
Appliance Rollers (pack of 4)
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Toshiba RDXV47 160Gb HDD/DVD/VHS Recorder
The 3-in-1 RDX-V47 records to both DVD discs and VHS tapes. It comes with a 160 GB in-built memory for hours of programmes. It’s also compatible with DivX formats as well as your old VHS cassettes. You?ll save on space with this incredibly practical appliance!
Amazon Price: ?165.00
Used Price: ?144.99
Customer Review: Overrated, very disapointed. Avoid.
There is no built in digital receiver (a separate set top box is needed), the disc player has a high pitch whistle when playing a disc and play back quality using the hard disc facility is poor. Oh and my toshiba television remote (32wlt68) does not operate it when switched to dvd or vcr settings. So I now have a zapper for my set top box, one for my t.v. and one for the dvd/vcr player.Thats three in total. To record a programme onto the hard disc facility via the set top box is like crossing the M25 on foot blindfolded and walking backwards. The back of my t.v. unit is like spahetti junction too.
Customer Review: Great but not quite perfect
Having read all the reviews on Amazon about this machine, I decided to take the plunge while the price was so good (?165). While overall it’s a great machine, it does have some disapointments. The first thing I discovered was that it is not multi-region (at least one reviewer said it was). It may well play NTSC VHS (I don’t know, I don’t have a tape to test it with) but it certainly wont play region 1 DVDs. The next thing I discovered was that it wont copy DVDs recorded on another machine. This is a pain if you have, say, old camcorder footage that has been previously transfered to DVD and you want to re-edit on the Toshiba’s HDD. This is obviously none copyright material, so why not let it be copied freely? The last problem that I discovered was when transfering old camcorder-shot VHS material from the 1980s. Sometimes during the transfer, the machine stops dubbing and shows a message that it will not dub copyright material??? And when it does copy, it’s a bit hit and miss on the final result, with copies suffering from tracking style problems. I guess the solution is to hook up a seperate VHS/DVD player for the initial dubbing of old material. Not ideal and defeating the object somewhat but once they are transfered, that’s it. On the plus side, using the HDD for recording is great. Setting it at LP, the picture is perfectly acceptable. The thumbnails are essential for identification as the recorder doesn’t automatically name the recordings and doing it manually via the handset is tedious. It does actually list the channel, recording setting and day/time/date of the recording but the time/date function does sometimes default to ‘Mon 01/01/07′(maybe this is a fault on my machine?). The timeslip function is another great feature. If a TV programme is about to start and you’re still making your sandwich, just press ‘timeslip’ and carry on with your chore. When you sit down 10 minutes later, press ‘timeslip’ again and the show starts from the begining and you can watch it as if live (and fast forward the ads). You can even watch a previously recorded programme on the HDD while recording something else on the same HDD at the same time!!! Transfering from HDD to DVD is easy. I transfered 2 movies, total running time 3 hours (after I had edited out the ads) using the auto function to fit them neatly onto the disc. The result was perfect and the quality great. The finished disc had a neat menu (don’t think it will do chapters) and played fine on another player in the house. My TV is a bog standard, 3 or 4 year old telly. Not even widescreen and I’ve not had any of the problems that have been mentioned in some of the other reviews. I have a freeview box connected by scart and a normal sky box, again scart connected. Everything is just connected as if the Toshiba was a normal VHS machine and there are no problems with not being able to watch one channel while recording another that have been experienced by other reviewers. So, despite the problems of transfering old video material (and that may be just unique to my stuff), it’s still a great machine and at ?165, it’s a great bargain.
Music CD Recorder 3.0
As standard bearers of the budget music software army, Data Becker are seeking to offer very good value for very little money: with the Music CD Recorder they’ve come quite close to hitting double top.
First off, this isn’t the most comprehensive or all-powerful of “rip-’n'-burn” software set-ups. Whereas some CD burners offer to beautify your soundtrack or frame your picture or newly edit your titles or, no doubt, coddle your breakfast eggs, the Music CD Recorder seeks to, well, record your music CDs. But in that limited role it works a treat. With its CD grab function, CD copying is a cinch; likewise the Intelligent Wizards make a very decent fist of guiding you through any glitches or gremlins. Meanwhile the sound restoration tools are well capable of enhancing most sounds; and to top it all off the noise filters, 3-D wave analysers, wave music editors and so on, are all present and totally useful for when you want to get a tiny bit clever and Oscar-winning.
Now for some criticisms: the console is a bit simplistic; the colours are raw and garish; the onscreen dials look like oversized Smarties. But these are mere details when set against its value-for-money credentials. –Sean Thomas
Price: ?29.99
Customer Review: Budget CD copying at its best!
Wow what a great piece of software The best features of this piece of software is the cd editing features where you can take the hissing out of your old collections of cassettes and vinals! You can also edit out parts of songs you dont like, make remixes of your favourite songs and then copy it to a 80 min audio cd. It also lets you make “data” cds where you can store about 200 mp3 or wma files on a cd (but this doesnt play in some cd players) Also the Cd labeling is a nice touch to this budget software , if you want to make a really good label you are going to have to put your imagination to it. There are a few flaws to this software though the colours used in the software are a bit blunt and boring but this doesnt really affect the usage of the software in any way, this is the cream of the crop of the budget
Samsung Multi-region Capable DVD Recorder With 160Gb Hard Drive DVD-HR734/XEU
DVD Recorder with 160 Hard Disc Drive
Used Price: ?149.99
Customer Review: Hugely Disappointing…
Purchased this unit 4 months ago and was very pleased with it: multi-region, great design, easy to use, large storage capacity. In the last 6 weeks the unit has gone from occasionally rejecting dvd-r/rws, to rejecting all blank dvds (of many varieties), to the point where it cannot even read pre-recorded dvds (and makes a horrible noise when doing so). While the hard drive still works a system error also occurs every few days. Have contacted Samsung, who were not helpful in the slightest. After a good start this product has become very disappointing. Other buyers beware that although a great unit, its longevity is dubious. At ?200+ buyers should expect more.
Customer Review: Superb piece of technology!
A superb piece of technology, huge storage capacity and it does everything it says it does!! I have always been fond of Samsung and being able to watch and record at the same time, multi region too is just superb value for money. Thank you to Amazon for fantastic delivery.
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