Sony SVR-S500 - Digital TV Recorder (DVR) with 80GB Hard Drive and Freeview
Sony SVR-S500 - Digital TV Recorder (DVR) with 80GB Hard Drive and Freeview
With a Twin Freeview tuner and the 80GB HDD you will never miss aprogram with the SVRS500.
Customer Review: Love it…
Many negative reviews below, BUT (fingers crossed) I’ve had mine up and running a week now and - well, yes, it’s a bit slow, and no, it’s not completely silent, but I still LOVE it.
No messing with DVDs, you can see exactly how much room you have on the hard drive, I can pause and rewind TV whenever, and you can be recording 2 programmes at once while watching something else you recorded all at the same time (where else can you get that?)!
Channel 5 reception not fantastic but also never was with my last freeview box, so it’s not really bothering me. I may one day be tempted into cable because it’s pretty much picture perfect ALL the time, but I’ll still have it hooked up to this machine for recording.
I had a true electrickery anorak (and perfectionist) come round the other day and he made very impressed noises about how excellent it was for the price, so I’ve got no complaints.
Think the answer is to not have it in your bedroom if you’re a light sleeper.
See also review below by Allan Kelly below from 12 Aug 07, very helpful.
Customer Review: Worst Sony Product ever - and that is being kind!
I love Sony - or did at least until I bought this. After having a successful introduction to Freeview via a Daewoo unit my hubby bought me for the bedroom, we decided to ditch Sky and go for Freeview in the livingroom. I saw some of the reviews regarding the Sony, but thought they had got it wrong. After all, Sony were great weren’t they? Got it all plugged together okay, got it switched on and then heard the fan from hell. Now, we live in a detached house and have the telly up loud - and I can still hear the fan going. The 3am download it does is no laughing matter either - horrendous fan noise which sounds more like my pc when its running at full pace doing the virus scan - this goes on for at least 30 minutes and seems to get longer every day. If you’re looking to buy this for the bedroom - forget it - the only thing you’re likely to get is a heart attack. Now don’t get me started about the EPG - it is the worst I have ever seen - menus are slow to load - not user friendly in any way - interesting that the Daewoo leaves Sony standing on all fronts for this. Picture quality is appalling - again the Daewoo leaves this well behind. In short, the only reason I give this unit 1 star is it hasn’t frozen yet.
Take my advice and steer well clear.
-
Sony RDR-HXD870 - DVD Recorder With 160GB Hard Drive - With Freeview - Black 
Recordable formats: DVD-R/-RW, DVD+R/+RW, DVD-RAM and HDD. Multiformat playback.
Amazon Price: ?202.35
Used Price: ?189.99
Customer Review: When will they get the EPG right?
The EPG lets down what is otherwise a very good machine. It does not continue to show the current channel in a window (with audio) when you channel surf using the EPG, nor does it give the program detail when the program is selected- you have to press the info button. ALL these features were on my 4 year old Grundig set top box, which I still prefer to use. On a more positive note, getting it to record is straightforward affair. The Sony does not require you switch to a standby mode to record, unlike the Panasonic DVD recorder which it replaced. This beligerently prevented you from operating basic features (like putting in a DVD to play) whenever it was programed to record anything. Whilst the noise of the SONY is not audible when watching TV you will not want to leave it on standby when reading a book in the same room. Despite these adverse comments it’s still probably the best DVD/PVR you can get at the moment.
Customer Review: Why Buy This When You Can get it for ?5 !!!!
Why Buy A Blu Ray Player When You Can get it for ?5, The latest Blu Ray, what about a HD DVD Player or a HD Player for ?5 Go for it, go to ** LatestModcons.notlong.com ** to get your Latest Mod cons Sign Up - Complete an offer - I would recommend Coral it only costs ?5 Give it a go!!!
