Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #30559 in Consumer Electronics
• Brand: Samsung
• Model: DVD-SH853M/XEU
• Released on: 2007-05-25

Customer Reviews

Unbelievably Awful
I made a big mistake buying this machine. After this Samsung - never again!

It will not start a scheduled recording if you are watching a program you have recorded earlier, recording only starts if you are in standby. There is no warning on screen only a flashing light on the front panel, but you're unlikely to be looking at that so inevitably you miss the start.

There is a trick to start viewing a program while you are recording, turn machine on after scheduled recording started, say NO when it asks you if you want to quit the current recording, then you can play back a previous recording. However the quality of the other recording will be degraded compared to what it usually is. After doing this you cannot put the m/c back into standby without quitting the recording you want to make. Unbelievable, there is no technical reason for this restriction, just awful software.

The user interface is thoughly badly thought out and contains many bugs. Often keys that sometimes work fine don't work, e.g. The number keys are supposed to select a f/w channel number, but sometimes the will not. Likewise I couldn't enter a video+ code the other day.

The information panels don't contain the information you might hope for. The channel is shown, but the field has too few chars to distinguish between, for example, BBCone and BBCfour. The program title isn't saved, even though the info is available if you selected record from the guide. You have to rename the title by hand. What is the use of the start, end ime & date presented? I don't have an encyclopedic memory of the TV schedules. I need a meaningful title.

There is no series record.

As for the f/v guide, where do I start! It is unbelievably gash. Each time you move to a different channel details which the mc/ has already downloaded are lost, you have to wait a few minutes for the new channel details to be read in. There is no page key, so you have to press up or down lots of times to move around. If you select a program to record overlapping a previous recording you have selected there is no back out, it just loses the previous request. The guide window shows only a feeble 4 channels by 2 hours.

There are some strange effects after 5 minutes when looking at menus, generally the function you are in quits and it goes back to some other point, NOT even where you have come from. The worst effect in this category is pause during playback, you would expect to be able go away for a time to take a phone call or answer the door then come back to finish your viewing, but after 5 mins the playback aborts back to the menu and you lose your place. Hopeless!

The bugs are clearly so deep & ingrained in the flawed design & firmware I don't expect a new firmware release to prove to be a satisfactory fix. I'll probably accept this was a mistake and buy something else.

There are loads more things about which I could moan about, but I think anybody reading this will get the picture, just avoid it!

Clumsy, slow, inflexible & disappointing
When our previous Samsung DVD Recorder packed up, we opted to pay the extra to upgrade to this model as a replacement. Strangely it has far worse functionality than our earlier cheaper Samsung model (no longer available). I'd never question the impartiality of a ***** review here on Amazon, but I hardly know where to start with my complaints:

- It burns from the hard drive to DVD very slowly, barely 1.0

- If you have recorded on to the hard drive in SP mode (if it let you, see below), you cannot then burn to DVD in LP - you have to decide before making your original recording. Having the option to change modes while copying was really useful on the old Samsung, I've no idea why they removed it.

- "Flexible Record Mode" kicks in automatically when you record from the built in Freeview box and will ONLY record in LP. The manual implies this is a helpful space saving feature, but it cannot be switched off even with 99% of the hard drive free. You can only select between SP,LP etc when recording from 'normal' TV or through the Scart socket (so dont throw away that old Freeview box you thought you wouldnt need).

- When copying several files from HDD to DVD at once, you have no option about which order they are copied in, unless you sit and copy them one by one, or spend hours ffwding through them via the extremely clumsy Playlist creation palarva.

- A screensaver automatically kicks in when Digital Radio stations are on screen, blotting out all the programme information which is one of the major selling points of digital radio, and it cannot be switched off if you are recording. OK not many people record digital radio, but I do, and this pointless feature makes doing so from the built in Freeview box impractical.

- When Freeview channels like BBC3+4 are off air (i.e. before 7pm), you just get a "no signal" message on those channels, it refuses to show you the channel info & schedule info that is actually being broadcast at that time.

- If signal quality drops out, even for a second, it stops recording.

- If you are watching a DVD at a time when the HDD is set to record from the freeview, a small light flashes, but recording does not start. You have to stop the DVD, go to HDD mode, start recording manually, then go back to the DVD which will have lost your place and restart.

- It seems to only burn DVDs in "Copy Once" mode, so your friends will be unable to make further copies of any home movies you send them, and you cant make faster back-up copies using your PC.

- The manual is written in fluent "engrish" and has pantently not been proof-read. Some wordings sentences barely are put. Also page after page is devoted to playlists, but less than 1 page to creating DVDs.

- The timer list only shows you the first 3 or 4 characters of the channel you've set it to record from. Want to do a quick check that you've set it to record BBC2 tomorrow night and BBC3 the night after? The menu just tells you "BBC..", you have to open each one individually to check, very annoying before going on holiday.

OK the unit looks nice, and the picture quality's fine (apart from the compulsary LP recording from Freeview) so if none of the above bothers you go ahead, but please think twice if you are shelling out for any of the above features.

A Real Dog
I got one of these yesterday and returned it within 24 hours. Everything in Mr Lambert's review is correct. This is a terrible machine.

The overriding feel of this product is that no-one involved really cared. The casing feels cheap and the manual is full of typograhical errors - it's like it was written quickly and the author just did a spell-check. Sometimes it makes no sense at all.

The one I bought had a couple of disatrous faults. The picture from it's digital tuner frequently froze or showed 'blocking' (rectangles of colour appearing in the picture). This is despite the unit receving a good strong signal. But even worse, the unit itself became frequently 'locked'. That is to say the TV screen went black and the machine no longer responded to the remote control.

Even when it was working the time lag between pressing a button on the remote and an action taking place was simply maddening. This kind of product will take away precious hours of your life you'll simply never get back.

Take a quick look on the net and you'l see I'm not the only one who has had bother with this hateful machine.

Another crazy thing about this device is that it will only record on DVD-R or DVD-RW discs. When most recorders in this price range will write on discs of all formats this seems like outright selfishness. It's as if Samsung is saying you have to buy an expensive model to be granted the luxury of multi-format recording. What nonsense. Plenty of entry level machines can give you so much more than this bit of tat will allow.

For those who are thinking of jumping into the arena of DVD recording I advise you to avoid this product like the bloody plague. There are several manufacturers out there (Panasonic for instance) who actually think about the machines they make and try to include features that help and even inspire the user.

Don't get stuck with this awful device, it will take you to hell and back.