Gateway AR230 Progressive-Scan DVD Player / Recorder

Other products by Gateway

Product Details

Product Manual [2.62mb PDF]

• Shipping Weight: 9 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S. and to APO/FPO addresses. For APO/FPO shipments, please check with the manufacturer regarding warranty and support issues.
• ASIN: B0001CVBRI
• Item model number: 2520516
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (47 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #22,211 in Electronics (See Bestsellers in Electronics)

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  #41 in	Electronics > Televisions & Video > Disc Players & Recorders > DVD Recorders
  #55 in	Electronics > Televisions & Video > Disc Players & Recorders > DVD Players

• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes
• Date first available at Amazon.com: January 23, 2004

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description
With the Gateway AR-230 DVD player/recorder, you can play movies and music, record off-air TV broadcasts, and store multimedia content on high-capacity, 4.7 GB DVDs. It's never been easier to share your home videos with friends and family, and the AR-230 even delivers quality home cinema on standard or high-definition televisions. Using the recorder's extensive inputs--including an IEEE 1394 digital video jack--you can transfer and assemble your most treasured camcorder footage, archive all your old videotapes, or burn video from your PC straight to high-capacity DVD--up to six hours per side using either DVD+R or DVD+RW.

The unit's onscreen display (OSD) lets you adjust settings and select options for your DVD recorder, including parental controls.

DVD+RW discs require no finalizing: you can record, eject, and play them with minimal fuss, thanks to background formatting. This feature, which lowers total burning time, is an advantage over the "dash" formats. Other DVD+RW advantages include on-disc content editing and multisession writing. And, through DVD+RW and DVD+R's compatibility with most existing DVD players, they're a great way for you to share your special memories with family and friends.

The recorder offers timer recording (record once, daily, or weekly), as well as disc editing features such as title editing, title deletion (on DVD+RW discs), title overwriting (on DVD+RW discs), and content protection.

The AR-230 is also a first-rate DVD player, featuring progressive-scan video outputs, Dolby Digital and DTS 5.1-channel surround-sound passthrough, MP3 CD playback (CD-R/-RW), and playback compatibility with most DVD media (including video-mode DVD-R and DVD-RW). You can load a disc full of JPEG images for a digital slideshow in the comfort of your living room.

Whether you already own an HDTV or you're merely thinking of "someday," the AR-230 stands ready to deliver the full potential of your DVDs. Progressive scanning, referred to as 480p for the number of horizontal lines that compose the video image, creates a playback picture using twice the scan lines of a conventional DVD picture, giving you higher resolution and sharper images while eliminating nearly all motion artifacts.

The AR-230 DVD player is equipped with high-end video outputs as well as digital-audio outputs for surround-sound passthrough.

Top-of-the-line component-video outputs help minimize digital and line-scan artifacts on compatible advanced televisions, while composite- and S-video outputs bring compatibility with nearly any television monitor. Video inputs include the above-mentioned front-panel IEEE 1394 jack, front and rear composite-video jacks, and a rear-panel S-video input. Audio inputs consist of two-channel analog jacks with up to 24-bit analog-to-digital conversion.

A single set of left/right analog-audio outputs channel audio to Dolby Pro Logic receivers and stereo televisions. Both Dolby Digital and DTS 5.1-channel surround-sound signals can be routed through the player's digital-audio outputs (one each of RCA coaxial and Toslink optical) for direct connection to a full-featured audio/video receiver.

What's in the Box
DVD recorder, remote control, remote batteries, an AC power cord, a 6-foot audio/video interconnect (stereo analog audio/composite-video), a 6-foot RF coaxial AV cable, a blank DVD+RW disc, a setup poster, and a user’s manual.

Product Description
Finally! Get a DVD player that replaces your VCR at a reasonable price. It¿s never been easier to record, play and store multi-media content on DVD ¿ no need to buy separate components. The Gateway¿ AR-230 DVD Recorder has it all in one package.

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

35 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent user interface, inexpensive, and region free, February 24, 2004

By	Martin Anderson "Martin" (Santa Ana, CA United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This is Gateway's entry into the DVD Recorder arena, and is a clone of the LiteOn LVW-5001. The user interface is very intuitive and much easier to figure out than the Philips models, but the instruction manual is a bit vague on the meaning of various functions. Most of the functions can be figured out with a little bit of experimentation, but it would be better if the manual just gave a full explanation.

For example, if you delete a recording that is in between two others, and then you start recording a new program, the unit will not automatically overwrite the deleted area. Instead, it will simply add on after the last program. If you want it to reuse empty space, you must enable the overwrite function for the deleted program, and then record. Be careful, because, if record a program that is longer than the one you deleted, you will overwrite the next program. This all seems sensible once you figure it out, but it would be nice if the manual explained it.

