Sony RDR-VX500 DVD Player/Recorder with VCR (RDRVX500)

DVDs suck. If you think differently, don't read on. Now that that's out of the way, here's why the RDR-VX500 is a piece of junk. 1. iLink interface doesn't work. More likely to work as the length of a title is shortened. Can still hang w/ titles as short as 5 minutes. 2. Title/disk naming menu is ridiculously arcane & is missing about 90% of the most common punctuation symbols one normally uses, including ".", """, "'", etc. Panasonic's menu is so-so but 10 times better. Panasonic also lets you choose the thumbnail for each title -- but Sony FORCES YOU TO BE STUCK with whatever the first frame of the title is -- LAME! Newer models are reportedly just as lame, too! 3. disk tray not slow -- good. But like all DVDs, takes minutes to load/read, and many minutes to write anything. 4. Fast forward modes suck; says FF1, FF2, FF3; not 5x, 10x, 100x, etc. Need I mention that when you get to the end of a title there's no going back? That's just a "feature" of all DVDs. Nothing like watching an entire show just to check you actually recorded it all. FF too far/fast? Too bad, sucker -- this is the world of DVDs! -- you gotta start over! Did you know that DVDs suck? 5. The tiniest microscopic particle can wreck your DVD write. Ever try to make a backup copy of one of those (occassionally successful) homemade DVDs? I'm only at about 90% success on this (yes, I try all 3 of my computer's DVD readers each time). Can all of the blame go to Sony? Maybe not, but remember -- DVDs suck! Yes, I tried Sony media. And TDK. And Verbatim. And Memorex. And about 5 other brands. It's not like I didn't try to get it to work. What I wonder is, would VHS ever have even taken off if it was like this? Actually, I know for a fact that the answer is NO. The ONLY thing DVD has going for it is that people hoped/assumed it would work at least as well as VHS. (Fools!) BTW, whatever you do, don't let your kids within 10 feet of a DVD! The ensuing scratches from even the most surgical handling in/out of a case will make the disk not merely unreadable, they'll hang your DVD player (you'll find this out after about 10 minutes of waiting for it to read). And if your blank DVD isn't as virgin as the pope, forget even THINKING about recording on it! Your unit will hang so bad you'll wish you were the one getting hanged! I've often had to put up w/ 2 reboots every time there was a supposed "media failure" (funny how my PC was able to use the "bad media" (DVD+RW) every time afterwards!). Geez, gimme VHS, please!

Hope I'm not premature here, but I just made my first DVD dub from a VHS home movie tape and everything is as good as can be. Remember, the VHS playback (which may also record, but who cares?) is in the same streamlined case, so you don't have to hook up your old camcorder, or buy one, or clean the heads, etc. It plays back S-VHS too, so I imagine it can dub those as well, although I haven't tried. If you're familiar with video equipment, will take about five minutes to get going; if you're not familiar, maybe 15 minutes or more depending on your aptitude for following manuals for "menu" items. Incidentally, probably a very much higher percentage of unsatisfied customers (got "lemon", nitpicker, neurotic, etc.) post negative reviews on the web than the percentage of satisfied customers. Elementary psychology, my dear Watson. Addendum May 20, 2005: while it makes a DVD from S-VHS it does not make a S-VHS from your commercial or other DVD -- only a VHS. I've bought so much equipment I believe this is a manufacturing cost difference to SONY of about $2, but of course I could be way off. Perhaps there is a copyright/duplication issue lurking in their anti-consumer choice here. I also dubbed from a JVC MINI-DV camcorder, purchasing from eBay the connecting cord for about $10 instead of JVC's house cord for about $35. When you hit the start button on the SONY recorder, it automatically starts the camcorder as well, a characteristic, evidently, of DV connections. Finally, you might think the slot for your VHS home tape is unnecessary, as you could simply cable your camcorder or a VCR to a simpler designed DVD recorder. Trust me, it's a lot more fun not to have bother with another appliance. (But note I had to for my MINI-DV tapes, and will have to use yet another appliance (or a camcorder) to track my HI-8 and 8 tapes for DVD dubbing. How many more formats before I die?)

