OK, so I bought this unit to archive VHS tapes and DVDs. Once you read the manual, recording and editing are a piece of cake. Operations are not that intuitive since this was my first DVD recorder. The VHS tapes transfer over just fine, however, the DVD to DVD transfers didnt go over as well. There is a feature on this recorder called "flexible recording". Do not use this for DVD to DVD recording. If you use this option, the recorded image will occasionally "stick" for a few tenths of a second, just enough to notice and be annoying. When recording in the EX or SP mode, the problem occurs less and is much less noticable. If you are not wanting something to record EXACT copies of DVDs, then this unit is OK.