Cyberhome DVD/RW nightmare

I'm still a lurker in this forum, though I ditched my 2500 months ago. My main gripe with the lesser known brands is the absolute lack of quality control and customer support.

It took Cyberhome months and literally thousands of complaints before they finally addressed the issues with their product. Finally offering a replacement deal with a new model when it became obvious that the lemons could not be repaired.

I don't want to jinx anybody out there, but the real test of these new units will be how well they hold up under everyday use, and how you as a customer will be supported when issues with it arise.

This is not to say that the name brands are not without issues. If any one on the board can reccomend a RELIABLE
low-cost alternative to the big name DVD recorders I'd
like for you to pass this info along. I'm done with any Cyberhome products, My DVD recorder and player crapped out on me in less than 4 months, neither under any sort of heavy use and their customer support bites big time.


Peace....

-Ken-

 

no heavy use huh, baloney. I use every day for several hours continusly and ist going strong since april. cyberhome is the best price/quality ratio. too bad they sold out of it at $169.99 at walmart. The new one is $`199.99 at buy website. Coby r1100 is a good one as well. I see the mustek is going for $198.99 and it looks like exact same as the cyberhome, interesting. Any disk over $.50 is a ripoff,.

 

Cyberhfan,

If your unit works goodie for you. MY unit crapped out period! Have you bothered to read ANY of the older post here? Most if not all had fatal problems with THEIR Cyberhome. Cyberhome has the the best price/quality ratio?
Compared to what? How about citing some other manufacturers as an example. Had a Mustek, didn't work properly right out of the box. Had an Aspire unit. The unit
had very limited editing features, and a tuner issue, which tech support would not even acknowledge.

There was a huge rush to market with a lot of these 1st generation recorders, some released without having all the bugs worked out. I'd be interested to know what was the month of manufacture on your Cyberhome recorder since you claim to have no issues whatsoever with it.

Almost everyone who has posted here has had overheating issues with the 1500/2500 under normal use which was the cause of the unit failing in most instances.

Yours seems to be a very rare exception. The fact of the matter is that Cyberhome is well aware that the CHDVR-1500/2500 was a dud by the virtue of the great many customer complaints, & made a last ditch effort to pacify/appease customers by way of a repair or a replacement.

There was a buzz of a potential class action suit, which I'm sure they got wind of.

Again, IF your recorder performs as well as you claim it does, then more power to ya'!

If you read the title of this thread, it should be apparent to you that there are a great many customers who have had negative experiences with the product & Cyberhome's poor customer support.

Btw, have you actually used any other recorder besides your Cyberhome?


Peace.........

 

I was finally able to download the firmware upgrade and used the switch on, switch off, leave off for a few days, switch on and off a few times, finally will open the tray method to install the first upgrade.

It seems to work well now, but I'd like to install the servo upgrade too. The website says I can't just drag the file to a CD-R like I could the firmware upgrade. It says I need burner program like NERO so I can use these settings: NO MULTISESSION and JOLIET FILE SYSTEM. Is that true? I think I can download a trial version of NERO for free, but it's over 20 megs and I'm on a dial-up. It'll take a couple of hours.

 

CYBERHOME CD DVR 1500 WAS JUST RECALLED DVR 1500 UNITS FOR PEOPLE HAVING THE "NO DISC" PROBLEM WHEN ENTERING A NEW BLANK DISC. MINE WAS JUST REPLACED WITH A CD DVR 1530.
THIS CD DVR 1530 DOESN'T WORK WELL WITH VERBATIM OR MEMOREX DVD+RW'S, BUT DOES WORK WITH THEIR CYBERHOME DVD+RW'S.
DVD'S RECORDED ON THIS 1530 UNIT WILL NOT PLAY ON OTHER DVD PLAYERS.
DVD'S RECORDED ON PREVIOUS DVR 1500 WILL NOT PLAY ON NEW 1530. I THINK CYBERHOME HAS A LOT OF COMPATIBILITY ISSUES. NOW I HAVE TO PAY $72 TO $85 TO BUY THIER DVD'S AS THE DVD'S I BOUGHT AT OHTER STORES DON'T WORK IN THEIR UNIT. NOT A HAPPY CUSTOMER. WILL THINK TWICE IN THE FUTURE OF WHAT UNITS I BUY.

