Samsung DVD-R120 Progressive Scan DVD Recorder review:
5 stars (By Far the Best Bang for Your Buck) - For the money, this is the best DVD Recorder you can buy. I would stay away from the less-well known brands. Samsung is a reputable company and offers great value. I have owned this model for six months and use it everyday with no problems whatsover. I looked at dozens of stand-alone recorders and own two other models. This one offers more features than most that sell at a much higher price point.



The timed recording feature is very easy to use. Great for recording programs / the news when I am not around.



This is an excellent and easy-to-use DVD recorder for those of you who intend to use this as a way to transfer your old non-Macromedia copyright protected VHS tapes to DVD or as a way to record programs off the television. It has a very quiet fan and is fairly easy to use.



The flexible recording speed (FRS) feature is great and rare on the lower-end DVD recorders. It allows you to record for a specific amount of time. Many recorders including this one allow you to record at one, two, four and six hour settings. The problem with squeezing six hours of video onto one DVD is a major sacrifice in quality as you increase the amount of video on the DVD. The four-hour setting is similar to VHS quality. I do most recording at the two-hour setting as I see little-to-no difference between this and the one-hour setting. What makes the FRS feature on this model so helpful is it allows you to record for a more specific amount of time. For example, if a movie is two hours and seven minutes long you can set the time for this exact amount as it will not otherwise fit on the two-hour setting and the four-hour setting will result in a significant loss of quality.



This unit allows you to enter titles by keying in letters, numbers and symbols via the remote...a little tedious, but still a nice feature. The unit is also one of the more attractive DVD recorders and has a sleek look to it.



This unit also offers a firewire connection (IEEE port) so you can use a mini-DV or HI-8 Digital camcorder to transfer your video to DVD digitally. This is lacking in many more expensive DVD recorders.



When the recorder finalizes a DVD-R for playback on all other DVD players, it creates an actual thumbnail of the video clip in each chapter created. This a very nice feature missing in some other recorders.



It only takes three to five minutes to finalize an entire disk.



As for the disadvantages:



1.) It has no hard drive. This is not a big deal with me as the DVD recorders that come with hard drives are overpriced. It is counter-intuitive that I can buy a quality 80 GB hard drive for my computer for $30 on sale; however, it seems most DVD recorders charge a minimum of a $100 premium for a tiny hard drive. I store everything on DVD-Rs anyway since I would hate to lose data as a result of hard drive failure. This is also one of the relatively few models that allow you to record on DVD-RAM disks in addition to DVD-R disks. Good if you are not sure you want to keep something as you can keep rewriting on a DVD-RAM disk. The only catch is you will need another player / drive capable of reading DVD-RAM (or another DVD recorder) if you want to then transfer video you decide to keep.



2.) This machine is quirky about the type of media it will accept. I recommend you stick with media manufactured by Taiyo Yuden. This includes Panasonic DVD-Rs and the Fuji DVD-Rs made in Japan. Be careful, some of the Fuji DVD-Rs are made in Taiwan and are not Taiyo Yuden. You can also pick up non-branded Taiyo Yuden DVDs from a variety of e-tailers. Using cheap media on this recorder will cause the recorder to lock and enter recovery mode. It is very difficult to get the media out of the player as there is no pin release like you find on many other drives. You can easily find a 50 pack spindle of Taiyo Yuden manufactured DVD-R for under $20 if you shop around / wait for sales.










4 stars (So far, so good!) - This unit burns DVD-RAM, DVD-R and DVD-RW, but I'll mostly use DVD-R because it's the most reliable, and it's what I'm use too. My goal is to use DVD-R for recording TV shows that I want to keep like all thoese old episodes of StarTrek. I'll burn once, then finalize, and add it to my collection. But other shows like 24, CSI, and Alias will get burned to DVD-RW, then once watched, I'll re-format the RW disc, and use it again.



I made a test recording last night of BattleStar Galactica: Season 2/Episode 2. I used the timer recording setting at 1 hour, and it worked great! All I had to do was finalize the disc with a few clicks on the remote after the recording was done. And the finalizing only took 3min's......Wow! I hear that some of the other DVD recorders take up to 45min-1Hr to finalize a 1Hr recording.

The finished DVD played very well, no skips, and great sound. This episode of BattleStar Galactica took place on the Galactica when the ship had no power, so most of the scenes were shot in dim light, and it was hard for me to tell if the the Samsung's recording was darker than normal. So I did a "One Touch Recording" of some TV talk show (I don't remember which one), and it looked great, nice & bright!....I'm happy!!!

The Samsung DVD-R120 has several recording speeds:

FR.........Flexable Recording (Auto Adj.)

EP.........Extended Play (6-8Hrs)

LP.........Long Play (4Hrs)

SP.........Standard Play (2Hrs)

XP........High Quliaty (1hr)

I'm sure I'll be recording in XP mode, why go for anything less.



I only have 2 gripes so far.

No.1 The execution of commands from the remote are a bit slow, but they work. The remote it self feels cheap and clunky. The buttons wiggle, and pop when you press them. I plan to copy the codes to a learning universal remote control to spare the Samsung's remote the ware & abuse.

No.2 In order to view the menu or playback any DVD from the Samsung DVD-R120 you must use RCA type cables pluged into the Audio/Video Line Out connectors on the back of the unit. Simply connecting you Cable Box/Satellite Recievers coaxial cable to the unit won't work. Passing video playback through the coaxial cable is standard, I'm sure of it. Why the Samsung won't allow this is a mystery to me, so go ahead and use the RCA cables.



I'm going to pony up only 4 out of 5 Stars because of the cheap remote, and the RCA cable thingy. This is my first set-top DVD Recorder, and with any luck....my last.



Posted in Reviews | E
3 stars (New User Of This Product) - I have only had this product for 2 weeks and I am somewhat new to DVD player/recorders. So, take my comments with a grain of salt.



The remote control will work with various TV brands when you program your TV brand code into it. But, it seems to "forget" the code after only a few minutes. You end up needing to re-program your TV brand code into the remote over and over agiain for the remote to work on your TV.



Other than that everything seems to work ok. The picture quality after recoring from a VHS tape is good and actually appears a bit cleaner than the original tape.



The directions are somewhat lengthy and the unit takes a few moments to "load" before you can operate it. That can be frustrating for those of us in a constant hurry.



All and all I'd say the unit is average to better than average considering the price point.

Samsung DVD-R120 Progressive Scan DVD Recorder is the Electronics version. The full version can be purchased by clicking on the "CLICK HERE TO ORDER" button below for around  Too Low ToUSD.