Product Description

80GB Hard Drive DVD Recorder model with Digital Tuner.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5875 in Consumer Electronics
• Brand: Sony
• Model: RDRHXD560S.CEK
• Released on: 2006-07-31
• Dimensions: 9.70 pounds

Manufacturer's Description
HDD recording is changing the way we experience home entertainment. Record directly to this 80 GB Hard Disk Drive and store up to 100 hours worth of material. The intuitive interface lets you effortlessly manage your stored material so that you can watch what you want, when you want. Then, if you want to transfer to DVD, you can do it at high speed!

Box Contents

Customer Reviews

Super piece of kit but slow menu system.
Having previously owned the excellent non-freeview forerunner to this model I didn't hesitiate in choosing this freeview model so as to cut down on the number of remotes confusing my wife! Absolutely no problems with setup. Made a positive choice for 80GB rather than 160GB - you're not going to leave stuff you want to keep on the hard drive - you'll want that on DVD so having more disk just delays that initial cleanup you have to do when the disk is full and you want to record something. 80GB gives plenty of HQ recording time IMO.

My only disappointment is with the speed of response when starting up and from the remote. When in standby, pressing any function will wake it but takes about 30 seconds. Operating the menu system is inexplicably slow when compared to the previous model - e.g. each down-scroll through the title list takes a second or two whereas the non-freeview version was pretty much instantaneous. This is true of any command issued from the remote so can become tedious.

Other than that it is an excellent machine:

- Superb EPG, weeks in advance.
- Series timer that works properly.
- Well designed menu system.
- High speed dubbing and automatic re-formatting if the source is too big for the DVD capacity (4.6GB = 1.5hrs in high quality).
- Low/no noise.
- Separate TV controls on remote.
- Even my wife can program it (no offence ladies) - just make sure you're clear which device is the target i.e. hard drive or DVD!

Switches off every 5-10 minutes - stay away from this!
It is too late for me to return the product to Amazon, but I will see what I can do with the Sony customer services. I have used it for a month and, with a few minor problems, it has worked OK for 3 weeks. In the last week, however, it keeps switching off VERY frequently. It does so when I watch TV and also when I am watching TV. On the TV, it freezes for a few minutes, so you lose 5 minutes every time it switches off - frozen image, switch off, switch on again and bring it back to the right channel.

I am going back to my cheap freeview box + dvd player. If I cannot return the dvd recorder, I will only use it for the occasional recording, but then it is far too expensive for this!

Sony DVD recorder just keeps powering off
Bought this recorder in March 2007. Initially thought it was fantastic but after a few weeks started powering off at random times. This week, despite putting everything to the factory defaults I am now trying to return it to Amazon. It can be ok and then will power off and try to restart. My wife has missed loads of programmes and is not happy. We have loads of Sony gear, telly, camcorder etc and always thought Sony was great. First Sony product I have had which has been faulty (replaced a Sony video recorder which was brilliant) I think I am being harsh but I expect a really high standard from Sony - might have expected this from some unknown brand.