CyberHome CH-DVR 1500 DVD Recorder

[sullen]

Has anyone purchased one of these and had some time using it? I saw this flipping through the channels the other day on HSN.com which is the only place it can be bought right now. Here is a link:

http://www.hsn.com/cnt/prod/default.aspx?webp_id=1474081&web_id=1474081&o=home

It looks like the Apex DRX-9000 in terms of media, functions, and price. Thanks for any input.

[lizzyvm]

yes. i just received it and hooked it up, and copied a home video of my wedding to an included dvd+rw disk to check it out.

[mp3superfreak]

Funny you mentioned it, b/c I just ordered one on Sunday. I was able to get mine for $271.08 (including shipping) by using the 25% off first time customer coupon (look on techbargains.com on the right side of the main page, scroll down to HSN). I was not able to find much information about the player, other than the Cyberhome site. I'm thinking the unit uses a NEC 1100 burner, but I have no way of knowing. Wouldn't it be nice to swap it out with the 1300 and have +R/RW AND -R/RW functionality? Yes it would.

I did the flex pay option and it is less than $70 a month for four months. This way, my wife may accept it as a new VCR replacement!

They said on HSN that they sold more than 8000 units on their first showing, so someone out there should be able to tell us if it works well. Mine still hasn't shipped, but when I receive it, I may put aside some time for a short review.

Anyone have one?

[lizzyvm]

i was at a sony site, and they supposedly have an +rw/-rw player for $270. if it's true i wish i had that one instead of the cyberhome. but when i bought the cyberhome i didn't know anything about the +/- rw issues at all. i have learned alot in the past 2 days at this web site!

[donpedro]

player, recorder ?!?! You are mixing two different things... I guess.

[Bob W]

BlockBuster Video will be kicking down your door to catch you making copies of their rental discs. Of course they will send out a minimum wage 17 year old kid to do that.

[donpedro]

BlockBuster Video will be kicking down your door to catch you making copies of their rental discs. Of course they will send out a minimum wage 17 year old kid to do that.

this looks like mistake what are you refering to ?

[Bob W]

BlockBuster Video will be kicking down your door to catch you making copies of their rental discs. Of course they will send out a minimum wage 17 year old kid to do that.

this looks like mistake what are you refering to ?

LOL yeah I got side tracked and posted it in the wrong thread.

[donpedro]

multitasking ? LOL

[mp3superfreak]

yes. i just received it and hooked it up, and copied a home video of my wedding to an included dvd+rw disk to check it out.

How is the quality of the resulting DVD+RW? Anyone else with comments on this recorder?

[sullen]

Thanks for the coupon code for HSN.com. That one lasts until December 31st 2004 so I have time to get some feedback from other people about their experiences with this recorder and do some comparison shopping from now until Christmas. I also thought the $271 was before shipping until I checked it out and saw that it included shipping. Awesome price if this machine turns out to be of good quality with reliability. My only real reservation is that it is mail order and getting service or returning it means going to a service center or mailing it. Keep the reports coming.

PS Does yours have the cable pass through like on a VCR? The picture for the Region 1 machine on the Cyberhome website does not, but it is listed under the output section. Here is the link to the picture. Thanks for the info.

http://www.cyberhome.com/photos.asp?Product=1500&Photo=1500c

[mp3superfreak]

My unit has shipped, but it may be next week before I get it. HSN doesn't provide tracking information other than "item shipped".

As for your question about the cable passthrough, it states in the manual that the passthrough can't be used to view recorded DVD's anyway. I ordered this unit to replace my VCR and I don't use the coax outputs anyway. It will be nice to have S-Video outs for all my components.

You can visit the Cyberhome page and download the complete 6.2MB manual in PDF format (kudos to CH for putting this online):

Cyberhome CH-DVR 1500 Downloads

Unfortunately, my cable signal is more snowy than a northern winter, so I will need to visit my dad's house to try recording from a C-Band sat signal, which is not HD, but extremely good quality.

In the meantime, I'm guessing at least a few of the 8000+ people who've ordered this unit from HSN visit this site....give us some feedback!

[KDH]

I'm Getting a" sold out "message from original HSN link above


KDH

[sullen]

It appears they have sold out of whatever stock they had or are expecting to get for a while. I went to the homepage and a search for this item turned up nothing. Hope they get some more back in stock before Christmas...

[handyguy]

Not one sold on ebay.com too.....

You could get a panasonic e30/50/80 for a nice price, they use dvd-r disks soyou would save money in the long run.

[mp3superfreak]

Ok, I've had my player for a couple of days and thought I would give an update.

THOUGHTS

First of all, the unit seems to be well constructed (especially for the cost). It feels much more durable than my cheapo Apex 1100w and about on par with my Denon DVM-1805 DVD changer.

