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Has anybody found a review on this DVD recorder. The specs look impressive at $170. I saw a rating of 4.8 out of 5 for the company. Thanks.
Yamakawa 628 reviews?
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OK, I'll be the guinea pig, I just ordered one from Ecost. Should be here in 8-14 days. Since I'm in Canada the $50 rebate doesn't apply but the price is still pretty darned cheap for a recorder. Although the Yamakawa site was $20 cheaper I went with Ecost because they have the Borderfree affiliation with Canada Post and it tells you the TOTAL costs including duty, shipping, taxes etc.
I spoke to Yamakawa tech support about the recorder. He indicated that although its made in a different factory than the players, it in his opinion should have as good or better PQ. Also, out of 500 they've sold they've had 8 (2%) defective ones returned. So I bit the bullet.
Interesting name, Yamakawa. Perhaps its a combo of Yamaha and Kawasaki to sound more Japanese, although its made in China. Not knocking China though, tell me what isn't made there nowadays.
I spoke to Yamakawa tech support about the recorder. He indicated that although its made in a different factory than the players, it in his opinion should have as good or better PQ. Also, out of 500 they've sold they've had 8 (2%) defective ones returned. So I bit the bullet.
Interesting name, Yamakawa. Perhaps its a combo of Yamaha and Kawasaki to sound more Japanese, although its made in China. Not knocking China though, tell me what isn't made there nowadays.
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Mikeyc, Thanks for being the lab rat. I was almost ready to. I just bought a new DVD+-R/RW and Kworld vid capture for my computer and then the motherboard fried before I got a chance to use them. Figured I should get a stand-alone recorder except they all seem to be plagued with horror stories. Never heard of Yamakawa before, but hoped between the price/specs/company-rating, maybe this would be better than the 1st generation units. Had accumulated samples of 16 different DVD+R/RW:brand:speed DVDs (no Maxell or Verbatim yet) to originally try on the computer drive (NEC), but will test them on a stand-alone unit instead.
Quote:
Actually, I'm in Canada, I bought it from ecost because they have an affiliation with borderfree.ca (Canada Post) so I get the landed price, with all taxes, duties etc included. If I was in the US I would have been eligible for a $50 rebate but still, at $230 for a recorder it was a steal (providing it works!)
| Originally posted by bw191 I look forward to your review. Wish I could buy it locally. |
I finally got received it. Hooked it up and my initial impressions are:
The manual is not very detailed and it has lots of typos. I hate that. Some of the terminology is new to me or simply lost in translation. DV vidicon? YUV connectors? I previously had a Toshiba SD3800, I would say that the Yammy's PQ is slightly inferior to the Toshiba. I had high hopes after reading about the non recorders from Yamakawa.
Watched Fifth Element last nite and saw lots of jaggies in the Pyramids. I have to go buy some non region 1 discs to see if its "region free" works. I bought some TDK DVD+RW discs to record with but I got a message saying the discs are incompatible? Can't figure it out because its supposed to work with the +RWs and +Rs. I'll try to fiddle with it today and will post updates if I can get it to record.
The manual is not very detailed and it has lots of typos. I hate that. Some of the terminology is new to me or simply lost in translation. DV vidicon? YUV connectors? I previously had a Toshiba SD3800, I would say that the Yammy's PQ is slightly inferior to the Toshiba. I had high hopes after reading about the non recorders from Yamakawa.
Watched Fifth Element last nite and saw lots of jaggies in the Pyramids. I have to go buy some non region 1 discs to see if its "region free" works. I bought some TDK DVD+RW discs to record with but I got a message saying the discs are incompatible? Can't figure it out because its supposed to work with the +RWs and +Rs. I'll try to fiddle with it today and will post updates if I can get it to record.
Found out that the recorder won't work with the 2.4x TDK discs. Bought some 8X Sonys and they work fine.
Good news and bad news, the bad news is the manual, its very badly written which is expected I guess. The good news is that Yamakawa tech support is very good. I called them up and they helped me with a connection issue. Anthony was very helpful and he took his time to talk. I must say that the service was very personalized.
