DVD recorder does what it says on the tin

SUMVISION might not be a well-known brand in UK. In fact it is just one of the many many Asian OEM's out there. The good thing is that it has reached British soil via wholesaler MT-Electronics.

Sumvision manufactures loads of products: Cases, cameras, Flash Drives, MP3 players, etc. Apart from motherboards, video cards, memory and microprocessors, they produce all the components that are needed to build a computer.

MT Electronics sent us a Sumvision SV-1001 stand alone DVD recorder. It is not the cheapest DVD recorder out there but is certainly one of the most complete ones. Apart from a hard disk, there's nothing much missing.

I had the chance to play with it a while. The content of the SV-1001 box is pretty basic. You get the remote, the player, a pair of AAA batteries, an AV Cable (composite, video and stereo) as well as a SCART cable.

As for the recorder itself. It does not feel that "entry level". The DVD tray is situated centrally and comes out fairly quickly. The power button is conveniently situated and the blue light emitted by the buttons and the display is upmarket enough to make you think that you've paid much more for it. The brand name though could have been a little bit less conspicuous but that's a matter of taste really.

The remote control is the recorder's weakest point. The finish is plasticky, too bulky for the average hand and not really a match for the recorder. The layout of the remote control is as simple as it can be. The usual DVD buttons as well as TV buttons and one button called USB which would allow you to look for information inside a USB device. It does read MP3 and JPEG files from a Pen drive via the USB port on the front.

The Sumvision SV-1001's specs are quite impressive. It plays the whole range of DVD disks (+/-R/RW) plus CD and MP3 compatible disks. It can do live recording straight to disk as well as timed records. Recording though is limited to DVD+R/W format. Interestingly, it plays DiVX and Xvid files up to version 5.

The SV1001 also includes basic editing features like titling, adding menus, hiding or adding chapters, etc. It is easy to manipulate and a glance at the manual should remove any difficulties.

The back I/Os offer RF, Composite & SVideo, Stereo Audio In, Component/Progressive Scan video Output, Coaxial and Optical Audio Outputs, Scart and 5.1 channel Audio output. 12 ports in all and that's for the back only. On the front, behind the panel on the left, you have a USB and a DV In port, plus three more ports duplicated from the back.

The rest is pretty straightforward. My subjective tests were done on an old SCART-only 21-inch Television using a DVD with the first BBC episode of the Hitchhiker's guide to the Galaxy. The HHGG was roughly VHS quality. Loading time was OK and so was the picture quality.

The unit has a built in TV tuner that has an automatic TV channel scan and memorize. The TV tuner did recognise the five FTA channels available in my region. On top of that you can record up to six hours using the SLP mode which gives you a VHS quality. HQ gives you one hour but it is not HDTV though. I tried the recording on a sample DVD+R, Datawrite 4xDVD+R I figured out the live recording straight away. Only had to push the red "rec" button and I was done. Replay of the sequence recorded from the TV tuner gave an exact copy of the original. Unfortunately, unless you finalise the disc, you won't be able to view it on a normal stand-alone DVD player. The recorder allows you to continue recording where you left off and includes an auto-search for the remaining space.

SV1001 costs around £105+VAT. There are cheaper recorders but I doubt that they offer as many features the SV1001 hides as under its hood - and I am pretty sure I missed some of them.

You can contact MT electronics for a list of resellers of the SV-1001 on 0870 745 8457 or sales@mt-electronics.com. Both SVP and Bigpockets, well known names in DVD business, sell the SV1001. µ