Note: This post contains pricing information for future reference because it is generally not available elsewhere once the next Woot has been offered.

RCA Dual Format DVD Recorder w/ DivX, HDMI and HD Upconversion
$79.99 + $5 shipping
condition: Refurbished
product(s): 1 RCA DRC8052N Dual Format DVD Recorder w/ DivX, HD Upconversion and HDMI cable

modded xbox does this,,


hell xbox 360 does this also,

as far as divx, it does that to thru mce

nice a few years ago..but

hddvd and sony blue ray dvds are where its at..

Amazon link, since no one's posted one yet:

http://www.amazon.com/RCA-DRC8052N-DVD-Recorder/dp/B000FCR3O4/

Price of this woot, for future reference.

CA Dual Format DVD Recorder w/ DivX, HDMI and HD Upconversion
$79.99+ $5 shipping

condition:
Refurbished
product(s):
1 RCA DRC8052N Dual Format DVD Recorder w/ DivX, HD Upconversion and HDMI cable

aoviss wrote:Upconverts to what resolution?

I not sure if its 720p or 1080i.

I recently purchased an HDTV (hannspree off woot), and i was wondering if this is comparable at all to HDDVD/blu-ray. Is this going to look that much better than a regular dvd? Or do i go out and buy the coolest blu-ray player they call PS3?

Wal-Mart tends to be a pretty good barometer of in-store pricing. I bought the same recorder there last month for $30 more. All-in-all it's not a bad recorder. The remote even works with my RCA TV.

ick...refurb (rox0rz!)

RCA, Proscan, whatever you want to call it, Just plain bad electronics! :p

....you can easily get a NEW DVD Recorder at the same price... and I'm sure I'll work much better than RCA... with a Full Warranty......

I bought this in November from Woot for 10 bux more - it has been rock-steady reliable and plays anything I throw at it. The upconversion only works through HDMI though not component - keep in mind if your TV has only one HDMI input and you're already using for your cable box. If I needed another I'd buy it in a heartbeat. Good Woot.

Haven't used the recorder a whole lot, but this player had been a solid DVD player for me and this is even cheaper than Wal-Mart has it. Definitely not the top of the line recorder but for the money it's a nice DVD player

stevesd (or anyone else)

I'm wondering if I can also use this as the TV Tuner for my TV Projector.

The question is, if I plug the cable into the RF input jack, will it output coherent video thru the S-video output? (I have a 75-foot S-video cable run to the projector... I know component video is better, but I was told the signal would degrade in that long of a component cable.)

lol...RCA...lol

360 does this? I don't believe the 360 has DVD writing abilities...

Either way refurb (rox0rz!) is probably not the safest with this, but they are a decent product when they work and the price is fair.

DO NOT BUY THIS CRAP. I own this piece of junk. The WORST AV component I've ever bought in my life. The output from the coax cable flickers or shuts down entirely. The output from the standard video/audio cables is spotty too. Sometimes when I turn it on (THIS MEANS I HAVE UNPLUGED AND PLUGED IT BACK IN) it starts out in some HDMI mode and NOTHING is display one the screen. It took me a while to figure out what was going on and then I went through the various HDMI modes until I got a picture. I've found that the best way to get it to reliably output to the standard video/audio output is to UNPLUG it, plug it back up and turn it on, and insert a DVD AS SOON AS it comes on. If I ever turn it off, it won't come back on again. Not even to eject the DVD. I have to UNPLUG it and plug it back up to get my DVD out. It will often times lock up on start up, so that I have to unplug it and plug it back up repeatedly until I get it working. When I do get it working, I try not to turn it off again.

I recently purchased an HDTV (hannspree off woot), and i was wondering if this is comparable at all to HDDVD/blu-ray. Is this going to look that much better than a regular dvd? Or do i go out and buy the coolest blu-ray player they call PS3?

It all depends on how good the scaler is in your TV. Flat-panel HDTVs have a fixed resolution, so if you feed it say, a 480i signal from a standard DVD player, the TV will have to upconvert it to match its native resolution. The idea behind upconverting DVD players is that the upconversion is performed before it reaches the TV, so that the TV won't have to scale as much. Whether this is an improvement or not depends entirely on which piece of equipment has the better scaler; usually with cheap TVs come cheap chipsets and such, so the RCA might be slightly better at it than the Hannspree. Honestly though, you're probably not going to notice any difference at all. Actually, the biggest improvement in terms of quality might come from the HDMI connection itself, as you're able to feed a digital signal directly to the TV.

Upconverted stuff won't even look remotely CLOSE to HD DVD/Blu-Ray.

kycop10 wrote:modded xbox does this,,

hell xbox 360 does this also,

as far as divx, it does that to thru mce

nice a few years ago..but

hddvd and sony blue ray dvds are where its at..

