Samsung DVD-SR150M DVD Recorder

Very easy to use, amazingly well priced! Will play most formats, unfortunately beaten by my naff little philips player on one or two! Excellent pcture. REALLY annoying feature, turn it on and the tuner defualts to analogue every time!! Whats it gonna do when the switch off happens?? Easy to switch back but bloody annoying! The most annoying feature though is div x. Put a disk in, instead of getting a title menu, you get main menu, have to select divx from a list, then the titles show up WHY!!!!!!!!!!! totally pointless!! It's the only dvd player I have ever seen this happen on, even cheap and nasty's do do this! Otherwise so far a really good player.
Update 4/10 Has now stopped reading ANY discs that are not pre recorded. My old Philips (which it replaced) is still going strong!

Got one of these because I had a few VHS tapes to transfer to DVD, I wanted to record the odd thing off Freeview, and it worked out about half the price of the nearest hard-disk DVD combination recorder I could find at the time.

Good points: Plays DivX; nice picture quality; it's got phono outs, two scart sockets; can be set to multi-region; it's a really nice looking thing if you're bothered about that; timer record can be set directly with one button from the 7-day guide; advertised as DRD-R/RW and DVD RAM only, but it does play files burned to DVD+RW or CDRW; can use DVD RAM for extra flexibility in recordings.

Bad points/quirks: Has the option for PDC on timer recording (a feature that should make it keep recording if a programme overruns its time) but I can't seem get it to switch on, so to avoid missing the last few minutes you have to go into the timer and manually change the end time; not that hard, but fiddly enough to take it out of "easy enough for your grandparents to use" territory.

You can't set the record quality for Freeview recordings yourself, so you don't have much control over what fits on a disc - although saying that, every recording I've made has looked as good as the broadcast itself so far.

Doesn't play VCD, or MPEG1 video from a disc.

If you put in a data disc, you have to choose what you want type of file you want to use - for instance with a disc full of DivX/XviD, you have to choose DivX before you can see what files are on the disc. Not a huge pain, but not as easy as if it just showed a list of the files on the disc immediately.

As you look at different channels on the 7 day guide, the channel actually changes, so you can't look at what else is on while still watching a different channel.

Remote can be sluggish, takes a while to change channels and for some options to select.

There's an option to control your TV with the remote if it's supported (mine isn't) but you have to switch between TV or DVD recorder control. If you switch it to TV by accident the channel up and down buttons don't work for the DVD recorder; I though the remote was broken for a couple of hours...

Recording sometimes skip a split second every now and then when playing back - this might be unique to my recorder, as it looks like it was a a return, and was sold as having the recording function "untested," that coverall caveat...

So would I have spanked £50 on it if I'd know all this in advance? Possibly not, and, inevitably, hard-disc/DVD recorder combos starting appearing for not much more than I paid almost as soon as I bought it.

But saying that, I'm actually pretty happy with it - it's nice having a Freeview box, DVD and MPEG4 player all in one, and being able to record Freeview without having to faff with two separate devices has made my life a bit easier, and that's the whole point of a gadget isn't it?

One last thing about MPEG4 playback - DivX is great, XviD playback isn't always perfect - it's only advertised as having DivX support as opposed to MPEG4, so that's fair enough. Some XviDs look fine, but others can look a bit pixellated and the colours sometimes aren't perfect... on the other hand it does play packed bitstream XviDs, a nice touch is that you can press the chapter skip button and it'll skip forward about three minutes through the file, and I haven't yet come accross any XviD file that it outright wouldn't play.

This is a good player overall. However, as a replacement for a VCR this unit has a major drawback.
When recording from freeview channels the recording quality defaults to FR and you cannot change it.
This means that if you want to record a 1.5 hour film plus a 1hr drama, forget it, FR sets the quality to SP for the 1.5 hour film and then forgets or ignores the 1hr drama.
Some reviews or forums will tell you that you can change the quality setting if you make a timer recording rather than using the epg. This is true, but you can't program freeview channels from the timer, only analog channels.
There is a workaround though, which may be of use to people who have already bought one of these.
1) Using the timer, set a 2 minute recording (starting in the next few minutes)on an analog channel and set the quality to, for instance, LP (4hrs).
2) When the 2 minute recording is finished, go into the epg and choose a freeview program to record, you will see that the time remaining is roughly 4 hrs, because you have set the quality for the disc by doing the 2 minute recording.
You can now set recordings for up to 4hrs worth of freeview progs.

I decided to purchase the Samsung SR150M after comparing similar machines on the market. The Samsung compared very favourably on price, style and functionality. To be honest it was the style that won me over as it is so slimline and attractive. I have always gone for Panasonic DVD recorders in the past but the Samsung is so much cheaper and yet has all the same functions so seemed the obvious choice as it is also a large, well known and trusted high street brand.

It is very easy to get to grips with straight out of the box too. I didn't even need to consult the instruction manual as all the button fuctions are obvious. Simply connect the aerial lead to the RF in socket and connect the Scart lead between it and the TV and you're up and running. Once tuned in it is surprising simple and fun to use as the on screen displays are very clear and user friendly. As I mentioned earlier, I have had Panasonic machines previously which use DVD-Ram discs. Fortunately the Samsung plays and records onto the same discs so that means I can watch all the programmes I have stored on my old DVD-Ram discs. DVD-Ram discs can be used like video tapes but don't suffer the same wear and tear after several recordings.

The only thing I have noticed is the Samsung takes its time loading the DVD-Ram discs. 5 minutes on one occasion! However, once loaded all operations are reasonably fast and comparable with my old Panasonic DMR E85. Another thing is the writing on the on screen menus is very blurred. This could be because I am using it with a CRT TV set and not an LCD or Plasma.

Unfortunately the Samsung SR150M doesn't have "Chase Play" unlike my Panasonic machine. In other words you can't start watching a recording from the beginning whilst the programme is still recording. Not a major problem but it is a useful feature nontheless.

The main plus point is that it has a built in Freeview tuner. Meaning you can record freeview channels directly onto a DVD disc. However, unlike some rival machines, the Samsung has only one digital tuner meaning you can only record one channel at a time and you cannot watch another digital channel whilst that one is recording. You can however watch an analogue channel.

Picture quality is very good. Colours are vivid and true and images are very sharp. The remote's buttons are sensibly arranged and clearly marked making it a pleasure to use.

To sum up, for the price I paid I am extremely happy with the Samsung and would recommend it.

Pros: Looks, Freeview tuner, functionality, ease of use and price.
Cons: No Hard Drive. DVD-Ram discs very slow to load.

This is not the perfect home tv recording set up, however for the money it is a superb unit. Easy to operate and very good quality. You can only record on one channel at a time and if you are recording you can not look at another channel. If you have a second digi box or digi built into your tv that doesnt really matter. Definitely a step up from the old vcr. Can also be used to copy old tapes into dvd. Recommended