Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I bought this because it can tune HD off the air, play VHS tapes, will output both without any issues,* and will record DVD. I already have an old ILO DVD recorder with internal HD, but it does not tune digital channels and the DVD burner had quit on it some time ago. So at this point all it's good for is recording to the Hard Drive from another source. I also needed a replacement for my old Sony VCR for the few remaining VHS tapes I still have. The Magnavox ZV457MG9 fits the bill for exactly what I need. The HD tuner is above average in quality of picture resolution on my Sony HDTV, with image quality on par with the TV's internal digital tuner and slightly better at resolving weak signals. Down sampling to NTSC to record shows on my ILO is very clean, with the only real loss in the compression I use to save HD space. DVD playback is good quality, up sampling well through component or HDMI output. The only major downside I have found is when you put a DVD of any type (including blank disks) into the player it can take up to 30 seconds before the disk is recognized. Layer transition is usually very smooth, with very few artifacts or frame skips. Damaged DVDs still play rather well, so long as the damage is not severe. It even played a DVD that had been heat damaged that play in very few players with only a few artifacts. For burning DVDs, I have only done a few, but in all cases the drive works as advertised. Recording to DVD is as easy as recording to an old VHS tape... just insert a blank disk, press the [RECORD] button, and you're recording about 3 seconds later. The DVD menu creation is a bit simplistic, but gets the job done. If you want high-quality DVD menus, this won't cut it, but if that's what you need you should be authoring on a PC, not a console. The display for time remaining on the blank part of the disk is about as accurate as you can expect and it errors on the conservative side, ensuring you probably have a little more time of recording on the disk than it says. You have a choice of 6 recording qualities; HQ (61 min), SP (120 min), SPP (151 min), LP (180 min), EP (244 min), and SLP (365 min) for DVD+R disks. I did find that the recorder does not record to dual-layer disks. (completely incompatible, will not record at all) * VHS playback I was sorry to see does not route to the HDMI output or even the component output. It has a separate composite output that is the only output source for the VCR. Only the DVD player and digital tuner output to the high-resolution outputs, so to watch a VHS tape you have to have a separate set of cables running to your TV. (luckily mine has 6 inputs, but it's a pain to have to switch to watch a tape) I have yet to dub a tape to DVD, but the instructions seem very straightforward. Considering the combination of good quality VCR, Digital tuner, and DVD recorder, it's a decent package.