Home > Consumer Reviews > Ellion DVR-950S Slimline Dual Format Multi-region Capable DVD Recorder with 160GB Hard Drive, MPEG4 Playback

After doing a fair bit of browsing at the different models available I had narrowed it down to this recorder, or the Lite-on 5045 recorder. I chose this on basically on it's very neat looks and the reports I had heard on Lite-On's noisy fan problems.

I've had the recorder for a few weeks now, and am still very pleased with it. It is a neat slim unit with a very quiet fan, I have recorded to both the hard disk and DVD's with no problems whatsoever (and I've tried these "cheap" DVD's in it too).
Transfer of recorded programs from hard disk to DVD is easy enough, and the disks have played on all the other DVD players / computer drives that I've tried.
The editing functions are limited, but to be honest for 99% of the time this is something you'll never need, especially if like me you use it for mainly a video recorder / Sky+ replacement.
I've also transfered some of my old videos onto DVD with no problems. With a bit of advanced planning you don't have to worry about editing the films prior to burning them to DVD. Just make sure the recording quality is set right to fit the whole film to DVD first.

Looking through some of the other reviews on this item, there was a couple of points that made me a bit nervous when buying the unit:
Yes the big blue light is rather bright, but you quickly get used to it, and if you have a smoked glass cabinet door in front of it it's not so bright.
I have not noticed any lip sync problems on any of the recordings I've made, or on DVD films played.
The remote control is slightly "flaky" if you press the buttons too quickly, and does have a lot of buttons, but you'll end up only using about a 1/3 of these in normal use.
My only real niggle with this unit is that it always boots up with the defaults set to record to DVD, and the input source to tuner (BBC1). It would be nice if it would remember the last settings you had used before powering it off.

All in all a good piece of kit for the money you'll have to pay out. Ok so it probably doesn't have the 1001 different configuration & editing functions that the likes of Sony & Panasonic units might have, but it does the job nice & simple.

I've been considering buying a DVD recorder with hard drive for sometime. Having looked at a number of players on the market I came across the Ellion. This is a new name to me, but having read the specifications for the DVR-950s I was very impressed. The look of the player is very unique with it's large central light (Blue in colour, that changes Red when recording), it,s also very slim. The feature that attracted me to this player was the large hard drive capacity 160GB, the time shift ability and the multi disc recording DVD+R/+RW/-R/-RW. It has I-Link IEEE1394) for connecting to a digital camcorder nicely concealed under a flap on the front panel which is black. Once a programme has been recorded to the hard drive you can then edit it to give it a name of your choosing.
The player does have a few drawback, you have to scroll through the menue one step at a time to get the right place and if the player is switched off, you have to scroll again to get to the recording source. This aside this is still a great player and if all the features don,t grab you, then the price should at under £220, worth serious consideration.

Don't be put off by my 4 out of 5 stars review, I'm very hard to please, but at the time and with all the information I had to hand it was a close toss up between the Liteon and the Ellion.

I went for the Ellion because of its compactness (very slim) and its nice appearence, that and it was the only one thta at the time had the DivX and DUAL +/- DVD r/ecorder functionlity.

I cant praise this item high enough for what I do like, my only negatives (and gain don't be too swayed by them) are as follows :

1) It doesn't allow you to Record AND watch something you've already record (or watch a DVD) at the same time, some reviews I read previously said that it could.
2) The Blue Circle light can be slightly eye-catching if you have it too high in your cabinet in relation to your TV
3) you can only program 8 entries into the timer (albeit that you can tell any of the programs u set to be repeating (weekly/daily etc) but 8 is a little too less for a device that can store hundreds of programs if u want it to!
4) the menu's can be slow (especially setting the time, you literally have to press and press to move from one thing to another, you cant jut keep your finger on a button for it to repeat)
5) it has a couple of buggy features - e.g. if the device is on standby but a program is due to come on in literally 10-11 minutes, the device boots up for approx 2 seconds then goes off again, then turns back on at the program start??? and a few times now we've come in to find the blue circle half red (which is usually an indication its recording) but its not on?
7) the device HAS frozen on us now about 2 or 3 times while sifting thru the recorded titles list - u literally have to kill power to it for at least 10 minutes to drain the integral battery before it will un-freeze?
8) It always on boot up defaults to record to DVD - doesn't remember the last device; it also doesnt remember the last quality you recorded at and always defaults to HQ, which you don't need (that uses more HD space) and SP (Standard Play) is TV Quality and MORE THAN ENOUGH!
9) When it's recording it doesnt display the channel or input device its sourced from so you can have a mad panic wondering if its recording the right channel

I have been told by the company I bought this from, that a /firmware update will resolve probably all the above, however no firmware is available for the 950S as of Feb'2006

Other than that I love my HDD recorder (don't generally use the DVD part as It means I still have to find a DVD when my program is already starting and its FAR simpler to press the record to HDD which is Fabulous

Overall an excellent device - well worth the money I paid for it in Jan

The machine has been generally working ok for all main functions such as playback of DVDs and Dvix CDs, timer recording to HDD, copying from HDD to Blank DVDs and etc however when the machine could not read some recorded DVDs, I had cases that the machine become locked up. But after plugging it off and on, it went back to normal. I am aware that this is common problem with DVD reocrder mainly due to quality of medias and I also had this problem with my Philips DVD Recorder. So long as it goes back to work after putting it to default mode by plugging it off, it should be ok. Now this machine is becoming more compatible with so many discs and I have not had any lock-ups for the past one month.

I believe that this machine would be one of the best budget HDD DVD recorders you can find in the market at the moment.

I know this model has been hot stuff maybe due to the fact that the design of the cabinet is unique. I found that the same one had been selling in other onlines with H+B brand, 120GB and +R media format recording. The main reason I didn't purchase this one was because I wanted a dual media recording machine.

When the Ellion 950S was first delivered to me, I was very impressed - it didn't let me down on my expectations. First of all, it looked stylish and sleek with virtually all connections on the back, including TWO SCARTS, 5.1ch surround audio outputs, coaxial out, component video out etc., as well as on the front with Audio-in, Composite Video-in and DV-in for Camcorders. Not only was this DVD-recorder well-designed, but also was top quality, including all the possible connections a recorder could require!

Moreover setting-up is extremely easy by merely going through instructions on the set-up menu.

Timer recording into HDD and Copying from HDD to Blank Disks have been absolutely perfect. I had problem in copying from Recorded Disks to HDD but after having upgraded the firmware in www.elliondigital.com, it works fine now.

Quality of recording picture and sound is also excellent.