So you're comparing something that's WELL beyond $80? The media alone is $20-50 a disc for Blu-Ray. These are the great comments.

As for the product, I had posted in another area on the forum since we couldn't get here... I think the HDMI is a nice addition to this for the cost. Those aren't cheap and to have it packaged in for the $80 is a very good deal. I'm still considering one if anything for the DivX piece.

I paid $99. plus shipping for this on here a few months ago, and it has mediocre quality and sometimes freezes. I have to either unplug or hold the power button in to manually shut it down....ick

If the unit doesn't work well, consider it simply a purchase of an HDMI cable! I think excess RCA equipment ends up in the "Bag 'O Crap" anyway!

sfdj wrote:
....you can easily get a NEW DVD Recorder at the same price... and I'm sure I'll work much better than RCA... with a Full Warranty......

Show me a brand new DVD Recorder with HDMI upconversion for $80. I bet you cant, because there's none. Comments like this make this bulletin board a joke.

Its a good piece of equipment for the price, folks.

MrXpress wrote:

Upconverted stuff won't even look remotely CLOSE to HD DVD/Blu-Ray.

I completely agree... I recently purchased a Mitsu WD-57831 and the picture is amazing. I did however buy an Oppo Digital upconverting 1080p DVD Player (the only 1080p upconverter on the market www.oppodigital.com). And the reason I did this was because one of those two formats will end up winning the accepted media war. Who knows which one though? Blu-Ray or HD-DVD? I don't want to spend $500+ on a player that will end up being obsoleted once this war is over. For now I'd recommend to anyone to buy a good upconverter (i'd recommend the one I bought for it's simply amazing) and wait out this war to see which one wins. Don't forget the many people who bought Beta Max players instead of VCR's because they WERE BETTER. They just didn't end up being the accepted media and became obsolete.

no woot for me today... you could'nt pay me to buy anything RCA.

Bought a Panasonic 42" plasma on a turkey day weekend sale, then bought this DVD recorder to go with it. The people who wrote about having to unplug it and plug it back in to get it working are dead-on right. This thing has frustrated me time and again. Paid $139.99 (or so) new for this at WMT before XMAS, PLUS had to buy the HDMI cable for another $24.99. Subtract the HDMI and add the frustration and you too can share the joy we owners already experience. Recorded the superbowl and that's all, so far. Haven't watched the disc, but previewed parts- seems to have done it's job. Think of it as $55 plus HDMI cable. Would I buy this same exact POS again? Nope. My two cents.

frantix wrote:
I think the HDMI is a nice addition to this for the cost. Those aren't cheap and to have it packaged in for the $80 is a very good deal. I'm still considering one if anything for the DivX piece.

Actually HDMI cables are pretty cheap. Just don't UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES buy an HDMI cable from a brick and mortar store. There's no reason to pay $60-$200 for an HDMI cable.

Since HDMI is a digital signal, it's an all-or-nothing kind of thing. Either the receiving device gets the full signal being transmitted, or it gets none of the signal. Digital cables aren't prove to RF interference the way analog cables are. Thus an El Cheapo HDMI cable is no better and no worse than super expensive Mega-High End Mega-Monster cable (except perhaps as far as physical durability goes, but who really physically abuses audio cables?)

Buy your HDMI cables off eBay.

I got a generic 6-foot HDMI cable off of eBay for about $12 after shipping. That's a far cry from the $85+ that Best Buy would charge you for a brand name HDMI cable.

BTW, I'm tempted to woot! this, because the LiteOn DVD recorder I bought about 6 months ago is complete crap. It's recording quality sucks *%&$. Perhaps the RCA today might be better.

wcolwell wrote:no woot for me today... you could'nt pay me to buy anything RCA.

Agree. Anything RCA isn't even good enough for a Bandolier of Carrots.

dbdigital wrote:If the unit doesn't work well, consider it simply a purchase of an HDMI cable! I think excess RCA equipment ends up in the "Bag 'O Crap" anyway!

That's one *really* expensive HDMI cable. Especially considering you don't know how long it is before you buy it.

You can not use the Toslink and the HDMI at the same time.

I had bought one from Wal-Mart for $99.99, took it home and hooked it up. If you used the HDMI the audio was disabled through the optical port. I returned it.

Bought this a few months back during a w00t off and the only good thing about it was my husband getting to smash the crap out of it. I personally will NEVER buy something refurbished again.
Save your money...

Rottieprncs wrote:Bought this a few months back during a w00t off and the only good thing about it was my husband getting to smash the crap out of it. I personally will NEVER buy something refurbished again.
Save your money...

Blame it on RCA, not refurbs. Some refurbs are just fine. I've gotten plenty of quality refubs off of woot. RCA is like this new out of the box though.

