to have it play on other decks).

FINE deck, overall: there's still small room for more improvement, but this one gets an "A" for the job I want it to do: it's my main RECORDER now, and I'll be saving the playing for "play-only" decks (which I'll feel confident of buying in the future). It'll at least give me the security of knowing that the only film/TV fare that matters to me will be preserved to the time I kick off.

This is the 3rd attempt I've made at purchasing something to transfer my old videos to DVD and I think I finally have a winner! The user's manual leaves a little (ok, a lot!) to be desired, but after deciphering the badly translated English, I was able to transfer my videos to DVD with no problem. It literally takes about 3 button pushes and off it goes.

The quality so far seems excellent in both video and DVD playback too. And everyone I've given a DVD to has been able to play them so far!

This Toshiba D-VR610KU took away my headache and fustration from other DVR/VHS recorders that I own. Other DVR's did not copy to certain brand DVD blanks or if it did copy the quality was poor at all settings.

Pro(s):
I use Verbatim Archival Grade and Taiyo Yuden blanks from Japan in this Toshiba DVR and it copies with NO problem.
Playback quality after recording at all settings. VHS-DVD dubbing is EXCELLENT and picture is very close to Blu-Ray.

Con(s):
Another remote control you do not want to lose. 48 BUTTONS!!!
Owner's Manual is poor.
VHS Rewind is very slow.

After a month of frustration with a similarly priced unit that was a major name brand, we returned that unit and bought this Toshiba model instead. The other unit was constantly making DVD's from old home VHS movies and the audio would be out of sync. We tried seven different movies and five different DVD recordable disc types. No matter what, when the DVDs came out, the people's mouths would move and the audio would come across two to three seconds later!

As stated, this unit is a huge improvement over the other previous unit we owned/returned. If you're looking to copy VHS to DVD on a budget, this is the model for you. The unit features a full set of outputs (HDMI/Component/S-Video/RCA) and has 1080p upconversion when watching DVDs.

The only downsides to this unit are the somewhat funky remote and the overall layout/complexity to the user manual, I feel that the manual could have been much easier to understand with a bit better organization and not so much crammed on every page.

Like many others, I was searching for a simple way to convert VHS tapes of family home movies to DVD, considering that VCRs are almost completely unavailable, and soon these family tapes would be unplayable forever. I first purchase the Samsung model, and discovered that much to my dismay, the audio and video did not synchronise! Turns out that it was a Samsung problem, and they could do nothing about it. Returned it.

Then I thought I'd try this Toshiba model. Well, first off, THERE ARE NO AUDIO/VIDEO SYNCHRONIZATION PROBLEMS WITH THIS MODEL!!!! If you follow the steps listed in the manual (and it's not hard to understand, don't know what everyone's complaining about), and if you record in "SP" mode for two hours, the end result will look and sound exactly like the source VHS.Terrific, Toshiba strikes again!

In regards to editing menus, if you've owned a Magnavox dvd recorder before this one, it will be like deja vu. They use the exact same program!

Really, this is the vhs/dvd recorder to buy. It will not disappoint you!

I bought this unit to convert old family VHS tapes to DVD. Many of the old VHS tapes had been converted from family and friends 16mm and 8mm dating to the 1950s and 1960's.

The original conversion process often left noise or garbled video for the first few seconds of the tape.
I couldn't get the D-VR610 VCR to DVD dubbing to work by following the VCR to DVD dubbing (copy) procedure given in the owners manual. Most of the time the video display would just turn blue with no message or indicator of what was wrong. Sometime a blinking red dot would appear but no recording to the DVD occurred. Sometime a small red circle with a slash through it would appear for a few seconds and the disappear.

The owners manual gave no indication of what this problem may be.
I called Toshiba tech support and found that when the D-VR610 detects garbage video and noise at the beginning of a VHS tape it assumes that it is potentially a copyrighted tape and will not copy nor will it display a message that states the reason it is not copying.

The Toshiba tech suggested approach was to copy the old VHS tape (beginning after the noise) to a new VHS tape and use the new VHS tape to make the DVD. This will be a major hassle with our many hours of old converted VHS tape. I'll find another way.

Edit: 11-11 Still working great!

This is my first DVD recorder, except for my computer. Manual is confusing but isnt to hard to play with and figure out. Was recording in minutes.
Purchased it primeraly to transfer my home movies onto DVD and it works GREAT! I had the same problem with the static as an earlier reviewer, copy protected error, but I simply stopped during the static and restarted when the movie picked up again, this was caused by the camera being shut off incorrectly. It made for a lot of chapters sometimes but isnt the DVDs fault.

