Cyberhome CH-DVR 1600

Never got my cyberhome ch-dvr 1600 to work, so can not rate it at this time.

I bought cyberhome to play and write DVD's but it does not recognize any disk. it always give: "No disc". To buy it is equal to throw your money away!!!

As the saying goes you only get what you pay for, well I wouldn't take this DVD recorder if you paid me. I didn't expect it to be top quality but I did expect it to at least work properly which it never has. It has been nothing but trouble and I would not recommend it to anyone.

I had read quite a few mixed reviews about the Cyberhome CH-DVR 1600 DVD recorder before I decided to take the plunge, but I thought it was worth the risk for the price!

I also have the Cyberhome DVD-400 player, which is great, and so I found the looks to be exactly as expected - small, functional, but not the most attractive bit of kit in the room. The remote is probably the weakest bit of physical design, as there are about 44 small buttons, all the same shape and size, placed in a grid, and even when you do find the right button you need to be pointing it exactly at the recorder for it to work.

Connecting up the basic cables to get the unit working was easy enough, especially as there was a scart lead in the box (what is it with most manufacturers giving you everything you need apart from that one item?).

I went through the "easy set-up" stage (although I think perhaps they need to re-think calling it "Virgin Mode") and the tuner found all of our TV channels, even Channel 5, which we can't normally get (but very weak). One problem is that they ended up in the order: BBC1, ITV1, BBC2, Ch4, Ch5, so I had to move BBC2 up to slot 2 to match my normal thinking. Also, the tuner is not all that good, giving quite a soft picture, and it picks up quite a bit of interference from the unit itself when recording (this may be worse for me because we have a weak TV signal here). I also found that pictures that went from my Sky box through the recorder (in one scart and out the other) to the TV were noticeably worse than going directly to the TV (even before being recorded).

I bought a few DVD+ RW discs for the machine, and inserting one of these and formatting it allowed me to try recording something. Later, I too discovered that DVD- R discs seemed to work.

I pressed record on the remote control and nothing happened. Ah, I needed to select the source; press the "source" button and you get a nifty little picture of the front and back of the machine with a highlighted box around the DVD drawer, showing that this is what is currently active. Each time you press "source" or the left and right buttons, this highlighted box moves to indicate a different set of connectors. A large Picture-In-Picture style window shows the programme that is on that connector, so you know you have selected the right one. At first I loved this, but it very soon became an annoyance.

Once I had selected a source I could press record. This did exactly what was expected, although I was a little shocked when I hit stop that there is quite a lot of processing the machine does before you can then play the recording (but at least you get a progress bar to watch).

Playback was good, and in the HQ mode the recordings looked as good as the original, but you can only fit about 57 minutes on a disc! This was rather silly - each quality setting took you almost to a sensible length, but not quite - I foresee a lot of programmes missing the last couple of minutes!

So, I connected the full system up (TV, DVD recorder, Sky box, old VCR) and prepared to use it for real. It was then that I started finding problems.

The first one was that you keep having to go back and select the source again (why can't it just remember the input I used last?). When you have Sky, 99% of anything you record will probably be from Sky, so it seems mind-numbingly awful to have to select that scart input before pressing record *every time* (and the box claims "one touch record")!

Another problem was what happens when you do a timer recording. The box switches on and tunes to the correct channel for the recording, but for some reason it also sends a signal out on the scart to tell the TV that it has something to show. This signal is supposed to be used when you start playing a DVD to switch the TV over to the DVD channel so you can see the pictures, but this recorder was sending the signal when recording. This means that if you set something to record on BBC1 and then start watching ITV you will have your viewing interrupted mid-programme, as the DVD recorder wakes up and forces the TV on to BBC1. There is probably a simple solution to this (not anywhere in the manual), but the only cure I found was to go from the recorder to the TV via an S-Video lead!

The big show stopper for me was that widescreen recordings ended up wrong! This is almost certainly caused by the set-up I have here. I still have a non-widescreen TV (4:3 not 16:9), which is really good and has a large screen. I have Sky, and I often video programmes. I also prefer widescreen programmes to be widescreen rather than losing the right and left of the picture. So, the Sky box is set to "4:3 letterbox mode", and when it decodes a widescreen programme it adds black bars to the top and bottom to make it 4:3. This is good because I can watch it fine on my TV, and also record the programmes on VHS (and play them back fine on a any 4:3 TV). However, when I record these programs on the DVR-1600, it seems to record the fact that they started off widescreen, then when I play them back it adds another set of black bars at the top and bottom, and I end up with a tiny squashed up picture in the middle of a black screen!

