I have 25 years of VHS tape of family events that I was worried might be deteriorating so I needed something to transfer them to DVD format. I read lots of reviews of various machines and finally settled on the Toshiba DR430. The low price was a big incentive. I am so glad I bought it. All I had to do was take it out of the box, connect it to my TV, connect the VCR to the Toshiba and I was on my way. No need to read the manual at all. Well, when it was done, I popped the first copy into another DVD player, I got nothing. No problem-I had not finalized it, which I found out when I called customer support (no manual reading for me!). He was very nice, directed me to the page in the manual, then waited while I followed the instructions to make sure I had no problems. It worked perfectly. The only thing that I would change is I would use DVD+RW discs instead of DVD+R so that I can edit the chapter names. I plan to buy some today. I brought the first copy to Thanksgiving and everyone... Read more

Bought this DVR to enable me to transfer VCR tapes to DV. Although the manual does not specifically tell you how, it is really easy to figure it out. Play the VCR using AV cables into the front of the DVR and hit record. That is how easy it was. You do have to change the input to Front with the menu button. I have made many DV's with no problem and happy with it. I have also recorded TV shows directly from the Direct TV box via the S Video jack and the quality is superb!

I am very pleased with the performance of the Toshiba DR430 DVD Recorder. I learned that you have to finalize a disc whether it is formatted in Video or VR mode if you want to play it in other DVD players. The advantage of the VR mode is that you can go back and edit including "Undo Finalization". You can reformat in either mode. The manual is very helpful but I still had to go in the Internet to get answers. Adding titles to chapters is easy to do.

Delivery was prompt and the product was well packaged.