I have been a -R/RW person in the past, but I couldn't pass up the deal on this recorder. I figured I could record to DVD+RW, then rip to computer, build fancy menus and save a ton of time. I haven't had a chance to try this yet, b/c neither my Toshiba 12x DVD-ROM or Pioneer 104 burner will recognize the DVD+RW disks. I recently ordered a Lite-On from newegg, so I'll test this soon.

QUALITY OF RECORDINGS

This was a very important consideration for me. Since I have a macrovision disabled Apex 1100w, I was able to record some movie clips directly from DVD. The unit has 5 different recording levels including:

1) HQ - 1 HR Max (Highest) - Slightly better than SP, but not THAT much
2) SP - 2 HRs Max (Excellent) - The setting I leave mine on
3) LP - 3 HRs Max (Very Good) - Still very good, but I prefer SP
4) EP - 4 HRs Max (Better Than VHS) - didn't try this one yet
5) SLP - 6 HRs Max (Equal to VHS) - looks like MPG-1 about VCD rez to me.

Both the HQ and SP recordings from my DVD source were indistinguishable from the source. No MPG artifacts, and the audio/video was sync'd perfectly.

More importantly for my old VHS collection of home movies, the conversion to DVD looks as good as my tried and true VHS to Canon DV camcorder to computer (via firewire) for AVI capture, then convert to MPEG-2 (which takes FOREVER!). Let me just say I won't be wasting time doing this anymore! Some of my VHS tapes were pretty bad quality, and as long as I used the SP mode, I couldn't tell a difference from the source (obviously couldn't make it better).

I'll hopefully post some more details once I've used the unit some more.

COMPATIBILITY

So far, the unit has played every disk I've thrown at it. Being the MP3 freak I am, I tried one of my DVD-R's full of MP3 songs. Amazingly enough, the unit recognized the songs (including LONG filenames!) and has a pretty intuitive interface. Neither my Apex 1100w or Norcent DP-300 is as easy to navigate through songs.

It also plays DVD-R/RWs, DVD+R/RWs (duh), Video CDs, SVCDs, (I'll try miniDVD soon), JPG, MP3's on CD-R/RW and DVD-R/RW, etc. I'll also try some raw mpg files, but I'm pretty sure it will play them.

OVERALL

I'm very happy with my purchase. My only problem so far has been the RF input, which lowers the volume to my Denon HT system, and does not show correct audio/video sync. I get around this by using my VCR as the tuner (and connecting to Video In on Cyberhome). I've contacted Cyberhome's tech support and going to see what they say. It's not a huge deal to me, b/c I plan on keeping my VCR until DVD recorders are mainstream.

I'll try to put together a review with pictures and samples within the next week or so (I'll be gone this weekend and first half of next week). If anyone has any specific questions, I'll try to address them.

[donpedro]

nd does not show correct audio/video sync.

Could you please elborate on this little bit more ? Thanks.

[lordsmurf]

mp3superfreak, have you tried any of the editing functions of the recorder?

I have a stack of about 100 movies I want to put on disc, but cannot take the time to do it with my capture setups. I like the idea of a RW disc that can be edited. It seems that the unwanted part of the video (stuff before or after movie) can be physically erased on a RW disc. I don't really care about menus on these movies anyway, so whatever nit-wit thing it uses would be fine. Let me know if this indeed is the way it works.

What do the menus look like?

I'd make -R copies of the final +RW disc, and put the then-unneeded +RW in the erase pile for re-use.

I may very well buy this next month, along with a 50-spindle of +RW discs to go with it.

I'd also always use 3-4 hour modes. Two movies or several hours of tv recording from Saturday morning cartoons.

[mp3superfreak]

mp3superfreak wrote:
nd does not show correct audio/video sync.

Could you please elborate on this little bit more ? Thanks.

The audio is slower than the video when using RF inputs on my unit. So see people's mouth move before you actually hear what they say. It is very noticeable as well. Maybe 1/4 of a second off. This coupled with my very low audio out when using the RF as input lead me to believe my unit is defective as far as the RF input goes. Also, the unit does not have an RF output, mainly b/c the manual states this output would not carry the DVD recorded signal. They included a RF splitter in the box, so you could split the signal before the unit, sending one to the DVD Recorder, and the other to your TV (or VCR, I guess). I did not use this RF Splitter, mainly b/c my cable signal is so weak anyway, I didn't want to lower the quality any more.

mp3superfreak, have you tried any of the editing functions of the recorder?

I have a stack of about 100 movies I want to put on disc, but cannot take the time to do it with my capture setups. I like the idea of a RW disc that can be edited. It seems that the unwanted part of the video (stuff before or after movie) can be physically erased on a RW disc. I don't really care about menus on these movies anyway, so whatever nit-wit thing it uses would be fine. Let me know if this indeed is the way it works.

