Toshiba DVR610 1080p Upconverting Tunerless VHS DVD Recorder

Enjoy the convenience of VCR and DVD playback options without the need for two units. The D-VR610 not only saves space, but also offers 1080p upconversion of DVD content via HDMI to near HD picture quality, and makes copying your videotapes to DVD a snap with bi-directional dubbing! Record your favorite home movies directly to DVD with the D-VR610. An HDMI output enables the D-R560 to play DVDs to your widescreen HDTV delivering sharp imagery on screens optimized for 1080 resolutions, in an upconversion mode. Video Upconversion to 720p/1080i/1080p 10bit Video DAC with 54MHz Processing DivX Home Theater Certified Digital Photo Viewer (JPEG) One Touch Recording makes recording your favorite show simple. Just connect your DVD recorder to your cable or satellite box and you are set to record with the push of one button Auto Finalize with Undo simplifies the recording process by automatically finalizing your recording for playback on standard DVD players Bi-directional dubbing lets you copy from tape to disc, or vice versa, with the push of one button 24bit Audio DAC with 192kHz Processing Plays MP3 and WMA formats (2-Ch) Dolby Digital Recording Features - Instant Skip, Zoom, and Editing (Playlist/Rename Title/Chapter Creation) Connections - Component Out, HDMI Out, Front DV Input, Front A/V Input (including S-Video), Rear S-Video Input/Output, Rear RCA-Video Input/Output, Rear Analog Audio Input/Output, Coax Output Approximate Unit Dimensions - 17.13 (W) x 3.92 (H) x 10.31 (D)

This Toshiba is a very easy to use combo recorder and produces excellent DVD's and VHS cassettes, just like I've come to expect from Toshiba. They always combine quality with simplicity. I bought it for two reasons: I needed to replace our 3-year old Symphonic combo (which did a great job as well but was getting tired after 800+ DVD recordings) and to upconvert properly to my new Samsung LCD. The up-converted videos are fantastic - kudos! The only drawback is it will only record the main speeds. I would have liked to see record modes in the 2.5 and 3 hours formats like my Symphonic. Whenever the content is more than 2 hours I have to use the 4 hour mode, which isn't as sharp a picture as the 2.5 or 3 hour formats of my Funai (Symphonic) SV2000. Otherwise, I love it! A good choice for doing any kind of SD recording.

Like many people, my VCR died, and I was stuck with figuring out which VCR/DVD combo to buy under $200. After reading all the reviews, I was terrified that whatever I chose would be junk.
I settled on this Toshiba. We have had a few weeks now, and so far, it has been an excellent choice. I found myself purchasing a lot more from Amazon lately, and have yet to be disappointed.

I don't know if this has happened to other people. This unit is probably good with the right TV. I really wanted to get a high quality DVD/VCR recorder/player to play DVDs and VHS tapes and to copy videos to DVD, and this one sounded good. The problem (which I had never heard mentioned before) is that it's (apparently) not compatable with my Sharp Equos HDTV. The DVD player works fine, but when I put a VHS tape in, the picture blinks on and off. I cannot even express how frustrated I am, after looking at a lot of different models and picking one that I thought was just what I was looking for, and priced so that I could manage to purchase it, that it is useless with my TV. (Pardon me while I vent). I called the Toshiba customer support and they said it sounds like a problem with the TV. I called Sharp customer support and they said it is an incompatability problem. Why doesn't anybody mention this possibility? Am I the only one that this has happened to? OK, I'm done. Very dissapointed.

Very short - This unit DOES NOT have the Audio / Video syncronization problems that some units have. I tried a Samsung before this one and the Samsung had horrible audio delays. It was absolutely worthless. BUY THE TOSHIBA, trust me.

I needed a method of getting my Sony Video8 tape cartridges backed up to DVD and this works flawlessly. Now with it on DVD I can capture the video copy on my computer and produce very good DVD video productions of these older recordings. I'm very satisfied with the Toshiba D-VR610.