Editorial Review:

Item Description:
The Samsung DVD-VR330 Combined VCR and DVD Recorder brings together two great entertainment choices. Break out the old VHS tapes and enjoy those classic films and home movies. If you'd prefer, play your favorite DVDs, right on the same unit. Play and record on both VHS tapes and DVDs with full multi-format recording, the one second response of Quick Startup Recording, Chapter Creator that makes creating thumbnails easy, and EVQ (Enhanced Video Quality) technology provides a superb picture. A/V Terminals - RF/F-Pin - 1 in/ 1 out / Composite Video Out - 2 in/ 1 out / Component Video out - 1 / S-Video Out - 1 / Audio in - 2 / Audio Out - 2 / Coaxial - 1 / Optical - 1 EVQ (Enhanced Video Quality) Auto Chapter Creator / Quick Startup recording / Remote Control Slim design (77mm) Unit Dimensions (WxHxD) - 17x3.1x10.6 inches Weight - 9.9 lbs Manufacturer's One Year Parts / 90 Days Labor Warranty

Amazon.com Item Description:
Samsung's DVD-VR330 provides the best of both worlds, with the ability to record home movies and TV programming to a wide variety of DVD discs while enabling you to continue playing your vast VHS library. Additionally, the 4-head VCR offers a full complement of standard recording and playback options as well as the ability to easily convert VHS tapes to DVD. A front-panel DV (FireWire IEEE 1394) input enables you to connect the family video camcorder and edit and record footage directly to a DVD disc--all via a single cable and without losing image quality. The EVQ (Enhanced Video Quality) feature provides sharper images and truer color reproduction for both movies and home videos. EVQ reduces pixel noise produced during digital signal processing, mitigates the cross color phenomenon occasionally produced by separation of Y & C signal.

It offers a full menu of DVD recording options, including DVD-R/RW and DVD+R/RW as well as DVD-RAM discs--a very flexible format that allows you to re-record on the disc up to several thousand times. Additionally, it offers recording compatibility with DVD-/+R discs--enabling you to store up to 8.5 GB of video on these two-sided discs.

You can program recording via the timer, or choose easy one-touch recording (initiating playback at 30 minutes and adding 30 minutes with each additional press of the button, up to the available disc time or 240 minutes, whichever is sooner). Chapters are created when you record your favorite TV show or video clips from a camcorder onto a DVD disc. The chapters are automatically created, which eliminates wasted time searching the whole DVD to find the right spot. Up to 99 titles can be recorded onto one disc. With the simple and easy edit function menu, you can delete, copy, rename, and lock, among other things. You can also create a playlist and edit video in a specific sequence.

It offers the following connection options:

• Composite video: 1 out
• S-Video: 1 out
• Component video: 1 out
• Firewire: 1 in
• RF: 1 in, 1 out
• Analog audio: 2 in, 2 out
• Coaxial digital audio: 1 out
• Optical digital audio: 1 out

Tech Talk
Component video (also called Y/Pb/Pr) features a three-jack video input, which provides separate connections for luminance (Y), blue color difference (PB) and red color difference (PR). This results in increased bandwidth for color information, resulting in a more accurate picture with clearer color reproduction and less bleeding than you would get with S-Video or composite (RCA yellow video plug) connections. You will need a separate RCA left/right audio cable for sound.

What's in the Box
DVD/VCR combo, remote control (with batteries), printed operating instructions



Accessories:
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Accessories:

• 3-Year Extended Service Plan - Covers Electronic Items $201-$500 - Repair

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Rating: - * Samsung DVDR review ... Easy programming, clear recordings and a sharp picture through it's tuner. I already have this recorder and needed a second one and went out of my way to find it. I have not used the VCR side though. Rating: - * The WORST Electronic Item I Have Ever Bought! ... I have just been reading up on a lot of the other customer reviews here and it's now at least I know it's not me! Like many others, mine worked for about a year (of course the time of the warranty) and then began not being able to read recordable DVDs. At first I thought the DVDs themselves might be faulty and even threw several out. After all, why would a major company like Samsung produce a machine that all of a sudden stopped working after a year? Several movies I had to watch on my laptop b/c it would not play. I could finally, at times, get some of the discs to work, but literally after trying 15 or 20 times! Then they started not working for a lot of pre-recorded discs as well, and even discs I made on this very machine! I bought a whole box set produced by 20th Century Fox, but can I watch any of them on this machine? No! I just burned a 2.5 hour movie from VHS to DVD+R (sometimes the plus-r's will not "initialize" correctly because they are "damaged" Bull! It's this machine that is truly damaged!) At any rate, when the movie was over I got the usual message after I pressed the stop button to wait. So I waited. And waited. And waited! Usually after 30 seconds or so the message disappears, but this one was on for literally 15 minutes! I could not shut the machine off or press stop. I had to unplug the damn thing and then it came back as a blank disc! I lost everything! I just bought a new non-name brand recorder, that will probably be much much better. Tomorrow Samsung goes into the garbage and hopefully my new machine will never give me this problem. To hell with Samsung and all of their products! Rating: - * Worst recorder I ever had! ... Samsung should be ashamed to have made such a overpriced faulty recorder. Mine has been for repair & still rejects over half the blank DVDs. Takes much longer to finalize discs than other makes. If you stop recording before full disc, it says to wait "a moment" & it takes enough time to have Breakfast or lunch. Could have bought 2-3 Lite-ons instead & they work much better. Rating: - * A serious flaw with recording DVD but there's a work around.. ... Had this recorder for about a year to empty my DVR and eliminate VHS tapes. Worked very well for about 6 months but then increasing started having trouble formating new discs for recording. Each time I started to record it would stop after 30 seconds and give a disc error; refusing to record any more shows and refusing to read the disc. After that I have to throw lot of them away. There is a work around that I found after working with it for a day: Start with a fresh disc and insert it in the machine. Record anything for about 4-7 seconds with chapters. The idea here is to lay down a good title and end it before the error occurs. After 4-7 seconds stop the recording and allow it to update. After that you can record anything like before with no problems. There is a firmware update but it's for Europe. The issue seems related to a copy protection software to prevent piracy. After all this time it seems Samsung isn't going to fix this very serious error. Love every Samsung product but this one isn't ready for prime time. Rating: - * Avoid Samsung ... After approximately six months of use, my Samsung DVD-VR330 began having problems reading blank DVD-R media, ejecting them several times before finally detecting them. Soon thereafter, it failed to read blank media as well as all the DVD-Rs I had recorded and finalized on that same recorder. When I called Samsung, the Customer Representative suggested I send the VR330 to Samsung's Repair Center, which would cost $65 in Labor plus the cost of shipping. Because the discs I had already burned were not perfectly compatible with other DVD brands, I needed a Samsung DVD player, but the cost of repairing the VR330 was over half the cost of the new Samsung DVD-VR357. So I decided to give Samsung another chance and bought the VR357, which had all good reviews at the time. Seven months later, the VR357 started failing in exactly the same way as the VR330. When I again called Customer Service, the rep again denied knowing anything about the problem. In fact, he had the temerity to claim that Samsung had "no known problems whatsoever" with their DVD recorders. Again, the only option was to send the recorder in for "repair" with little hope of solving the actual problem. As I told the second Samsung rep, I will NEVER buy another product from Samsung. Neither should you.