Sony RDR-GX7 DVD Recorder

Bought the Sony to replace a Philips DVDR985 that decided it no longer liked the brand of DVD+RW blank disks I had purchased in bulk. The Philips had some nice features as well as a wide variety of recording speeds (from 60 minutes to 8 hours, with expected decrease in quality with longer recording times).

After experimentation, I've decided that the RDR-GX7 will only be an interim transfer agent to copy content from our PVR (Cable company version, non-TiVo), and then I'll use my Windows PC to produce the final archive disks. The Sony's crude menuing feature leaves much to be desired, as is the poor implementation of titling and thumbnail image (which only works on the Sony, not on any other player). The Philips model has this one beat as far as the interface goes.

One other plus for the Philips which the Sony apparently lacks is a mechanism for upgrading the deck's firmware. I have not found anything on the Sony website to indicate that this is possible, and the website http://www.dvdplusrw.org/ does not provide any real info for the Sony recorders.

Has anybody mentioned the slowness factor (loading disks, formatting blanks - which the Philips never needed to do, writing info to disks before ejecting, etc.)? Our deck also makes a lot of grinding noises that don't sound good. The picture quality of recorded disks is very good at the 2-hour speed, but the sound levels tend to be too low for good playback.