 

CyberFan...Fack off...Let the truth be told...Nothing made by Cyberhome is anything more than a total piece of SHAT. Plain and Simple...You are not a real user but just another SHATBAG trying to sell the ones you may have left..HAHAHA...Nobody in their right mind would buy ANYTHING made by these clowns. I know when My Wife bought the POS we had initialy there was little to no information in the web in regards to the unit or any other unit made by CYBERHOME. Nobody with any self respect would sell such a worthless POS. If you do sell them or have anything to do with their business failure I would suggest you keep it quiet or watch your back...hahaha...

I will keep coming back here and talking honest SHAT in regards to Cyberhome because I feel it is my duty now to protect buyers smart enough to decide for themselves wheather or not to buy this worthless POS after having read this thread. If you do buy one after reading this thread you DESERVE every problem and headache that comes with it.

CyberFan...Lick my SACK....Bwaaaaahahahahaha!!!!!!!!!!!


Brad

 

I stumbled across this thread on a Google search. It's so long I will admit I haven't read the whole thread. Since stupid me just bought a CyberHome 1500,I'll tell you what I've learned about it. As I said, I didn't read the whole thread, so some of this info may already be here.

The CyberHome CH-DVD 1500 is a pretty lousy unit, but it does do the job for DVD+Rs; I haven't tried DVD+RWs yet. I'm converting my home videos to DVDs.

I won't go into all my woes with this thing, but it has a BIG problem with overheating. The DVD burner is a dvd+rw drive model no.dx042d, made by cis technology inc., which is made in Taiwan.

The burner runs so hot it will almost melt a DVD! My temporary solution was to use an external clip-on fan, and my eventual solution was to add a small Radio Shack fan inside and it runs quite cool now.

If the unit gets too hot, it will "lock up." If you leave it unplugged (or rear switch turned off) for a few minutes, it will work again but still runs too hot and will make very nice coasters from DVD+Rs.

I would NOT recommend this unit to my worst enemy, but if you end up with one like I did, and don't feel like taking it back, make sure you don't stack any other components on top of the 1500, (it needs all the air it can get) and put at least a small external fan by it.

 

ok i dunno if this gona help any i had a cyberhome 1500 for about 6 months i ordered it from hsn it worked fine if you use a dvd+r or dvd-r you have to finalize them in order for them to work in other dvd players i dont see any differnce from the 1500 and 2500 besides the colors it has the same features and everything it didnt matter what brand discs i used either but yea if you dont finalize them you wont beable to play it on any other dvd player besides the cyberhome recorder

 

if you are using a dvd rw you dont have to finalize it because there rewritable so you should just be able to pop it right it and it plays on another dvd player i dunno if any of that helped but if anyone has any ?s feal free to ask me ill try to help th best i can

 

i wouldnt really recomend a cyberhome recorder mine burned up like 6 months after i had it and i had only done maybe about 25 burns if that

 

So Nate...What you are TRYING to say is...IT IS A PIECE OF SHIT...A TOTAL WASTE OF MONEY...YOU WOULD NEVER BUY A CYBERHOME PRODUCT AGAIN PERIOD...RIGHT???

I mean really...Why the hell would anyone ever try to talk up a product that costs $200-300+ dollars and works for an average of say 6-12 months is beyond me.

FUCH...F-You-Cyber-Home...Bwahahahaha

 

cudaz101 exactly its a piece of crap i wouldnt recomend it to anyone and from what im hearing everyone is complaing about it also i heard that it overheats way to easily so I advise noone to buy this crap! dont waste your money

 

cudaz101 exactly its a piece of crap i wouldnt recomend it to anyone and from what im hearing everyone is complaing about it also i heard that it overheats way to easily so I advise noone to buy this crap! dont waste your money

 

wouldn't buy cyberhome products if my life depended on it!!. they just came out and as far from what i read on the box (work at bestbuy). its not up to anybodys standard. don't even know why anybody is buying the recorders,or dvd players anyway. i will stick to the pioneer,benq, liteon and trusty plextor ( i have a plextor 716a now). it seems cyberhome only relies on its own products to make them work in their system. thats baaaadddd. because if you want to watch a dvd, you have to go out and buy (bold)their(/bold) dvd players to make it work, thats stupid. it won't work in any other dvd players. and not to mention the features, very limited feature. with that price they are offering, it should have more features.

