TruTech TT1620 review

GLOAMING.us - Blogs: "As it happens, they had a DVD recorder at Target for a decent price: the Trutech TT1620 DVD recorder for around $100. I picked it up and trotted home with it.

Let me say this: this recorder is not perfect, but it's definitely not bad. I'm actually pretty impressed by what I got for the price. In addition to DVDs, the thing plays CDs, MP3s, MPEG video, and (most) Windows media files. For the most part, it seems to work really well.

But there are some glitches. According to the documentation, you can record at six different quality levels, with the higher quality taking more disk space. In reality, it only has four functional quality levels; the bottom two are too horrible to even consider using. In fact, they don't even work reliably: I tape a Monty Python special using the 'SLP' setting, which allows 6 hours of video to be recorded on a single DVD and which the documentation says is the same quality as videotape. I don't know what videotape they're using, but I have videos I recorded on ow quality videotape in 1985 that look better than this did. Not only that, but halfway through the show, the video inexplicably starts running in fast forward while the audio stays at the normal speed. This makes anything past this point unwatchable. This problem happened consistently with every show I taped at that quality level. I never even tried the lowest quality setting. The 'EP' setting (which allows for four hours, and which the documentation claims is 'better than videotape') is about the same quality as low-quality videotape but is watchable and seems to work. The three highest quality settings work more or less flawlessly.

Not all DVDs from the thing want to work in all DVD players. I can't get any of them to play back reliably on my Orbitron surround sound"