I started with DVD+RW but couldn't get them to play in my other DVDs, even after finalizing. I switched to DVD-R and they worked great in other DVD players, which allowed me to dub DVD to DVD to make copies for family. This did not however repeat the chapters on the disc and the AUTO chapter I cant figure out either, its turned on but doesn't work. So I ended up with 2 hour DVDs with no chapters to skip to. The only way I figured out to make them were stopping and starting the recording.

Recorded great from my TV (actually my Satellite Box) and from the DVR in the box, so I can record a show to DVR first and if I decide to keep it simply record it to a DVD. Of course it wont record in HD so I have to unplug it to watch HD again, but this is still no the DVDs fault. It does record HD DVR events but not in HD.

The play back quality is good, better from the VCR tapes than original but not as good as on TV since I get HD. Purchased or rented DVDs play excellent tho.
Overall I would recommend the Dvr610 as long as you have cable or satellite, why pay more for a tuner if you already have one.

update: Dec 2009 Still works great, recorded lots of movies and shows but most purchased vhs movies wont record.

I work with a lot of videos, and I can honestly say that the Toshiba DVR610 1080p is simple to understand and creates excellent results. Just like the EP,SLP, and LP speeds on a VCR, the choice of speeds (this one has 5) is one of my favorite functions. Depending on the quality of the picture I choose, and the DVD format I choose, the possibilities of creating a DVD the way I want are endless. I can set and title my own chapters and recording from TV, converting VHS home movies to DVD, connecting directly from my camera, or creating DVD copies of video projects has made this one of those pieces of equipment that I wonder how I did without.
(And yes, the audio and video synch up. I would DEFINITELY give this a bad rating if it didn't).
The ONLY thing it can't do is create a customized Menu Page the way I would like. But considering all that it does do, it is well worth buying.
And don't worry about all the comments regarding trying to decipher the manual...anyone who has ever used a remote or a VCR already has the skills to operate this and create perfect DVDs.

I have been dubbing VHS to DVD for years using an early and expensive Sony DVD recorder and a Sony VHS tape player but the process was tedious and the Sony recorder is very picky about the disc media it will accept. I decided to look into a single unit VHS/DVD recorder and after a lot of investigation decided on the Toshiba DVR 610. The price was right and it's an excellent product. You can copy from VHS to DVD or vice versa and you can copy video from a digital camcorder to DVD. Both processes are very easy and unlike some others, I found the manual well organized and easy to follow.

To copy a tape to DVD you first have to format the DVD. If it is a new disc it will be formatted automatically when you place it in the machine. If it is a RW disc with previously recorded information on it, you will have to format it manually which is a five step process, very easy. Five button pushes, then you find the point on the VHS tape that you want to start the recording, then press pause. Two more button pushes and it's copied. The only thing left to do is finalize the disc so that it can be played on other players, but that is also easy. I just made some brief notes from the manual the first time I did it and that expedited the process.

This is a high quality VHS tape recorder/player, DVD recorder/player with up converted output through HDMI for a reasonable price. Highly recommended.

I bought this unit to copy old VHS tapes over to DVD. I have about 200 VHS tapes to copy and this is my third attempt to find good equipment to do this task with. My first attempt was with separate units, a JVC HR-S5975EK Super VHS Video Recorder (very rare) and a RCA DVR unit. The RCA DVR burned out after about 30 disk and was extremely complicated to operate. It also turned out about as many coasters as it did playable DVD's. MY second was attempt was the RCA DRC8335 DVD Recorder & VCR Combo With Built-In Tuner (THUMP! THUMP! THUMP! This is the sound of me kicking myself in the behind). This unit was so bad it is indescribable. It has a 1 star rating on Amazon.com. Most think it should have a zero star rating. The only thing worse then this unit is RCA customer support, which resulted in me filing a complaint with the BBB, which RCA tried to get removed by lying to the BBB and saying that they had refunded may money when in fact they had never even called me, and a year later still have not resolved the issue after numerous calls. But that's enough about RCA, let's talked about how wonderful this unit is.

All I can say is it does exactly what I want, and it does it with one touch. You just put in your VHS tape and your blank DVD-R and press DUBBING. That's it! It is that simple. In most cases I just leave it and when I come back all I have to do is finalize the disk. The only problem I had was with one VHS tape that had empty spots between video recordings. This unit monitors the video feed and when the feed stops, it stop recording to the DVD. This worried me at first because other units (RCA) that I owned would leave me with a coaster if I tried to continue recording to the same disk. Not this unit. I just ran the tape to the point where the video started up again and pressed DUBBING. When the tape was fully recorded and I finalized the disk, it worked perfectly as if it had recorded normally.

Bottom line, it's a Toshiba and they don't make junk like some other companies I know (RCA). The last Toshiba I owned was a VCR unit and I had it for over 10 years before I gave it to a friend who is still using it (13 years now). Buy Toshiba, you won't regret it.