So ive had this unit for almost a year and wanted to wait long enough to write a review on it, im usually not quick to judge and it was a good thing i waited. First let me tell you that I did some very, very thorough research before purchasing ANY of these barely new DVD/VHS recorders and it came down to this one and the panasonic one, after going over every single review on this website i noticed many complaints were based on the shipping and handling and that ovbiosuly has nothing to do with the quality of the unit itself so i thought they were both pretty even as far as the reviews but i went with this sony unit since i trust the brand and many of my other equipment is sony as well...let me tell you the first surprise was getting the unit in a heavily smashed box !!! I was then understanding why there were so many bad reviews on the handling of this unit. Luckily for me only the remote control cracked a bit but was still able to use it without any problems, the unit itself was very well secured so nothing was wrong with it but i will tell you guys this if you get it from amazon you get it at your own risk because the delivery guys are not careful at all so good luck first off getting it home safe..... Ok now to the main subject, the unit itself, from day one it was the easiest and most simple unit to use, the menu is basically all on a very easy to use onscreen format. As far as the recording goes if you record straight from tv is just as easy as recording with your vcr. I mainly bought this unit to transfer a big collection of tv shows i have on vhs onto dvd. It is very simple to do this, you simply select record from vhs to dvd press enter and it starts recording!!! Also i was very impressed with the vhs quality on the unit, while transfering my tapes i got a pleasant surprise as i was able to play some of these old games without any jumping on the picture which i had not been able to do with many other vcrs in the past! Also when using HQ speed on your dvd it actually improves the picture quality as well as the sound which i thought would be impossible, of course that will reduce your recording time but its worth using for those very old and meaningful tapes you may have. One negative i found on the dvd itself is that when recording from tv on either lp, slp or ep format the quality is really awful! you lose sound and picture and even my older vcrs will make better recordings on lp, slp or ep then this DVD unit on that speed so that was very dissapointing! Ive recorded by now over 300 dvds on this unit without any problems and with very good quality. Of course i only use good media such as sony, i once tried using memorex media and towards the end of the recording it would start skiping so you have to be very careful also on the type of media you use, Overall this machines served my purpose which was to transfer my collection and record a few more shows off tv. HOWEVER I wouldnt be so quick to buy it if I was you and here is why.... When i first bought it most recordable media out there was 8x so i bought about 200 dvds all at once, everything went well until about 5 months ago when i ran out of blank dvds, I then went to the store to get some more media and noticed all they have now is the new 1x-16x media or just 16x and guess what??? this unit does not suport that type of media !!! I didnt know of course until i brought some of these home tried them and kept getting an "error message" on my screen... I then contacted SONY CS and this was their response "The RDR-VX500 VCR/DVD Recorder records on 8X speed or slower DVD-Rs/DVD+Rs. Please refer to pages 10 to 12 for information on compatible discs for the unit." And guess what?? these 8x or slower media is now very hard to find in ANY store out there wether you try costco, best buy or circuit city, of course i was able to find some through compUSA which a sales man was able to get for me from the BACK stock room ! which probably means they will be discontinued soon or will not be carrying any more, I can still find some of these online and even through SONY sales but for how long ??? I was very dissapointing since its been only about a year since i got this unit and it seems that technology already caught up to it. Now i will probably need to replace it for a newer unit to keep up with technology, so unless you dont mind searching for those rare 8x or slower recordable dvds then you should go ahead and buy it because it really works well and makes great copies and is very easy to use but if you feel it will be a hassle to be getting the right media for this unit then by all means look for something that can support 16x discs and hopefully will also give you the quality recording that you need!

This won’t load a DVD even to simply play it. Also, the VHS will FF and RW bit won’t play. This thing was scratched on the top and the buttons inside the lower door were very dusty. This thing was used and pawned off in me. I’ve made a ton of Amazon purchases and this is my first return of a product based on it’s poor performance. I’m not picky, but make sure it works before you send it to me. I waited about ten days for this and had my family downstairs to see some old VHS tapes of family get togethers, our wedding and child births. I won’t buy from this seller again. Terrible quality control!

First, the good stuff: I was able to set up the machine in less than a half hour, and make a copy of home videos from VHS to a DVD+RW disk. If anything, it was too easy. Just touch a button and off it runs. I would be scared about how many of my DVD's accidentally get erased by my kids pressing the wrong button. The machine is quiet, too, unlike what I've read about competing devices. However, I'm returning the Sony because it lacks the features I got used to with my old Philips DVDR985, which broke down recently. Specifically, with the Philips I could append a new video recording to a previously recorded Title, so that I could overwrite undesirable parts of my home video on a DVD+RW disk. The Sony can't do this. The Sony cannot even divide a title into two, which would allow deletion of the undesired portion of a video recording. What the Sony can do is have its playlist skip over undesired portions on a DVD-RW using the VR feature, but then I'd have to worry about finalizing the disk and compatibility with other DVD players. So now I'm considering a Philips DVDR600VR, which probably has the same awful menu that my old Philips had, but which I've gotten used to, or the GoVideo VR5940 which allows for dividing titles.

The only reason we purchased this machine was to convert a big set of VHS tapes to DVD. The Recorder is fairly easy to use for this purpose, but we have had some issues with the DVDs made. On some DVD players we have had issues playing the DVDs. Hopefully this is an isolated thing with the specific type of DVD player we have at the office. We haven't yet tested it on a broad range of DVD players.

No remote was supplied. I had to purchase a remote separately. It didn't work. The remote sensor in the unit was inoperable. Video tapes would not eject. Pretty much worthless.

I knew item was used with no remote and manual, and that it's status was listed as acceptable. However, the DVD portion would not load a DVD whether new or used. So it could not read a used DVD or write onto new DVD. I returned item. I would definitely think twice before buying used.