I bought this DVD recorder to copy many old family home movies on videocassettes to DVDs. Our home movies date back to 1988. After some advice from customer service at Toshiba, I have been able to use the recorder to dub my old home movies successfully to DVDs.
Like several other users, I found that when I followed the instructions for dubbing to DVDs, the recorder showed a "Barred" icon, a slashed red circle. After several attempts with different brands of DVD disks, I called Toshiba. I got some very helpful advice from the first customer service agent at Toshiba, but I was still unable to resolve the problem. I called back and talked to another agent, who was able to help me resolve the recording issues. Both customer service agents at Toshiba were very knowledgeable and did an excellent job of explaining their advice. I was very satisfied with Toshiba customer service. I will summarize the advice below so that other people who have difficulties with the recorder can try these steps to resolve their problems.
1. Because old videotapes may not track well when they have been unused for several years, fast forward to the end of the tape and rewind the tape before attempting to copy it. The recorder may refuse to copy a tape if it does not track well.
2. Eject the videotape. Apparently Toshiba DVRs (both the 610 and 620) can balk if the videotape is inserted before the DVD.
3. Push the DVD button and insert the blank DVD.
4. Press Record Mode (not Record) button and set the speed (I use SP).
5. Press the Setup button and select Recording. Select Dubbing Mode. Select VCR > DVD.
6. Press the VCR button and insert the videotape. Press Play and then Pause (not Stop) at the point slightly before you wish to start copying.
7. Press the Dubbing button. Push Stop when you want to stop dubbing. You can then insert another videotape to dub onto the same DVD, until it is full.
8. You can add titles on the DVD disk with the Top Menu button by selecting the part you wish to title and clicking on Edit and Edit Title.
9. After adding titles, you should finalize the DVD by pressing the Setup button, selecting DVD Menu and then Finalize (this may take a few minutes). Then you should be able to play the disk on another machine. I have been able to play finalized disks on my Sony DVD player.
I hope this is helpful for others having some trouble with these machines. I am very happy to be able to make digital copies of my old home movies. Toshiba DVR620 DVD/VHS Recorder, Black
I have used this recorder over the last three months to copy all my home VHS tapes to DVD. Previous reviews of other Toshiba VHS/DVD recorders complained about problems with created DVD's playing in other devices. Also complaints of complicated manual instructions and complicated remote controls. I have found this new recorder to be easy to use. The manual is somewhat complicated but easy to follow once you try a few recordings. The remote control was easy to use. There is one HDMI output cable for both DVD and VHS replay. The quality of the replay in standard play speed is good for my recorded DVD's. The quality of store bought DVD's was excellant. The upconvert to 1080 is a good feature. The price was great. Bravo to Toshiba.
I purchased this as a gift so I wasn't able to test out all of the features but I did get to test out the basic ones. First of all the recording quality is very good from the DVD recorder. In XP mode there is no difference in quality between the actual broadcast vs the recording. It looks identical.
The image quality of DVD playback is also good. I did not test this unit with a HDTV so I don't know what the upscaling is like but assume it is at least as good as competing models. The VCR could also record.
The unit's exterior design is elegant and simple and doesn't look cheap. It's not as tall as it looks in the pictures. The front bottom half is a door that flips down to reveal more buttons. The door has a shiny clear finish. This unit is very easy to operate out of the box, it doesn't require much tweaking to do basic functions. The remote is nice too with lots of functions.
The only thing that you should know before you buy this unit is the fact it DOES NOT have a built-in tuner so keep that in mind. You will need to connect a separate tuner, cable box, VCR etc. to record OTA broadcasts. Since it has no tuner, you cannot simply hook an antenna straight into this unit to record broadcasts.
It is important to note that this recorder does not have any tuners, limiting its usefulness.
Whether this is right for you, depends on how you are going to use it. If you just want to transfer VHS tapes on to DVD, then this would be OK.
You won't be able to record TV shows without some sort of external tuner. This could be a digital TV tuner for over the air broadcast or a cable box or a dish box.
But, in any case, you will not be able to record a high quality video picture. You will only be able to record in standard definition and not in widescreen.
For copyright protection (so people can't copy high defintion signals), no commercial DVD recorder comes with component or HDMI inputs. They only have composite inputs and in some cases, like with this player, S-video inputs. But, composit and S video are lower qualify.
I prefer a DVD recorder with digital ASTM and QAM tuners. With these, you can take direct digital signals from either over the air, or directly from a cable and record higher definition DVDs in widescreen.'
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