 

A Jamaican girl...Mmmmmmmm

Anyways...Not to mention that they basically BURN-UP within days of use.

I was not aware that Lite-on made a console type DVD-Writer. PC units yes, but console pices??? I am shopping around for another one, but I am VERY skeptical of what I buy next...So suggestions of a GREAT/KICKASS unit would be appreciated.


Brad

 

To everyone with a Cyberhome. If you can't get warranty repair forget it and buy a Phillips. I have had a 1500 for about a year. I put a fan in it which has helped but I still cut it off when not in use. It's the same when I bought it in Jan of 03. Multiple Timer settings don't always work, it looks like it is but but nothing is there. Sometimes it says it finalized it but did not. Tuner sucks, I use the output of a VCR to record from. If it does not want to eject a disk, I remove the cover and push the eject button on the from of the drive itself. It is nothing but what computers use. Works great with 8x media name brands. I have done well over 100 successful recordings with good results. It is just a backup to my Phillips 75 which after learning the remote is my main machine. I also now have a Panasonic combo for dubbing my home video with. The cyberhome works but has pause problems when recording. The phillips has a washout problem with bright scenes. I am now looking at a phillips 615 to replace the cyberhome as a backup. It's a shame as the 1500 is beautiful inside. It just gets too hot and the power supply capacitors will blow eventually. I have not tried the upgrade since many have had a lot of trouble with it. Cyberhome missed on this one and all the others.

 

Hello, Fellow Cyberhome Sufferers,

I probably should have waited until April 1 to post this message, so that it would have appeared to be an Rpril Fool's joke, but the following story is actually true.

As embarrassed as I am to admit this (don't throw vegetables at me or lecture me too harshly), I actually purchased a second Cyberhome DVD recorder after the first one failed (the first froze and refused to eject the professional grade DVD that it was playing). Of course, just to make things even more anxiety provoking and expensive, the DVD that the unit was holding hostage was a rented one and I was eventually cost me an additional $30, because I was unable to return it to McDonald's. In case you have not heard about this, some cities (Denver included) have brand new DVRs for rent for the princely sum of $1.00 for the entire 2 day rental period permitted before it would fail to play anymore and needed to be returned. I was not quite that lucky, and it was the first DVD that I had rented from this particular service. The Cyberhome played the movie once quite nicely, but I fell asleep during the movie and wanted to replay it to see what I had missed. Well, you know how THAT turned out.

To add insult to injury, I wasn't really that crazy about the movie ... it was "50 First Dates" with Drew Barrymore and Adam Sandler, a harmless enough little piece of fluff, but not a title that I would feel compelled to purchase for my collection.

Why in the world would I buy a second Cyberhome unit after the firt failed? Am I a glutton for punishment, or do I just enjoy telling tales of horror to scare my friends and family from ever purchasing an electronic toy of their own? Nope, my decision was a simple financial one ... I knew that I was actually "renting" a DVR machine, in a sense, but felt pretty confident that it would work at least as long as the firt one that I had purchased ... you know the pattern ... approximately two or three days longer than the warranty associated with the unit.


I was temporarily in a little financial bind, could not afford a more expensive unit, especially since the prices of better units had not dropped yet, and I needed to record some shows onto DVDs. After having invested substantially in the DVD+R/DVD+RW format, I also did not want to purchase a recorder that required DVD-R/DVD-RW format. Surprisingly the second unit worked quite a bit better in some respects than did the first one, but it did evidence problems in ...recording and playing back programs that exceeded 60 minutes in length. Having learned a couple of lessons from my first Cyberhome fiasco, I was very careful to use only the very best DVD+RW discs I could find, and didn't even consider risking more trouble by using a DVD+R disc. I did not apply the upgrade, because I had read of substantial problems that were showing up with the software upgrade and wanted to assess user and professional reports on the upgrades prior to doing so.

