I recently bought an ILO dvd recorder from Wal-Mart about a month ago. It only cost 150.00, someone on these boards recommended it to me. It works well for the price, the front a/v inputs suck b/c it leaves a high pitched whine on the recordings using that particular input, but the rears work excellent. You can put 6 hours of video on there, equivilent to say a vcd. And 2 hour mode is nearly identical to the source. And 1 hour practically is.
walmart.com has alot of cheap recorders, and if you have a sams club membership you should walk into one of their stores and look at their selection, or look at the website. but it differs from in store and website as far as stock goes