RCA DRC7005N DVD Recorder

I am sorry to say I had to return my DRC7005N. It is a great idea, but has too many software problems. The unit continues to lock up. I don't think this is just my unit. Based on reading reviews from others on eopinions and on newsgroups on the web, this unit has comprehensive software/hardware problems. I wondered why large electronics chains don't carry this product. I think the software problems are the reason. If RCA ever comes out with a robust unit which does all that is advertised, it will be a top seller.

To replace the DRC7005N, I purchased a Toshiba SD400 DVD/TIVO device. This device is great in that it comes with TIVO basic (no fee). I'll write a review on this product shortly.

Below is my initial review of the DRC7005N.


------------------------------------------------
bought one online from buy.com and received it last night. I bought it because I have owned an RCA TV for ~5 years with the guideplus system on it. I've used the TV to record shows on my VCR with no problems for that time. I would never buy another TV without guideplus (and no I don't work for or own stock in the company).

Everything seemed to work as advertised. The Svideo output gives a great picture on the TV. The one complaint I have is how slow the tuner responds. I would not want to surf the channels using the channel up/down buttons. It
takes ~2.5 seconds for the channel to change. Below is what the RCA manual says about the problem:

"When you change channels, you might notice that it takes longer than you're used to. This is perfectly normal and happens because the TV signal is going to the Digital Media Recorder and then back to the TV. This type of "signal flow" is the technology that enables you to record programming to the Recorder's hard disk drive and pause live
TV."

I set up the guide plus and it successfully received the signal overnight. When I got up in the AM, the guide was in place and seemed to be functioning as I am used to on my TV (although in 5 years they have made some definite changes - some not so good, see below).

My old guide plus was much faster. I think they made the mistake of adding too many fancy graphics to the new guideplus menu (each chanel has a color logo- movies, news, etc. are all color coded by type). The old guide plus showed the time in color when you had a show set to record in that time slot. The new one does not. I don't like that.

Audio CD's- This seemed to work just fine. While the songs are playing a screen saver comes up with the RCA logo and the name of the song.

MP3's - I uploaded ~600MB of MP3s onto the hard drive. The transfer took longer than I thought (~1 hour) but it's a lot of data.

Playing DVD's - Only problem I had was on a Saturday night with everyone around ready to watch a movie it wouldn't work. Had to get the trouble shooting guide out and finally found a switch on the back of the unit which was in the wrong setting (scan on off switch?).

One major problem I've had is the unit locking up. There seem to be software problems. If you press the remote buttons too fast it gets confused. At one point I actually had to reset the unit to the factory settings to unlock it. This procedure is accomplished by pressing three buttons at the same time (very similar to Ctrl-alt-delete on a computer). This procedure erases the guide and all shows set to record. I consider this a major flaw. I assume RCA can update this software, hopefully they can fix it. I haven't had any more locking up problems since I slowed down my button pressing speed.

I think RCA violated the KISS (keep it simple stupid) rule by trying to put too many fancy options in the player without regard for the slow processor they use.