What do the menus look like?

The editing functions of the unit are pretty basic. In addition to erasing and changing title names, you can do the following:

Insert Chapter
Remove Chapter
Hide Chapter
Show Chapter
New Picture (makes new thumbnail for the menu)

Here is a picture of the DVD Menu after recording:

[img]http://groups.msn.com/_Secure/0SwDyAtkWZG*!zJ8AxRipl1b0slGOFqSVZFrMJmRmoxGcgLNwG jUJ1M8GAvnhYXRTyvqkJ4AmOl9wtS7y!D8OkUECSb9P8E0mP1y DTa!CAUEAtWWgGp8UPw/chdvr1500_dvdmenu.jpg[/img]

And for those other mp3 freaks out there, here is a picture of the mp3 menu:

[img]http://groups.msn.com/_Secure/0SwDTAqsWemT!zJ8AxRipl3ahxpVJtReAigRtXLAsxYhc!zSu3 9qBEQ7mJXeFvbGthUWoyeECp*bjA8nTQE*MxACQFPwRUUNZ9Wx zfcfrFn2WaMfr86dVVQ/chdvr1500_mp3menu.jpg[/img]

lordsmurf, as to your question about editing, yes it will work. You just have to insert a chapter before the commercial, then one as the show starts again, then you can remove this chapter from the disk. It may be easier to do this on your computer (TMPGEnc comes to mind), but the Cyberhome will accomplish this goal.

I'll post a full review later next week. I'll be gone for a few days with no Internet access , so I won't be able to answer any more questions until later next week.

[navarros]

Does anybody know where I could find this recorder???? I looked around, but didn't see it at any store....

[Gil T Pleasure]

Since the Cyberhome 1500 uses the DVD+VR recording format, you can edit directly on the DVD+RW disc itself. For example, you can change the look of the menu without having to rewrite the entire contents of the disc.

For DVD+VR capable software, see:
http://www.dvdplusrw.org/pc/dvdvr_software/index.html


@mp3superfreak:
Can you check whether the Cyberhome 1500 has the ability to change book types (ie bit setting). Thanks!

[Stoney Jackson]

New to the forum, where can I get this Cyberhome recorder now that HSN is sold out. They were the only ones selling it?
Am I correct in believing it has some features the Apex recorder doesn't?

[mp3superfreak]

@mp3superfreak:
Can you check whether the Cyberhome 1500 has the ability to change book types (ie bit setting). Thanks!

No, not that I can see. Only the ability to change recording modes, ie. SP, LP, EP, etc, and no bit rate setting within these modes.

[lordsmurf]

Isn't it possible to do the bitrate change later in a DVD+R drive in a computer ? I'm under the impression book types on either +R or +RW can be changed at any time.

[mp3superfreak]

Isn't it possible to do the bitrate change later in a DVD+R drive in a computer ? I'm under the impression book types on either +R or +RW can be changed at any time.

You've got me on this one. Gil T Pleasure asked if this could be done within the Cyberhome recorder and as far as I can tell, no. Interesting to find out they (book types) can be changed later. Is this something that is done without recompression? I was unaware of this special functionality within the +RW format.

My Lite-On DVD-ROM should be here tomorrow, then I'll have a chance to rip some test DVD+RW video (from the CH 1500) to my computer.

[lordsmurf]

Find Tompika. I think he's the one that always talks about booktypes and bitsettings and what-not on the +RW drives.

[handyguy]

"Does anybody know where I could find this recorder???? sad.gif I looked around, but didn't see it at any store...."

Maybe ebay.com But do you really want it if you can't find it anywhere? It could have just been a one time thing, you'd do better with a unit that has been around longer & that you can still buy.

[mp3superfreak]

"Does anybody know where I could find this recorder???? sad.gif I looked around, but didn't see it at any store...."

Maybe ebay.com But do you really want it if you can't find it anywhere? It could have just been a one time thing, you'd do better with a unit that has been around longer & that you can still buy.

HSN has been the only retail outlet in the last few months to sell this unit. They sold over 8000 units the first showing, and I'm not sure how many the second time, when I got mine. It usually takes them about a month to get another supply of them. I'm not sure why Cyberhome decided to use HSN exclusively, but I'm sure they will use other retailers in the near future.

I'm still awaiting a response from CH's tech support on my RF input issue.

[webeye]

For $362....why not look at the Panny 50? Gets very good reviews.
Lots of comments to be found.

[mp3superfreak]

For $362....why not look at the Panny 50? Gets very good reviews.
Lots of comments to be found.

If it used DVD-RW disks, I would have one. I don't like having to waste DVD-R's on stuff I don't want to keep and I don't have the ability to read DVD-RAM on my PC or other DVD players in the house.