Still having freezing problems though. The only way I could reset it was uplug it and have it reboot again.
Good news and bad news, the bad news is the manual, its very badly written which is expected I guess. The good news is that Yamakawa tech support is very good. I called them up and they helped me with a connection issue. Anthony was very helpful and he took his time to talk. I must say that the service was very personalized.
Still having freezing problems though. The only way I could reset it was uplug it and have it reboot again.
the saga continues. I had a problem with the recorder freezing up. The only way to fix it was to uplug it. I called tech support and they indicated that there is a firware update on their website that specifically addresses this problem. Cool! I downloaded it and updated my machine but now there was not sound.
Seems that by resetting, it defaulted to 5.1. Tech support suggested that I change the setup menu from 5.1 to 2 channel (I had bypassed my HT receiver than connected it directly to my TV for simplicity in recording). This fixed the sound problem but then the picture became very pixellated and unwatchable. After calling support and trying a few tweaks, no luck. So we declared it DOA and I am now sending it back to Yamakawa for testing and they will be sending me a new machine.
I must say the excellent tech support is causing me to be very patient with this machine and for the time being I'm willing to chalk this up to bad luck and not a bad product. I'll keep ya'll apprised of the situation.
Seems that by resetting, it defaulted to 5.1. Tech support suggested that I change the setup menu from 5.1 to 2 channel (I had bypassed my HT receiver than connected it directly to my TV for simplicity in recording). This fixed the sound problem but then the picture became very pixellated and unwatchable. After calling support and trying a few tweaks, no luck. So we declared it DOA and I am now sending it back to Yamakawa for testing and they will be sending me a new machine.
I must say the excellent tech support is causing me to be very patient with this machine and for the time being I'm willing to chalk this up to bad luck and not a bad product. I'll keep ya'll apprised of the situation.
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Mikeyc,
Did you get a chance to test out its video system conversion features? I'm in Europe (PAL) with an NTSC plasma wondring if I can output NTSC while monitoring a live PAL signal.
I know the 628 has an NTSC tuner, but the European version (625) has a PAL tuner.
Did you get a chance to test out its video system conversion features? I'm in Europe (PAL) with an NTSC plasma wondring if I can output NTSC while monitoring a live PAL signal.
I know the 628 has an NTSC tuner, but the European version (625) has a PAL tuner.
TOS: I had to send it back before I had a chance to test out the video conversion. I'll play some PAL dvds when I get the replacement and report on it. The other thing is that I don't use the tuner because I have a satellite dish so I can't tell you how the tuner works.
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Well, to answer my own question above - it does.
I can't imagine there are many people interested, but the Yamakawa 625 (European version of the 628 - has a PAL/SECAM tuner) can be used to monitor live PAL TV on an NTSC only TV through all video outputs. Beats the hell out of the standalone PAL=>NTSC system converter I was using.
No problems on my unit for all 5 minutes of recording that I've tested it for so far....
I can't imagine there are many people interested, but the Yamakawa 625 (European version of the 628 - has a PAL/SECAM tuner) can be used to monitor live PAL TV on an NTSC only TV through all video outputs. Beats the hell out of the standalone PAL=>NTSC system converter I was using.
No problems on my unit for all 5 minutes of recording that I've tested it for so far....
to close this chapter on this book I received a replacement DVR from Yamakawa. Anthony in tech support told me he personally hooked up the replacement and tested it for 48 hrs before shipping it to me. Sounds good right?
Wrong. I hooked it up and nada. Not even the blue screensaver came up. I tried S Video, component and composite connections but nothing. Anthony was at a total loss to explain how it could be DOA since he tested it. I finally gave up and shipped it back for a refund. Too bad, it seemed like a good product, tech support is excellent but I don't think its ready for prime time.
Wrong. I hooked it up and nada. Not even the blue screensaver came up. I tried S Video, component and composite connections but nothing. Anthony was at a total loss to explain how it could be DOA since he tested it. I finally gave up and shipped it back for a refund. Too bad, it seemed like a good product, tech support is excellent but I don't think its ready for prime time.
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