I tried every option on the Sky box and the DVD recorder and managed to get some very odd results, but nothing kept the pictures the right shape if they started as widescreen. I checked for updated firmware, but the unit had the latest. I rang the special helpline (being bought from Asda there is an Asda helpline instead of being able to call CyberHome) and they couldn't find a solution, and in the end said I should take the unit back.

So, I did take it back and replaced it with a Sony RDR-GX120, which is about twice the price, but it is so much better. I found that none of the problems I had with the DVR-1600 applied to this machine, and the picture quality is far better. It is also dual-layer, so you can get over 14 hours on a disc!

In conclusion. Is the DVR-1600 any good? Yes and no! It does everything that it should and a lot more that you have no right to expect on such a cheap recorder, but I found it very difficult to live with, and I was relieved to take it back.

If you want a cheap recorder, and if you don't mind if the picture quality is not the best. If you can put up with re-selecting the video source every time you manually record, and either have a widescreen TV, or only watch programmes in "pan-scan" (no black bars) then go for it.

If you can afford to pay more, want the best quality or the longest recording time, or just want a unit that will do everything simply and easily, then it might be better to look elsewhere.

My trusted VCR packed in just before Christmas, so there was a good excuse to venture out and grab one of the latest offerings from the sea of cheap DVD recorders. My eye caught the Cyberhome DVR 1600 in Asda (honest, I was just in for milk and bread). At less than £70 it was worth a gamble - after all it was replacing a £300+ VCR (well, ten years ago). I was impressed with its sleek lines, numerous I/O ports, and how little space it would take up compared to the mammoth VCR.

Setting up the unit was easy, but that's when the Cyberhome started to show its colours. I put in a new Philips DVD+RW disk (on the Cyberhome approved disk list) and after a bit of mechanical whining the OSD told me there was no disc present. Immediately I thought I will have to format it. The manual says you format a disk by using the edit function. Unfortunately, the edit function is disabled when there is no (or no recognised) disk in unit. Not willing to give in just yet I formatted the disk on my PC. This enabled the disk to be recognised on the Cyberhome, resulting in a format prompt on the OSD. I later discovered that opening and closing the disk drawer four times with a new unformatted disk would yield the same prompt. This didn't work with the new Memorex +RW disks, however. At this point I knew the unit would have to go back for round two. After all, what good is a DVR if it doesn't recognise new disks? I downloaded the firmware via the German site (http://www.cyberhome.de/de/Downloads-index-req-viewsdownload-sid-21.html)

which I will replace before taking the unit back.

If this is the Cyberhome's only flaw and it is correctable, then it has to be said, there are a number of items in its favour. The picture quality is very good, and there is no shortage of quality settings. To setup scheduled recordings is simplicity itself (sorry no VideoPlus here). The menu is largely intuitive, although if you want to understand the unit's LED (VFD) readout best to have the manual at hand for interpretation. It plays just about every disk there is, and although it doesn't mention it in the manual, many say they can record on DVD- as well as +. Some forums even provide a hack to make the unit multi-regional.

On the downside, there isn't much in the way of disk management. Once you record your title you have a laborious task if you want to rename your programmes from Title1, Title2, etc. Once the Cyberhome formats your disks it appears to set permissions on the disks preventing you from moving/copying the files from one disk to another using a PC. Unfortunately, this unit doesn't seem to acknowledge any RW formatting other than its own (it does play other recorded disks after finalisation). Anyone have a quick way around this?

I would recommend you have a spare lithium battery on hand as the unit is useless without its remote control. Those that are far sighted better have their glasses at the ready if you want to know what you are pressing on the RC. One last annoying quirk is that you have to set the source of the recording first, as just hitting the record button alone will leave you making embarrassing excuses why you can't record tonight's airing of Crimewatch UK.

I said I wouldn't recommend this DVR, but at this price there may be the odd occasion I could mention it. We'll see how round 2 goes.