In any case, the second unit was purchased during a blowout sale (poor choice of terms, I guess, but you have to admit that that term certainly seems like an appropriate one), and I recall paying something like $150 for the unit. Even if it fails entirely at some point and the repaired and/or upgraded replacement is no better than the original ones I purchased, I made a decision to get the second unit since I needed the technology and the price (around $150 at that point) was a reasonable cost of "renting" a machine for the period during which I needed it. At least I had a DVD+RW recorder that worked pretty well when I needed it to do so, and of course, that permitted me to see what would happen to the prices of better units.

Around Christmas, the prices of better DVD recorders began to drop substantially, to the point at which the top of the line recorder, which I could have afforded at that point, was out of stock everywhere. I ended up finding a great deal on an RCA unit (Model DRC8295N DVD+R/+RW), which turns out to be a very reasonably priced and wonderful combination VCR/DVD +R/+RW recorder that does everything that I need and want it to do at this point, so I'm finally a happy camper.

I think that it is now time to send the two Cyberhome units back to the manufacturer and either get them "fixed" or get the slightly different unit that is offered. Have any of you discovered a strong preference for one of those options over the other, and if so, what did you decide to do? Unfortunately, I only have one of the empty packing boxes that came with each unit, so I'll have to do this sequentially, rather than simultaneously. When they are fixed or replaced, I guess that I'll sell them at a very reasonable price on Ebay or perhaps offer them as "prizes" for a contest that I could run at our http://www.AmeriCatIdol.com web site.

As absurd as this entire story sounds, dear friends, I am not a glutton for punishment, I am not a masochist, I am not psychotic (at least not today, as far as I know ... LOL), but I felt that sharing my ridiculous story just MIGHT be worthwhile, if it could help any of the rest of you to feel just a tiny bit less embarrassed if you found yourself buying just ONE of these units. For that reason, to share a bit of cheer and good feelings with you, just consider that to be my little "Valentine's Day" present to any of you who have felt really stupid for having bought just one unit.

Take care,
And I hope that you ARE having a great Valentine's Day!!

 

Hey AmeriCat - good story. I had the misfortune of sending back my recorder for repair at the 89 dollar price plus shipping. It was repaired and returned (missed the warranty by a month). When they announced the free replacement offer I asked for the return of my 89 dollars. They said No. Then I asked if they would at least reimburse the shipping costs. They said they would do that. But what I got was a prepaid mailing label to send in my already repaired unit to the service center!! I now have my CyberHome sitting on a garage shelf while I enjoy by Sylvania DVD/VHS combo. It works well (so far). Good luck trying to sell your two units.

 

ronnybuck,

I also have that Philiphs 615 unit.

It works great for recordings from my VHS player & TIVO. The Philiphs machine runs nice & cool.

The only problem is that it has a crappy UI. One area where the Cyberhome was actually better.

 

to mwillett: Thanks for the reply. My Phillips works great and looking at another one. The one I have now has some kind of vcr+ which is dead issue here. Never got it to work. They now have one that may be a little better without the vcr+. I agree on the User Interface and almost took it back but forced myself to figure it out. Now it is easier than using my cell phone. I paid $160 out of box never used. They had cut the price (Circuit City) because of it and I was going to order one from Phillps for $60. On the way out the door the salesman found it and didn't cost me a thing. My cyberhome was $248 from WalMart. It is officially 1 year old today. I had put a fan from a cpu heatsink inside when I noticed all the heat. I just plugged it using a standard drive power cable adapter. I do cut it off when not in use. The main board is just like a processor in a computer with a battery that keeps all settings. I am going to Bestbuy and buy a 615 tomorrow with my tax refund. It is $229 still in the box. From what you say I feel safe in doing this. I do a lot of off air recording for my son overseas. He is a Scifi and CSI buff. I have mailed well over 200 DVD's with 4 hours as the limit for quality. I noticed the specs on the Phillips 615 says it will do 8 hours. I have found 6 hours to be pushing it. Enough. I can talk this stuff all day at least that is what my wife says. I thought VCR were here to stay but feel eventually we will be recording stuff on something with no moving parts.