Product Description

Sony RDR-HXD790 120GB DVD Recorder (Black)

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #31776 in Consumer Electronics
• Brand: Sony
• Model: RDRHXD790B.CEK
• Released on: 2009-02-25
• Dimensions: 10.36 pounds

Features

• 120GB capacity for a max recording of 340 hours onto the Hard Disk Drive
• BRAVIA Sync - Automatically controls TV and Home Cinema components with one-click ease
• HDMI output with 1080p upscaling to maximise picture quality even on large screens
• Electronic Programme Guide offering simple 3-step on-screen timer programming and TV Guide
• Integrated Digital and Analogue Tuner delivering the latest TV channels in digital clarity

Manufacturer's Description
The Sony RDRHXD790 Hard Disk Drive comes with 120GB capacity to allow up to 340 hours of recording time, enabling you to watch what you want, when you want to watch it. Freeview+ capability enables functionality such as pause live TV, ideal for when you are disturbed half way through your favourite soap, and series link recording, which means you only have to set your recorder once for your favourite series. Add to this the facility to copy your hard drive content to DVD, BRAVIA Sync technology to ensure seamless integration with compatible televisions via HDMI, HDMI up-scaling to 1080p and two USB inputs make it easy to share music and photos, and you have everything you need to enhance your home entertainment experience

Box Contains

Customer Reviews

Fantastic player and recorder. One of the best!
I bought this DVD recorder to replace a shoddy Philips one which bust after a week. The Sony was such a vast improvement I couldn't quite believe they were in the same price-bracket. Even my decent Panasonic upscaling DVD player can't match up to the might of the Sony deck. When hooked up to a decent HDTV (I have a Panasonic 37" THPX70 - not high end, but decent) the picture on this thing makes standard DVDs comparable to blu-rays. When I got my PS3 and watched a blu-ray, I was disappointed that the picture quality wasn't as big a leap as I expected, only because I'd been spoiled by the Sony DVD player! It truly brings old DVDs to life.
5/5
The recorder is responsive and simple to use, and it hasn't yet cut off the beginning or end of a programme its recorded. Its so versatile with its connections that I even managed to hook my laptop up to it and recorded a radio show off the internet directly on to the recorder itself (with a blank screen). The recordings are crisp and clear on the standard settings, and look no different to the original broadcast.
5/5
The hard-drive and DVD menus are simple to navigate, though I haven't yet recorded from the HDD to DVD or vice versa, so I can't comment on the editing tools. I've heard they are very good though.
4/5
The only areas where I might criticise are: 1) The remote. Its very large, yet horribly light meaning it feels a little fragile and cheap. The buttons are a bit too small and not that logically laid out, meaning if you like watching movies in the dark you will have to turn the light on to find the pause button!
2) The updates, which are very frequent (usually more than once a day) are quite loud and can be a distraction. But this is a small price to pay to have the firmware fully up to date.
3) The hard drive is a bit loud when spinning, which it does the whole time the machine is on. From a distance of less than 6ft this is quite annoying if you're watching something quietly.
3.5/5
In all, this is a brilliant machine with a huge storage capacity, awesome picture and sound (I run it via co-axial digital to a 5.1 Cambridge AV receiver - sounds great) and brilliant usability. Ge it!

Good Quality
Good quality piece of equipment, straight forward to set up, but you will need to read the manual (each scanario is covered - record from freeview, analogue, satellite receiver etc.).

Records to Hard Disk and DVD fine (I know that should be a given since that what's it's supposed to do, but don't take it for granted), good quality, an immediate step up from my previous recorder. You can do a few things I wasn't expecting. Editing a programme is easy, burning ("dubbing") to a DVD from Hard Disk can be done at high speed. If you record multiple programmes to one DVD you can add a menu from a list of built in templates. It actually controls my Sky box using an infrared transmitter and the Guide Plus feature. It will take video from both my analogue 8mm camcorder and my digital camcorder. It's quiet. It looks good.

You can get 56 hours of video on the hard disk using SP quality (short play - looked very good, I could probably lower the quality and get more on the disk, but SP is the default setting).

The only criticism I can come up with is the menu system. Not as good as it could be. I can't knock a mark off because in a straight comparison nothing else I've used has been any easier.

I don't think I could have got anything better within £100 of the cost. The only thing spending more would have bought was a larger hard disk. The 890 is identical but with another 40GB.

Generally pretty good.
Bought this based on previous reviews and is generally a good player. Setting it up seemed relatively straight forward and I've managed to record several times onto the hard drive without any problems. The picture quality is also very good and the main reason I bought it was the upscaling to match my TV - very impressive. Downsides are that if you have built-in freeview on your TV, it does get confused sometimes and will refuse to allow you to watch it through either TV or HDD player - I had to mess around with the settings several times to make it stop doing this. (Why did I buy it if I had freeview already? It was cheaper than to get one without) It is also very noisy and performs random updates in the night, which can be annoying. But in terms of function and ease of use it's very good.