LG DR1F9H - DVD recorder
By: LG Average Rating: 2.0 Total Reviews: 16
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 On: 2008-04-10
I paid $199 for this, thinking it was the best player around at the time short of blu-ray. A few months into it, it doesnt accept any DVD, even the ones it recorded.
Of course the warranty has expired. I will never buy another LG product in my lifetime.
 On: 2008-02-01
I bought one of these about year ago and it stopped reading most movie disks within 3 months. I had a new playback unit installed under warranty. 3 months later the cooling fan motor started making an awful racket and stops only when it is allowed to make racket for 5min. or so and then tap it. LG started out making good products but now it appears they have gone the way of most corporations today letting greed override their commitment to quality.
 On: 2008-01-26
I have had this for a year and change, and it still works great for me. BUT I could not use component cables (the ones that are like the standard A/V cable only with three cords for video instead of just the yellow one) to hook it up to my Westinghouse TX-42F430S 42" 1080p LCD HDTV. The image pops and knocks out the connection. I am using HDMI cables, the Inspire HDMI (2 meter) 6 foot cable HQ 1080P 1.3b specifically, it works great.
Another thing is how it upscales stuff. 720p and 1080i look great if you are watching something widescreen, but it will stretch out something that is in the standard 4:3 resolution.
I have only had issues recording onto discs when I have used a DVD-RW over and over, for months. Too bad it doesnt have a hard drive!
On: 2007-12-10
We purchased this dvd recorder at bestbuy and it is awful. It takes so long to even load a dvd and sometimes will freeze and you will actually have to disconnect the power to it and then reconnect. We normally purchase everything sony but this looked more sleek and would read memy cards for a slideshow of pictures. I would not recommend this to anyone EVER. To go back to a scene you have to do it all by remote. I will never again buy LG.
On: 2007-10-07
I own two of these...unfortunately. These work great for the first six months or so but, then totally begin to fail on you in many ways. One only wished i had figured this out before i bought the second one. Now my second one is starting to have problems. These machine are NOT worth the headache. Buyer beware!
On: 2007-09-01
I bought this player at Best Buy based on the sales rep. recommendation for $199. It rejects almost all blank disks I have tried, it freezes during recording and crashes often. What a piece of junk. As mentioned by others the warranty only includes parts after 90 days. The labor to repair costs $69. Here it is listed for $89 new. Life is not good when you are a LG customer. I will never buy another LG product and will also never listen to Best Buy sales reps again.
On: 2007-07-22
This is perhaps the only product I have ever bought on the recommendation of a Best Buy staffer. Lesson learned. Great features, but the device stopped reading ANY DVD within a few months-- outside of warranty. The parts are still covered, but the labor to fix it is a sizable fraction of a new DVD recorder. In contrast I have a Panasonic DVD player from 1998 that still performs flawlessly, when DVD reading was a new technology. Should have just bought a Panasonic.
On: 2007-06-01
Besides all the disk write errors I received (and detailed in other reviews here), my DR1F9H gave up the ghost in more than 3 months, but less than 4. Interesting, the labor portion of the warranty only runs 3 months. so, I would have to pay labor cost to fix this piece of junk.
Look at all the DR1F9H refurbs being sold on eBay. Avoid at all costs. Spend your hard earned money elsewhere.
On: 2007-05-18
I got a refurbished unit almost a year ago for a good price. I was very satisfied with the purchase.
I mostly use it as a DVR (with DVD-RAM disks) and watch DivX movies on it ocasionally. Both of the features work great. I was pleased how clean and easy to use the menu system is (compared to my previous DVD player). I also liked the remote a lot. Every feature I tried worked well, no glitches or substandard quality. The recording quality is great, and I was even able to watch the recordings on a DVD-RAM disk on a PC. I also liked the time-shift mode, when you can watch the file you are recording and skip comercials, etc.
If there isnt anything wrong with the unit there is only a few things I could wish for. First of all, the interface is rather slow. Not a big issue if you are planning to use it as a DVD player/recorder, but I also planned to use it as my main TV tuner to watch TV programs. Unfortunately, it can take up to a minute, or more for it to start up (especialy if there is a disk inside) and during that time you cant watch TV programs at all. Also, it takes about half a second to switch between channels. Again, not a big issue, but can get annoying when flipping through the channels.
One of the features I miss a lot is a USB port for flash drives. Also, it doesnt let you watch movies from SD cards, just pictures (and maybe play mp3s, not sure though). I have to burn my DivX movies on CDs in order to watch them.
Also, the small cooling fan on the back of the unit is quite audible when it is on (which is almost always). I think cooling the unit could have been done better (quieter).