Daewoo DF4150 Multi-region Capable DVD Recorder +RW & VCR Combination with MP3 and JP 
A friendly menu system with graphical element, 6 hours recording, Video Plus +, NTSC playback on PAL TV, 430 x 91 x 354
Amazon Price: ?204.80
Customer Review: Daewoo DF4150 Sucks
I have read all the review on this lemon and can agree with most comments, good when it wanted to work but bad when it did’nt. It stopped recording on DVD and even eraused discs after recording,takes an age to start up,i have to press start walk away for 10 mins press off,then play and 30 secs later it should come on.Sent the machine to only authorised repair dealers in Cornwall to be told it would cost about ?200 to have a new chip board or something like that,basicly useless.Now only good enough as grainy VHS recorder or DVD player not what i got it for. Oh and the repair shop said Daewoo knew about these faults with the software but are prepared to do diddly, THANKS Daewoo and -V- who i bought it from.
Customer Review: Top Quality DVD/VHS Recorder
1 have owned one if these units for over 12 months now and haven’t had any problems, its very user friendly, it took less that 10 mins to set up. The DVD recording picture quality gets abit dodgy if you record from SKY/Digital and go over SP, for copying VHS,Analogue tv or B&W you cant use the full SLP. The only thing that annoys me about this is that it takes about 3 weeks to start up so if you every see yourself on TV and think “I’ll record that”……….Don’t even think about using this. As i have SKY+ this isn’t an issue for me but it may be for others. Definitely highly recomended though.
Panasonic DMREZ25 ?DVD Recorder with Freeview 
Used Price: ?115.00
Customer Review: re previous reviews
had this recorder for about a month now and i have had no problems with the manual nor any problems recording from sky+. picture quality is very good, it records on all discs, for the money i dont think you will buy a better machine
Customer Review: Nice recorder — Pity about the manual
I think this may well be a very good machine. However, I’ve had this kit for 6 months now and have not got around to doing anything other than play pre recorded disks (which it does very well). The reason for this lack of functionality is the rubbish manual which is the usual poor translation into Englishese. Even when I contacted Panasonic they agreed that it was poor but held out no hope of an english rewrite. The manual is fine if you just want to record the programmed tv channel. But try to fathom out how to say, record stored Sky+ programmes to archive them onto DVD. I did get a few clips onto a disk but gave up trying to edit them into a comprehensive programme. In short, the brochure promises marvellous features but the manual does not explain how to achieve any of these wonders.
Panasonic DMR-ES10EB-S DVD RAM Disc Recorder 
Used Price: ?74.00
Customer Review: Broke twice, and slow!
I’m on the my second player, and about to return it to get another!!! Yes, it’s broken again. The first one died after about 2-3 months, as it didn’t want to read any dvd. It didn’t matter if it was a dvd-rw, dvd-r or a brand new dvd. I got it swapped in the shop I bought it from. This one has been fine for many months, but now it’s doing the same. It is saying that dvd’s are unformatted, when they are not. I format them again, and it comes with the same message. It’s also starting to get picky over what it wants to play, and this includes purchased films. It’s also slow. From off to record takes over a minute. From off to play is about the same time. It’s very slow. Also, if you are watching a film, and you turn the player off, then it goes back to the very start. Not like most players which stop half way. I would recommend getting a dvd recorder with a hard disk, as you don’t have the issues of dvd’s getting scratched, and the player only wanting to use bits of the dvd. I had been putting up with it being slow, but now it’s just annoying. I wish I had spent my money on something else, and I’m very disappointed as it’s such a good make. Don’t buy this one. You also can’t edit dvd’s before you finalise them (dvd-r), so you can’t add chapters. And it does a check at about 3am if you put it on quickstart mode, which is very noisy, and has woken me up before I turned this function off!!
Customer Review: Good but…….
I was very pleased with this at first, the picture quality on long-play is very good except for Football and boxing. Any fast sports and the picture pixillates. Sports should be recorded on short-play which gives 2 hours and long enough for most football except where there’s extra time(World Cup!). If something good comes on and I want to tape it, I can’t just bung in a cd, it has to be formatted and this is annoying! To be honest vcr tapes had a lot of bonuses in terms of being user friendly, bung it in, press record, don’t like that? bit-wipe it! I will eventually buy a hard drive recorder.
