Samsung DVD-R130 DVD Recorder

First -- to those people who can't play their recorded DVDs in other players, you have to Finalize the DVD first, read the manual. This is not a Samsung problem - it is true of most DVD & CD recorders (even for those in a PC).

We bought one of these Samsung DVD-R130 recorders about a year ago, when the other cheap obsure brand DVD recorder we had died after 3 months of buying it. We went with the Samsung, bcse my husband had had good luck with this brand in the past, and it did work great for the first several months, we were quite happy with it. Then about 4 months ago, I started using it every day to record a 2-hour daytime TV show with the scheduled timer feature. Later during playback, I noticed that the sound and video were not sync'ed up (it was like watching a dubbed movie). It was slightly noticible during first 45-60 minutes, then became very obvious in 2nd hour of the recording. The unit was also becoming rather warm to the touch, over-heating (even though we had it well-ventilated), which I thought might be related. Then 2-3 times during this past month or so with timed recordings, it just powered off spontaniously a few seconds after starting the recording. I thought this was a fluke, until yesterday when it did it again, and then refused to record anything at all afterward -- even when I tried manually with 3 different DVDs. It does still playback DVDs though, even though sometimes it won't read the disc the first few times I insert it, but eventually does, so we will continue to use it for playback until it is totally toast. (Fortunately I did finalize all of my DVDs, and they do work fine in our other DVD player.) But in order to record, we are going to have to go buy yet another DVD recorder. Probably a Sony or Panasonic, but we'll be sure to first check the reviews this time.

Anyway, the bottom line is: Since several other folks have also experienced similar problems, this Samsung DVD recorder is just not a good choice.

I bought the Samsung R130 DVD Recorder in August 2006 for $150 so I could record shows that I was unable to watch. The DVD recorder worked fine for a year, but 2 months after the warranty was over the DVD Recorder gave me problems such as:
1. gave me numerous error codes
2. wouldn't play purchased DVDs
3. wouldn't accept a blank DVD for me to record a show
4. would freeze up during recording and I had to unplug it since it was unresponsive

It basically will not accept DVDs and it won't record them. I now leave the DVD Recorder unplugged because it is unresponsive and makes an annoying buzzing-type sound. Of course it's out of warranty, and there goes $ down the drain.

Have had this recorder for over a year and had nothing but problems. The lips are out of sync with the audio and is very tempermental when recording. I have had no problem getting finalized discs to play on any other players, but have ended up with way to many coasters (approx. 1 in 3 or 4 are wasted when it just records for 20 min. to almost 2 hours of shows or movies I am trying to record then stops on it's own). I use only DVD-R of different brands and it doesn't seem to matter.
I tried the fix suggested by another reviewer to hold down the up and down channels at the same time to reset the machine. It does say on screen that the recorder is reset, but it didn't change a thing.
I would not recommend to anyone to purchase this recorder unless you are looking for a frustrating pain in the butt!

this is a very good DVD player, it has a lot of options for almost anything you need...

The DVD-R130 is a DVD recorder designed to record standard NTSC video. It can take S-Video, composite, antenna/cable, or Firewire feeds. It has multiple levels of quality. Outputs include composite, S-Video, and component, and the recorder can output ED (progressive scan) signals via the component outputs. Use with a regular TV that has only antenna/cable inputs requires the use of a modulator.

As this is my first DVD recorder, I don't have much to compare it to directly, but I can make a number of obvious comments:

As a DVD player, the player is clunky and poorly spec'd. There are three menu buttons on the remote, and two information buttons, one of which, apparently as a joke, is labeled "ANYKEY". This is the first player I've ever come across that doesn't play PAL discs. Cheap no-name brand DVD players generally do (if either the disc or player is region free), and will even convert it for use on an NTSC set. The Samsung's lack of support for PAL is all the more surprising given the move over the last few years from NTSC TVs to HD TVs (that generally accept most scan rates.)

As a recorder, the player is unreliable. I tried three different media types before getting anything to record successfully. The first disc I tried the recorder "recorded" on to but missed the first twenty minutes of the program being recorded, the twenty minutes playing as a black screen with occasionally bursts of audio. The second, an Imation DVD-RW, was unrecognized by the player (A second disc from the same pack was recognized, but reluctantly - the player generally takes two minutes to figure out it has a DVD-RW inserted.) The third, a Fuji-film DVD-R, was recognized in less time and the recording appears to be successful.

The user interface is also clunky. As an example, title renaming is done via an arrow-key operated "keyboard": it takes around five minutes to enter something as simple as "FAMILY GUY - BLUE HARVEST". I found frequent occasions that navigating from one menu to another involved hitting the same button twice (by design, not because of the usual remote control problems.) The device suffers also from those problems you'd expect to go with DVD recording - it's just not as simple as "hit record, hit stop, you have your recording" - you have to go through the trouble of "finalizing" discs (even with DVD-RWs where this could be automatic.)

On the plus side, the support for Firewire input (though this is documented as being a camcorder specific thing, I have no idea if it works with anything but camcorders) and S-Video is good, as is the support for four levels of quality, allowing up to four hours of video on a single layer DVD-R, is good.

In the end, I'd recommend using a separate DVD player to play your DVDs, and to use this strictly as a VCR replacement. And don't buy it for your stereotypical grandma, she'll never use it.