I actually own a MAGNAVOX MSR90D6 Which I bought for 89.95 at Sam's Club which is dual format, don't have HDMI output or UP CONVERSION, But it works excellent it even has DOLBY DIGITAL RECORDING Progressive scan output. It has no problems other than how it makes menus, pretty basic, and the other problem is it don't do divx. The recording quality in HQ SP SSP LP EP (1 HR 2 Hr 2:30 Hr 3:00 Hr and possiably 4:04 hr) is very simmler very low loss I will try the ELP 6 hr record , to see. This actually records it in VBR so the times do vary depending on what is going on. I did HQ that did actually did 2 hours or so. So This is a very good player/recorder. Consider it.

David

DO NOT BUY THIS!

I have one that I got on Woot last time. It's TERRIBLE. The DVD takes at least 60 FULL SECONDS to eject. Even if the player is off and you hit the eject button theres a 60 second delay. The player has no subtitle support for TV shows. The fast forward and reverse speeds for DiVX movies are literally 20x speed. You can only move in blocks of 5 min at a time. You cant rewind over a spot you missed without backing up an extra 4 min and 50 seconds. Also, this player constantly locks up. Once or twice per week it freezes and nothing works. The only solution is to fully unplug it, or hold the power button for 20 seconds.

This player looked too good to be true for the price, and it was. I think it wouldn't even be orth while in a Blinged-Out Cabbage.

As I understand it, if you say please you actually get one that works.

metaphyze wrote:DO NOT BUY THIS CRAP. I own this piece of junk. The WORST AV component I've ever bought in my life. The output from the coax cable flickers or shuts down entirely. The output from the standard video/audio cables is spotty too. Sometimes when I turn it on (THIS MEANS I HAVE UNPLUGED AND PLUGED IT BACK IN) it starts out in some HDMI mode and NOTHING is display one the screen. It took me a while to figure out what was going on and then I went through the various HDMI modes until I got a picture. I've found that the best way to get it to reliably output to the standard video/audio output is to UNPLUG it, plug it back up and turn it on, and insert a DVD AS SOON AS it comes on. If I ever turn it off, it won't come back on again. Not even to eject the DVD. I have to UNPLUG it and plug it back up to get my DVD out. It will often times lock up on start up, so that I have to unplug it and plug it back up repeatedly until I get it working. When I do get it working, I try not to turn it off again.

I think they call that "defective." It doesn't mean that no one should "BUY THIS CRAP."

d06svt wrote:

I think they call that "defective." It doesn't mean that no one should "BUY THIS CRAP."

Seems to be a lot of these defects around, as others here have noted.

Tell me again why you would want a DVD player (keep in mind, NOT HD DVD) that has HDMI out, the highest quality HD connection? Most HDTV's have one, maybe two HDMI inputs, and you are going to take one of them up with a non HD DVD player? Someone please explain why you would ever do that?

metaphyze wrote:

Seems to be a lot of these defects around, as others here have noted.

That's what warranties are for...seems that if and when it works, it's actually quite nice.

sdownin wrote:Actually HDMI cables are pretty cheap. Just don't UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES buy an HDMI cable from a brick and mortar store. There's no reason to pay $60-$200 for an HDMI cable.

Since HDMI is a digital signal, it's an all-or-nothing kind of thing. Either the receiving device gets the full signal being transmitted, or it gets none of the signal. Digital cables aren't prove to RF interference the way analog cables are. Thus an El Cheapo HDMI cable is no better and no worse than super expensive Mega-High End Mega-Monster cable (except perhaps as far as physical durability goes, but who really physically abuses audio cables?)

Buy your HDMI cables off eBay.

I got a generic 6-foot HDMI cable off of eBay for about $12 after shipping. That's a far cry from the $85+ that Best Buy would charge you for a brand name HDMI cable.

BTW, I'm tempted to woot! this, because the LiteOn DVD recorder I bought about 6 months ago is complete crap. It's recording quality sucks *%&$. Perhaps the RCA today might be better.

Or get them from monoprice.com (around $5+shipping for a 6ft hdmi cable). That's usually where I check first when I need cables for something. At some point, I'm going to eventually need somewhere around a 25 foot hdmi cable. $35 at that site so it's still not cheap, but I'd hate to think of what a place like Best Buy would charge for such a thing.

Cables carrying a digital signal are still vulnerable to interference. If the interference is enough to cause a false "on" or "off" in the way the signal is interpreted, it's going to cause problems. Not so likely at short distances though, I'd imagine.

d06svt wrote:

I think they call that "defective." It doesn't mean that no one should "BUY THIS CRAP."

You see, most of us DON'T mind buying crap from Woot.
It's just RCA products.
New or otherwise!