ASPIRE DIGITAL AD-8091 DVD Recorder

Well I got my Aspire8091 DVD recorder a couple of days ago after finding it at a cheap price. Now I was wondering if this was going to be a cherry or a lemon, after all it was only a little more then 200 dollars to get a DVD recorder. I can record DVD's anytime I want, no worry about eaten tapes, and better sound and picture to boot. When I first hooked it up I thought I bought a cheery but a couple of nights ago it turned sour. But more on that later.

Since you need to use both the audio video connectors plus the cable connection you have to set it the video input in order to use. Once you get there you can choose the tv tuner on the set up menu to watch tv and to record your TV shows.

The Aspire 8091 is a DVD recorder, it let's you burn your shows from the TV to DVD. The result is a bit of a better video quality and a lot better audio. The Aspire DVD recorder does a good job of recording. It picks up some of the fuzz from the cable though and it amplifies it once it's on DVD but it's still watch able and better then VHS. But what's more better is the audio ability no longer do you listen to the drowning sound that you get when you record your shows on VHS.

The menus are pretty easy to follow has well you hook the DVD player up to both the cable and audio video ports and then tell it to program the channels in. Then after it's done you can choose to watch TV with the TV tuner, or set a program. The timer program is easy to do, all though I was a bit surprised that they chose to use military time (in other words 1:00 P.M is 1300 hours) in order to do it. After that done you leave it in standby and hope it works.

This is what I mean the product freezes up while recording then deletes the recording when it can't finalize it at the end. But if it records you get a menu on your disc and you get to choose what you watch, and what I like about DVD is that you can include chapter skips so no longer do I have to fast forward through the commercials. I can also easily delete programs (on a DVD+RW of course) with a click of the button. I was in love with it with the exception of the freezing problems, but not long after hooking it up it got to go screwy.

First off the sound just soundly stop coming through, I could only hear a little bit if I turned my TV up to max and it was very fuzzy, I got the DVD recorder inside sounds coming out my TV instead. Went on the internet and found out what my problems might be, it seems that there is a problem with the firmware (firmware is data on a microchip that stays intill it is deleted, firmware is what's responsible for the start up your computer for example) on the DVD recorder. It's what caused it to freeze up while recording and since I had that problem it might also fix my sound problem to. I downloaded a program and burned it on to disc and put it in the DVD player wait for it to load up and then did it things. I then unplugged the thing like it told me and waited an hour. I plugged it back in and my sound problems where over for at least 2 minutes. Then I heard a loud pop and both my audio and video went out. I checked by cords and tried every possible connection and nothing happed.

Luckily I kept the receipt and returned it to the store so it got spared the golf clubs. I still have enough from my Emerson POS VCR to whack around though.

Final Recommendation.
The Asprie DVD recorder is a cheap DVD recorder and it works well or the first 24 hours and then it falls to pieces. Avoid this POS DVD recorder.