The best thing about this DVD Recorder is that it can be made region free and it will convert PAL encoded DVD's (which are sold in Europe on www.amazon.co.uk) to NTSC, so you can watch DVDs that are not sold here (like the excellent British television show "Cold Feet" and "Black Books") on your TV in the U.S.

Just turn on the DVD player without a disc in it, press the right arrow, push 800, and then push the enter button. From that point on, the unit is region free.

30 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good solid product, February 22, 2004

By	dlmh "dlmh" (Highland Mills, NY USA) - See all my reviews

This is an interesting product. It's a cross between a VHS VCR and a fully functioning digital DVD recorder.

The higher priced digital recorders have hard drives built in to give them Tivo features like the ability to record temporarily for many hours, watch a program from the beginning while the unit is still recording the end, instant replay, pause live TV, etc. The fully loaded recorders also have some sort of Tivo-like program guide.

The AR-230 has none of these things, but it costs a lot less as well. It's an interesting mix of high and low end VCR features plus an adequate DVD+R/RW recorder. The high end is reflected by the number of different inputs and outputs: Composite, S-Video, Component, Firewire, Coax and Optical audio. The low end is reflected by the timer: Only 5 programs, no Mon-Fri mode, no VCR+.

As a simple DVD replacement for a VCR, it fulfills it's function very well. The remote is easy to use. The quality of the DVD image is equal to the quality of the video input. It won't allow you to create you're own chapters, but you can set it to automatically create chapters every 1 - 12 minutes.

There are 4 program modes: 1hr, 2hrs, 4hrs & 6hrs. I've tried the 2 and 4 hour modes and both are fine. Choosing from titles on the disc is much easier than scanning a VCR tape for the start of a new program. Also scanning by chapter and fast forward/reverse work very well - a big improvement over tape.

The AR-230 records only on "Plus" media, but reads/plays just about everything. BEWARE: The DVD recordable industry is borderline insane. They're locked in a betamax/vhs type war of competing incompatible formats called "Plus" and "Minus". Not only are there different recorders that record each format, but the blank media are different for each format. A "Minus" disc won't work in a "Plus" recorder.

If you've got a set top DVD player you may want to check which format it supports. If your DVD player only plays "Minus" discs it won't be able to play DVD's you produce from the AR-230.

22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Gateway drives down prices, but with a substandard recorder, July 25, 2004

By	CJB "CTO" (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews

The Gateway AR-230's release in late 2003 ushered in a significant drop in prices for DVD+R/RW recorders. Since that initial release, Gateway has twice released firmware updates that correct various problems that users encountered. To apply a firmware update, one must burn the file to a CD-R on a personal computer and allow the AR-230 to read that special data disc. As of this writing, though, no update has been issued since December 2003 which is beginning to leave some growing problems unaddressed.

The device has the basic features one might expect including support for cable or over-the-air broadcast tuning, S-Video and RCA inputs, S-Video and RCA outputs, timer recording capabilities, 3 time/quality levels from 2 to 6 hours per 4.7GB disc, and a remote control. In addition, the unit has some nice extras such as a front panel IEEE-1384 input for direct playback control and DVD recording of a DV source and component video outputs.

The AR-230 only supports DVD+R (for record once) and DVD+RW (for multiple record/erase) media and this is where the major problems emerge.

Without any clues in the simplistic product manual or on the Gateway support site, the unit is very sensitive to the media used. Many vendor's DVD+R media do not work in the unit although the problems do not become apparent until after recording is completed: the created disc is completely unreadable by the AR-230 and all other playback devices.

Most recently, with the rapid proliferation of 4x and 8x DVD+R media, media which works in the AR-230 is getting very difficult to find. It will only record correctly to media rated as 1x-2.4x (sometimes listed as "Upto 2x") and not even to all such media.

Over the course of 9 months, my successful recording rate is about 60%. All of the failed discs were worthless and had to be discarded. Possibly a firmware release may address the 4x and 8x media issue, but there is no indication from Gateway that such a fix is forthcoming.

Other problems encountered include the device's inability to play DVD-R media recorded on other equipment, it's quirky requirement for always needing an RCA video output to work when the device is reset (as a complex set of menu selections must be made to direct video output to S-Video or Component outputs), and its destruction of all discs that are recorded to the end and not manually stopped with recording time available.

I would never buy this device today, but it has helped shift the marketplace and it does a nice job of recording when all of the (many) obstacles are avoided.

pros:
+ low cost.
+ auto menus and chapter marks work well.
+ has IEEE-1384 input for direct-from-DV recording.

cons:
+ can not use 4x or 8x media.
+ destroys recordings if not manually stopped.
+ can not play dvd-r discs.
+ will not include closed captioning data on programs recorded from any source.