The $450 Samsung DVD-TR520 is the first DVD recorder we've seen that has two DVD drives, allowing you to copy video from one disc to another. It can record to DVD-R, DVD-RW, and DVD-RAM discs, including double-sided DVD-RAM discs that come in protective cartridges--an especially useful type for storing precious home movies.

The DVD drive on the left side of the unit is a rewritable drive; the drive on the right side is read-only. While this approach keeps the cost of the recorder down, it leads to an annoying usability problem: If you've just recorded a TV show and want to make a copy of it, you have to eject the newly recorded disc from the recorder drive, put it into the read-only drive, and insert a blank disc into the recorder drive before proceeding.

Having a dual-deck unit doesn't mean that you can copy any discs without limitation. The manual details what you can and can't do. For instance, you can't copy a full DVD-RAM disc to a DVD-R disc, since DVD-R media can't ...

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Melissa Perenson