Stay Tuned

THE UNIT DOES NOT HAVE A QAM TUNER… THERE ARE MORE NUMBER’S ADDED AFTER THE 570 NUMBER……….
Rating: 1 / 5

I am not much of a techie so I needed a neighbor to help me connect to TV. There seems to be different ways but instructions are not clear or explain why would do it one way or another. I do not like that I can not switch all power off without having to reset clock each time. I guess in time I will get used to this. I think maybe I should have chosen DISH and let the installer do tall the hook ups, and a $40 DVD player
Rating: 3 / 5

I have only made two DVDs so far with this unit, so it is too early for many conclusions. My rating of three stars is mostly because I have not used it much and cannot draw conclusions.) Previous reviews are correct that it is a complex machine, with a fairly steep learning curve.

This is my first Toshiba product of any sort, ever. I bought it to replace a Panasonic DVD recorder that had malfunctioned (after several years of use). Most of the reviews I read indicated that the Panasonic devices continue to be easier to operate and of high quality, but unreliable. I had been happy with the Panasonic but did not want to buy another one in the face of such unanimous comments regarding their unreliability.

The first DVD I made seems OK, and I wa able to reproduce it with a PC, which is important to me –generally I make multiple copies of DVDs for other people, using a DVD burner in a PC.

I was unhappy to discover that there is no option to set the DVD to start playing automatically at the first title. Since I hardly ever have multiple titles on a DVD and want the copies to be simple to use, I prefer the Panasonic feature that allows such a setting so that the DVD starts playing immediatly, without having to navigate a menu.

Because it will not start automatically, that makes it all the more important to create a meaningful title for the program. The Toshiba titling feature is so crude and difficult to use that it is a royal pain to generate one.

(And when I say “title” here, I mean, the text you see on the screen to decribe a “program.” Toshiba uses the term “title” in a different way, which I found confusing at first.) Putting a name on a title is like using a cell phone to create a text message, only even more cumbersome!

The Pansaonic titling process is both much easier to do, and less necessary.

Another drawback is that certain operations take a longer time compared to the Panasonic I was used to. This was also noted by earlier reviews. I give Toshiba credit for pointing out lengthy processes in the user manual.

One feature that intrigues me and that I have begun to try is that you can edit out specified material from a recording, if you use DVD-RW re-recordable discs (not with + only with -). If this is accurate enough, it could be a great feature. I have tried a couple of edits and would say the accuracy is reasonable but not as accurate as an editing VCR.

I am not using this for recording from broadcast Television and it is not feeding a signal to a large screen TV or monitor, so I have no comments on its tuner (which is both digital and analog, possibly a nice feature) or on its ability to display an image. (I use this to make DVDs from SVHS tapes that I have created using an old Panasonic professional SVS camcorder.)

(I did, however, run the tuner setup and it seemed to run fairly quickly and easily. My one complaint on that is that it did not find the automatic time/date signal from our local PBS station, so I had to set the clock manually, not a big deal. )

My first attempt at recording on a DVD-RW has not panned out. I was unable to play it on a standard DVD player. I “finalized” the DVD as per the instruction manual, but the regular DVD player does not recognize the disc at all. This is a very complicated process, to edit and finalize, so the odds are that I made an error. When I looked at the finished DVD on a PC, it would not play. But I could open the files with Windows Explorer. When I did that, the files would play. But the file looked like the raw recording I made, without the edits. So it is not following the “play list” which is supposed to represent the final recording. With luck I will eventually figure it out, but this is surely not an intuitive machine to use.

And by the way, “finalizing” took much longer than it used to on my Panasonic unit.

I will try to come back here at a later date and update this review after I have more experience with the unit.
Rating: 3 / 5

This is my third one of these and they work very well. As everyone else says the lettering on the remote leaves a lot to be desired!
Rating: 4 / 5

The DR 570 DVD Recorder turned out to be a really great product. It has done everything I have asked it to do and the tech support is really very responsive. I recommend it highly.
Rating: 5 / 5