The appearance of this machine was as one might expect for an item to be used in a workshop or laboratory rather than a lounge. I was expecting this as I had previously purchased the ION tape to PC machine. The machine was dead basic and the video recorder very limited and I had to adjust the heads before it worked properly. It did not like some tapes and appeared very selective as to what it would play. I persevered and it improved after several runs with a cleaning tape. The other / external input only has mono sound and is therefore rather disappointing.
The software disc supplied proved useless with my windows 7 64 bit machines . The ION website was however very useful and after a few hours struggling I managed to get the machine to interface well with a dual core machine.
After all of this I was about to send it back as it is extremely expensive for what it does and hardly fit for purpose. However I then discovered that some but not all pre- recorded videos with copy prevention like macrovision would copy on it. I must emphasise that only some will copy. This is about the only redeeming feature of the machine and without it one could spend £20 or less to achieve the same result. I would not buy one again but rather go for the cheaper option. This machine did however prompt me to delve deeper into what was available and if you already have a DVD player and video player go for the cheaper options as the recorder / player on this machine is very poor quality
