Cyberhome DVR 1600 DVD Recorder

Pros: Quality, simplicity, reliabilty
Cons: Record time is less than declared

For those of you who have read this review already - I made an update on Oct.10 2005 regarding DiVX compatibility - see all the way donw the page! Features include: DISC TYPES SUPPORTED: DVD+RW: Playback, Recording DVD+R: Playback, ...

Pros: Inexpensive - highest quality produces fair results IF you can get it to work.
Cons: Generally poor quality, awkward, error prone, bugs, broke in 6months. TERRIBLE support. AVOID IT.

I wanted to get a DVD Recorder so I could archive stuff off of my Tivo, but I have a DirecTivo model, so TivoToGo was not an option. Not wanting to spend a lot of money, I got myself the CyberHome DVD Recorder (Model DVR1600) on sale at Target for $98. ...

Pros: Inexpensive, good instruction manual.
Cons: Poorly made, remote would not work properly, entire unit broke after 6 weeks.

I purchased the Cyberhome DVR 1600 DVD Recorder at my local Best Buy in March. I was confident that I was buying a good product because # 1 – it’s coming from Best Buy and # 2 – I have a compact Cyberhome DVD player that has worked fine for a couple of ...

Pros: None.
Cons: I had two machines, neither worked properly. Overheats easily.

This will be a very short review as my experience with a WORKING Cyberhome 1600 is very limited. I purchased one in May '05 at my neighborhood Best Buy. I tried to transfer footage from my DV Camcorder, but ran into problems right away. The ...

Pros: Low price, excellent image and sound quality, plenty of connections, very compact, surprising features
Cons: Not intuitive or ergonomic, requires updates to work right, poor instructions, questionable long term quality

DVD recorders today are still in their infancy, which is why I was surprised to find the DVR-1600 at my local Wal-Mart for only $129 CAD; not much more than what VCR's were selling for a few years ago. Since they have a good return policy, I decided to ...

Pros: Hey, it's better than nothing ;-)
Cons: Remote controller, overheating, confusing menus, slow system, unreliability

I would not recommend buying this product because of the several problems and annoyances that it presents to me. To start, you can't simply tell the unit to record, and then leave it and go about your own business. After every 30 minutes of ...

Pros: When it works, it works. No, if it works, it works.
Cons: When it doesn't work, you lose disks or recordings or both.

I hoped this would be worth buying when seeing a TV Shopping Channel presentation. It didn't work out that way for me. I bought a second one in case the first played up. Both played up. Trouble recognising an installed disc. Several attempts to load a ...

Pros: price of 129 CAD
Cons: Durability, ease of use

I bought this unit about 6 mos ago. The first one didn't even power on, so I returned it and at least the replacement turned on. We used it mainly to record TV programs. After about an hour of setting the thing up and realizing that 2 different types of ...

Pros: Multiple Video Input Connections, Nice Menus, Appealing Design and Color, Keep a Fan Nearby.
Cons: The heat while recording. The heat must be dissipated. Use a fan.

I have purchased 3 cyberhome dvr(s). One was a ch-dvr 1500, the other 2 ch-dvr 1600(s). The picture display has been great. Overall, recording has been great. Have had a few minor quirks in regards to recording. Sometimes, when I attempted to finalize ...

Pros: Less than $100
Cons: Unreliaable, Useless Customer Support, poor quality.

I acquired this "model" through a church drawing. I am quite tech savy but after setting up this device and purchasing the "recomended" Mfgr DVD-R's, I can not get the recorded media to play properly in my other High end DVD players. With scratchy sound and "artifacts" in the video, this unit is not a bargain at any price. Customer service is a joke, providing no positive help. Although this recorder has a good array of connectors and CAN play back its own recorded shows, I Would not recomend this to anyone. For the money you can get a TV Tuner card for your PC and get more reliable results. Better yet, save your hard earned money a bit longer and buy a Name brand model.

Pros: Good quality recordings, easy to use, very compact, reliable, front panel and on screen display.
Cons: Rather small remote control with a watch type battery, slowish at responding to commands.

I have used one since September 2005. I had 2 units which didn't work properly but as always Asda were happy to replace with no questions asked.

It is very compact with a good OSD and front panel display. The remote is small but useable. I have used it mainly in LP (4 hours) and the quality is good.

To the rear of the DVR 1600 there are many outputs for audio etc. – non tested. To the front there are connections for BNC and digital camcorders.

The DVR 1600 will playback most DVD & CD types together with MP3, JPG, WMA files and Kodack picture CDs.

In the menu it is possible to set chapter markers for 4 minutes and there is a commercial skip of 30 seconds on the remote control (perhaps 60 seconds would be better)

The DVR has many editing functions but the “delete file” is very handy as the whole disc doesn’t need to be formatted.

Yes, a good machine worth buying if you want a basic DVD recorder.

Pros: price- but remember you get what you pay for...
Cons: I can't think of any as it only worked once...

This machine is useless. I too found that the instructions were difficult to follow and the machine was difficult to use. I have tried numerous time to copy movies from the camcorder to DVD and ONLY once I was successful. It would frequently pause while I was recording. I have ruined numerous DVD because I was never able to finalize the DVD. I would not recommend this machine to anyone. I too would recommend paying a little more to get a quality DVD recorder.

Pros: Its purchase price is its lone attribute.
Cons: Once you've bought it, you're on your own.

For all CyberHome products, please note that it is no longer possible to get ANY customer support, warranty coverage nor even downloadable manuals or upgrades. Purchasing a Cyberhome model of any kind is a poor proposition, owing to their high rate of failure, and, oh, that detail about their being out of business. You'll HATE its remote, its tiny, fragile buttons and lack of responsiveness from the unit... though I've read online that All-For-One brand universal remotes MAY include this model among their models supported. The DVR-1600 unit is prone to overheating (its power supply has no fan) and destroying rented or self-created DVDs, so beware. Don't run this unit for more than 2 hours at a time, and never leave it powered on in pause mode for more than one minute.

Pros: None
Cons: Destroys new DVDs. Slow to respond to keys on remote. No control buttons on console.

I thought I was doing well by not buying from Wal-mart but this recorder is horrible! Since day one it has given problems finding errors with new disks that work fine on other devices. It is also slow to respond to key presses on the remote, often ignoring them altogether.

The manual is pretty useless, not even telling what DVDs will work with the device. I wasted 10 or 12 when I first got it because it would record several hours and then give an error and fail, destroying the disk. Turns out you have to use the slowest speed/smallest capacity to get anything to record.

As I said, it is very slow to respond to key presses on the remote. Also, without the remote you can ONLY eject, play, or pause/resume using the buttons on the device.

Basically, it is very good at destroying new DVDs and not much else.

Pros: Price of $99, nice design
Cons: Quits working after a few months of use, small remote with no illumination

After having this recorder for a few months, it will no longer play regular DVD's all the way through. I get to the 10 minute mark and it freezes and then tries to reformat the disc. I often get UN DISC or No disc when inserting a dvd that works fine in any other player. Would not recommend to anyone. Bought this at Best Buy. Thought that since it was coming from Best Buy, that they would stand behind the products that they sell. Tried writing to Cyberhome's support for 6 months and still no response. A phone number is listed, but you either have to call Germany, Belgium or Austria. I can't believe that Best Buy would sell this machine (which they still do as of October, 2006) and not stand behind it.