Posted by bt on 10/13/06 13:25

I have an RCA DRC8005N DVD Recorder connected to my TV and use it
mostly to watch movies and time-shift TV shows. Recently, it has
started to malfunction and I'm looking for some advice as to whether
or not to consider repair or just go ahead and replace it.

It is almost two years old and has worked well until the last month.
It seems to play pre-recorded movies with no problem, but the record
function is pretty bad. Anything that I record plays badly, freezes
up, jumps forward and is generally unwatchable. It started several
with just a few glitches and worsened over a couple of weeks so that
now it won't even play the discs it has recorded.

After trying to watch one of these discs for awhile, it
sooner-or-later freezes up. It eventually shows up on the menu screen
as a 'Bad Disc' and won't play at all. Interestingly, the same disc
will then play on 2 other DVD players fairly normally although, the
voice/picture sync seems to be off by a half second.

I have tried an internal disc cleaner, but it didn't seem to have any
effect. The unit gets moderate use. I imaging only 2 or 3
pre-recorded movies per month, but maybe an average of 1 hour per day
of time-shifting recording then playback.

Do these symptoms indicate a particular problem? Are units like this
generally worth further diagnosis and repair? With prices coming down
and new features/technologies being added, I'm just looking for some
advice from more knowledgeable folks.

I do know that I'm not interested in HD or other high end features.
Most of the recording I've done is at SP(?) or whatever 4 hours per
disc is called.

thanks for any assistance, I'll be glad to add any details that might
be helpful.

On Fri, 13 Oct 2006 11:30:58 GMT, spam@uce.gov (Citizen Bob) wrote:

>On Thu, 12 Oct 2006 19:50:09 GMT, bt <bt@.com> wrote:
>
>>I have a DVD-Recorder (for my TV, not my PC) and it is giving me some
>>trouble. Is this forum a good place to get some help or can someone
>>suggest an alternative forum?
>
>Can't hurt to tell us what's wrong. Here's some things we need to
>know:
>
>1) Model of the unit
>2) Age of the unit
>3) Usage (heavy, moderate, light)
>4) What's wrong?
>
>Let me take a guess: It's one of the better brands, at least 1 year
>old, moderate usage and it is starting to become unable to read discs.
>
>There are two opinions on this very common problem: 1) Get a good DVD
>lens cleaner (Maxell); 2) Do not attempt to clean it yourself - send
>it for repair.
>
>If you have an extended warranty (you should always get one if
>available), then you are covered. Use the backup unit for a while. If
>the unit is about at the end of the extended warranty, then consider
>making it the backup and buying a new unit, one with all the goodies
>on it - HDD, DivX/XviD, Time Shift, etc.

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