Sony RDR-HXD870 - DVD Recorder With 160GB Hard Drive - With Freeview - Silver.

November 6, 2007 | By Doug In Freeview TV |

Sony RDR-HXD870 - DVD Recorder With 160GB Hard Drive - With Freeview - Silver.
HDD DVD RECORDER 160GB INT DIG TV TUNER HDMI OUTPUT IN

Customer Review: High Quality but with some limitations
This is an incredible machine for the money. It’s best trick is the DVD upscaling to 1080p through HDMI which has stopped me bothering about HD-DVD and Blu-Ray until the format war is over. On my 1080p capable Sony TV the picture quality is simply staggering - worth the asking price alone. Normal TV upscaling with less data to work with is less impressive but perfectly acceptable. Recording quality depends on your signal quality and compression - use HQ if you have the disc space.

Flexibility to edit TV recordings before transfer to TV (removing unwanted sections) is easy and the transfer quality is very good depending on the settings you use. When dubbing to DVD the HXD870 appears to be incapable of recording something else to HD (unlike when watching a recording or DVD at the same time which is fine).

It you look ahead a few days in the digital TV listings there can be a substantial delay in completing the full schedule - for some reason this data isn’t immediately available on the hard drive which seems an odd decision by Sony. This can be annoying when trying to schedule recordings, a procedure that is otherwise very simple.

I was disappointed that despite indications to the contrary your recorded TV and DVDs cannot be played back through the aerial. This is a simple pass through connection only - there is no channel to tune into like a VCR. It does feed a picture to HDMI and Scart outputs at the same time so you can use a separate modulator if a feed to a remote TV is wanted. Digital audio output is coax only.

If you ask a question through the Sony website, be prepared to wait. They get to it eventually but this service does not appear to have a high priority.

The limitations of the HXD870 only affect you when doing unusual things. As soon as you play a DVD at HD resolution you forgive it everything!

Customer Review: Wonderful box
The Sony RDR 870 is simple a wonderful piece of equipment once you are able to get it up and running. The documentation is easy to follow if only concerned about connecting Freeview or analogue/satellite. Trying to connect both is not explained and you are more or less left with trial and error and some pointers hidden in quite a sizeable document. Contacting Sony was a waste of time as no one appears to respond to your email*. As always Amazon did a great job in delivering on time and the equipment in one piece. Unlike a friends experience with Bt Shop were the whole process was a nightmare from beginning to end

*To update my review and to be fair to Sony, they made contact by telehone

and confirmed my connections to be correct. A bit late but at least they showed that they do care about customers.

Toshiba 37WLT68G - 37″ Widescreen HD Ready LCD TV - With Freeview - Black
1000:1 contrast ratio ActiveVision LCD Picture Processing
Used Price: ?533.99
Customer Review: Toshiba brilliance!
After reading the fantastic reception that this TV has had on the AV Forums I decided to take the plunge as I have not been happy with many of the HD LCD TV’s that were out on the market. I can truly say that overall I have been absolutely stunned by the beautiful picture quality of this set. The M100 100hz processing technology that the TV uses produces silky smooth fast running images without any blurring. Connectivity is also utterly superb with 3 HDMI slots, S-Video, VGA, Component and many others ensuring that the TV has absolutely no problems connecting to your HD Satalite/cable box, upscaled DVD players or games consoles. The image quality (colours and the depth of black) in HD is gorgeous and watching Blu-Ray movies through the PS3 or playing games on the 360 is just an utter joy. My one issue with the set is the controller. It just feels cheap and can be a little unresponsive, but it in no way should deter people from purchasing this fantastic TV.
Customer Review: Great Picture, shame about the rest
I must admit I did not do my homework properly. The WLT68 has a great picture, looks the business and a friend has an earlier Toshiba LCD again with a great picture. However the remote control is fiddly with the most useful buttons hidden away. Most annoyingly the TV is very slow to react, especially the EPG and information pages. It sometimes appears to have come to a grinding halt. Our other television, a Sony, has better remote control and reacts much quicker. Another annoying feature, although there may be a setting to correct this, is its habit of reverting to 4:3 aspect whenever I change to the HDMI input for the DVD player. The sound is nothing much either, and turning up the bass causes the TV to resonate. If you do go for this TV either buy the optional Sub woofer or feed the audio through the separate sound system. It’s a great television let down by poor slow software. Come back Sony all is forgiven!

IKASU PORTABLE 15″ LCD TELEVISION WITH FREEVIEW
HIGH RESOLUTION TFT ACTIVE MATRIX. MULTI STANDARD (PAL I-BG, SECAM L-DK). REAR HANDLE. SCART CONNECTOR , S-VIDEO INPUT, A/V INPUT (RCA), PC-INPUT (MULTISYNC XGA) , HEADPHONE OUTPUT. REMOTE CONTROL. ACCESORIES INCLUDED: AC/DC ADAPTER, A/V CABLE . BUILT -IN DVB-T TUNER. 200 MEMORY CHANNELS.