Now to the issues I had with my particular unit. After several month of rather light use it started having problems reading (and recording) DVD disks. The issue was worst with DVD-RAM disks, it would some times not recognize a perfectly good disk at all, and the issue was getting worse over time. Since my warranty was long gone, I decided to open the unit up. The DVD drive in it is very similar to a typical IDE drive you can find in a PC (the mountings are a little different and there is no face plate). So I just replced the drive with a DVD-RAM burner from my PC and, amazingly, everything worked perfectly (even though it was a NEC drive, not LG). All features worked fine, the problems were gone and it even got somewhat faster (although, a bit noisier). The noise is not an issue, though, it only spins up during start up. During playback and recording it is still very quiet.
On: 2007-03-30
I really liked the look of this unit and the price was not bad. No issues related to usage, until the buttons on the face and the remote ceased to work. Tried to reset it with no luck. Now I have a DVD stuck in it and they want $70 to fix it. It is just over the 90 day warranty. How nice. I would think twice before pruchasing any other LG products. They were not willing to make any exceptions for the 90 days. After reading other forums on this model, I really question LGs committment to their customers. I will enjoy my time smashing it with a baseball bat!
On: 2007-03-08
It is stuck in the 480i, 480p mode and wont switch to 1080i to watch DVDs. The representatives at LG say its the TV setting, but this is just not the case.The TV is a Sony 46" LCD with HDMI hook-up. It is very frustrating. It would be a good idea if you could check this feature out at the store before purchase.
 On: 2007-02-03
i had this dvd recorder since the summer and I have not had not ONE coaster on this thing. It records and plays nearly every disc type availiable and although short on recording modes, the recording look good even on 4 and 6 hr modes. As far as the unit creating coasters when you leave it on pause too long, well... vcrs shut off also when left on pause too long so that is a very minor issue. it gives you a max of 4 minutes to keep it on pause. to correct that just press REC then PAUSE again to restart the timer.. plus its quiet and stays cool even after 6+ hours of recording. I like this unit so much, Im actually gonna buy another for the bedroom!! rated the 2nd BEST dvd recorder availiable by consumer reports, so you can go wrong with that!!
On: 2007-01-08
No problems with this unit after 2 months of good use. Recorded on DVD-R,DVD+R,DVD-RW & DVD-RAM with no problems. Has played everything Ive thrown at it with ease. With DVD-RAM disks, I use this recorder like a DVR. You can record a program and rewind back to the start while its still recording. Great recording quality at the 2hr SP setting. Have used the DV input many times with our Cannon MiniDV camcorder. Excellent DVDs made with the XP 1hr setting the SP setting is also very good. Recommend a 4pin to 4pin firewire cable to link most camcorders with this unit. I wouldnt recommend going over 2 hours...youll see a big difference. We have both a Cannon & Sony digital camera (SD & Memory Pro Duo) which both work great in this DVD player. Simple menu with all functions working great so far.
On: 2007-01-01
I bought this machine about 6 months ago primarily because it could record on dual layer disks, and paid extra for that feature and the disks. Almost immediately, I found out that, unlike other DVD recorders I have used, if you leave your recording on pause for longer than a few minutes, the disk will crash. Dont walk away from this machine and leave your recording on pause. Almost immediately, I had other recording errors for no apparent reason. I dont think it was anything I did, as I have been recording DVDs for years. Because the dual layer disks record for double the timeframe of regular disks, there is that much more time that you waste when a recording fails -- Ive lost as much as 8 hours of recording at a time. Because of this, Ive pretty much stopped recording at the 8-hour length because the odds are pretty good that I will get a disk error before Im done. Now, I am recording at the 4-hr. speed to maximize my chances of getting through a disk without recording errors. Even then, my last 2 recordings failed. This is an overpriced DVD player, at best.
 On: 2006-12-30
I purchased this LG unit within the past week. I connected it to my LG LCD TV using a Monster HDMI cable without any problem. I have played commercial DVDs, DVD+R disks, DVD-R disks, and DVD+RW mini disks for my camcorder. All have played well although one commercial disk did freeze on the menu screen tonight. I had to unplug the unit to solve this problem. I have also viewed pictures on a Sony memory stick without any problem although the image on the TV screen is not the best. The slideshow feature is kind of fun if you have a number of pictures on a memory card. One thing to note is that since I have a Sony camcorder, the digital video input does not work for me since Sony uses their Firewire or i-Link or whatever it is called. I should be able to hook my camcorder up using the RCA inputs instead. Lastly, I did record TV programs onto a DVD disk without much hassle. Like any DVD recorder, you do have to initialize each disk and then finalize it when the recording is completed. I was able to record from both satellite programming as well as local programming from an antenna. As long as this unit does not continue to freeze during playback, I would give it a strong four stars. If issues do develop, I will update this review as necessary.
On: 2006-11-18
From the get go Ive had problems with this unit not wanting to read ANY disks. It started itermittently and got progressively worse. Of course when I called LG about the unit 6 months into these issues Im greeted with the fact that it only has a 90 day warranty. To the trash can it goes. What a shame. It had everything that I wanted in a DVD player but was completely unreliable. Ill go back to $50 DVD players. Dont buy this unit. Its junk.
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