I'm looking to purchase the Sammy DVD-R160, can anyone recommend it, or another one over it?

I'm looking to record data off my DirecTV HR-20, and be able to watch movies that I burned off a computer (current DVD player won't do that). I also would use its upconverting feature to watch DVDs and use my current DVD player as a CD player mainly.

Any issues with this DVD recorder?

bump

thumbs down from me. every samsung product has issues, can't imagine this one will be any different.

Samsung has never made a quality dvd recorder, the earlier 120 and 130 were problematic junk, I would doubt they improved anything in their current models.

I don't know about this model but my new Samsung AR650 is going back to Newegg....I have never owned an electronic component with so many crippling issues.:mad:

Hmmm. Interesting. Thanks for the feedback.

I want a HQ recorder to get stuff of my DVR and an upconverting player as well. I'll keep shopping around and reading reviews.

Anybody care to elaborate on their issues?

I own this product. I got it for free "brand new in a box" with purchase of a HDTV a month ago. I have not recorded anything yet but i have had trouble with just simple playback of CD or DVD. 8 times out of ten the player has just refused to recognize the DVD/CD for no reason. As i'm writing this i'm pissed off coz i wanted to watch the new bourne ultimatum and the damn player won't accept it. I keep getting an error message "disc not correct" even on brand new discs. However an empty dvd disc fires up right away thus implying the laser is not damaged. I still haven't tried recording, i suppose i will run into more problems. I would strongly advise anyone to skip this product. I got it for free, now i know why but i imagine i would be really furious if i had actually bought it.

Thanks for the feedback, I'm going to pass on this one.

If anyone has a recommendation for a good upconverting DVD player AND recorder, please advise (Toshiba? Sony? Panasonic?)

Check out the Philips DVDR3575H here. (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=940657)

Just a follow up on my earlier post. More bad news. Yeah. finally got around to recording and just as i suspected the damn thing won't record. just keeps giving an error message saying "unable to format disc coz of system error" - I'm throwing this junk away !

I bought a Samsung DVD-R135 Dec 31, 2006. I used it for several months to download shows from a Comcast DVR -- then it gradually quit recognizing a new blank disk when loaded. It also got a little flaky reading discs it had recorded several months earlier. In contrast, we bought a Phillips DVD player for $60 at Blockbuster on an impulse about 3 years ago, and it has played every disc perfectly ever since, including the ones form the Samsung. Too busy to investigate further until about a month ago, and found all the bad reviews, including a class action suit from several years ago. At this time the R135 will not play -anything-, and of course, recording is out of the question. I looked at Circuit City and Best Buy and they now sell the -R155 and -R160, basically 'upgrades' (?!) of the R135. Reviews appear to be similar. Samsung wants $68 to fix it (+ the $25 it will take to send it to CA).

What a bunch of crap! How hard can it be to mfg a DVD-R that will last more than 6 months? I don't need HD, upconvert, nothing special, just record std output from Camcast DVR. Garbage!!!! I'll never buy Samsung anything again! Thank god I went for the LG instead of the Samsung phone last month.

I'm surprised at all the negatives here. I just got mine last week from best buy for 129 (on sale). Works fantastic so far. The upcoverting picture is unbelievable (720p) and I'll be just fine without HD-DVDs/BluRay for the time being. Recorder works good and no problems playing any discs so far. Hooked up to a Samsung LN-3242h TV.

Ditto re: the negativity. I've had the DVD-R160 for about a month with no problems. The upconverted pics look great and I'm in no hurry for a hi-def player either. No problems playing store bought DVD's or DIVX/MPEG4's burned from the computer. Haven't tried recording yet though...

I've had this DVDR for over a month now and the only problems I've had with it were user errors / wrong expectations. I don't have any complaints for it - I suspect the folks above bought lemons.

I have nothing but positive things to say about my DVD-R160. ...at least for now!

I've had the DVD-R135 for about a year and a half, so perhaps my experience will help with your consideration of the R160. I originally chose the R135 because I like Samsung TVs and I liked being able to watch my recorded TV shows on other DVD players around the house and on computers I can take on the road. However, it has always been very finicky and it was obvious that, unlike the TVs, this unit seems very cheaply built. For starters, it tends to overheat, and that causes it to malfunction. I spent the first few days experimenting with the best placement to maximize airflow and ended up having to rearrange the position of many of my other AV components. Over the months, there was occasional weird behavior (every few weeks or so) - scrambled picture on the DVI output, strange opening and closing of the disk tray using my Harmony remote, not being able to finalize or recognize a DVD-RW disk, etc. Unlike any other AV component that I have ever owned, its behavior is quite unpredictable. All of this weirdness could usually be solved by resetting the unit by turning off the power and turning it back on...until now - it has recently begun to refuse to recognize pre-recorded movie rental DVDs. This, I fear, is the beginning of the end, and is the reason why I found this thread - I'm researching a replacement DVD recorder. All in all, it has been a workhorse for me. I've used it almost everyday to record and watch recorded TV shows, and I've been satisfied with the video and audio quality. But, considering how cheaply it seems to be built, I feel fortunate to have gotten a year and a half of use. However, for my replacement, I am definitely staying far away from a Samsung DVD recorder.