Product Description

Enjoy digital TV channels in complete freedom and record up to 272 hours of programmes with the DVD-SH853 from Samsung! The DVD-SH853 comes with a Freeview tuner and a 160 GB hard drive so you never run out of memory! You can programme it to record your favourite TV programmes and watch them in your own time without the trouble of rewinding or fast forwarding through those annoying adverts. Plus, the DVD-SH853?s HDMi connection ensures that images and sound are transmitted clearly and in their original quality. The DVD-SH853 makes transferring data from your camcorder easy too, thanks to its DV input and two SCART connectors. With the DVD-SH853, you?ll discover a whole new way of watching television.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1080 in Consumer Electronics
• Brand: Samsung
• Model: DVD-SH853M/XEU
• Released on: 2007-05-25

Features

• HDMI connection socket
• Black slimline design
• 6 Language OSD/GUI
• Recording time modes are XP/SP/LP/EP/SEP
• Intelligent auto setup with auto channel sorting and mapping

Customer Reviews

Very disappointing - do not buy!
After reading through many specs, we chose this model thinking it looked like the best one - how wrong we were.

When scrolling through the channels (EPG), it was incredibly slow and quite a lot of the time took ages to display the information. The picture constantly broke up and froze with intermittant loss of sound.

Recording was a total nightmare. Once set, the box has to be turned off which meant you couldn't watch any TV so if you were recording something for later on in the day, you could not use the TV at all. Finally, the most annoying thing, more often than not the recording never worked at all and the few occasions it did (you could see it recording on the DVD), the programme did not appear in the recorded list so you could not find it to play it back in any case!

We have now sent it back and are looking to buy another one, anything other than Samsung!

Good luck to anyone who decides to buy one of these models!

Poorly Designed
This machine is quite simply, difficult to use. There is very little logic to how the remote functions. I can't get it to do what I want at all. No doubt if I had the patience to sit and work it out, it probably would be okay, but I don't. I have a similar Sony machine and it is just so easy to use compared with this one. I bought this one as I bought a Samsung tv at the same time and thought it would make sense to have the same manufacturer. What a mistake that was. I had no idea which machine I was controlling or why nothing was happening. In the end, I had to separate them, or I would have had a complete breakdown. No doubt that it wasn't expensive, but still think it should be better.

Great piece of kit..... except
Note that it apparently does not record one Freeview channel while you watch another. This point could be made clear in advertising. Not everyone is a 'techie'.

The handbook is vague in some areas and complicated in others, so usually getting back to the shop or speaking to SAMSUNG via the customer service number is recommended. I found them very helpful and the phone was answered quickly on the 3 occasions I rang.

Inviting people to comment is asking for certain folk to criticise only. For some reason some cannot bring themselves to praise, but find it easy to nit-pick.

I still find this a great piece of kit, with the above reservations. Kit 5-stars, handbook '1' would be , for me a fair appraisal.

The problems I thought I had were badly articulated in the handbook and simple to overcome.

The machine does have lots of services and is bound to involve a little thought and experimentation. I suppose this being the case the handbook has to appear complex. But simple needs I found hard to satisfy. I found a problem recording but found out that the STANDBY BUTTON had to pressed to switch the unit off. The flashing red recording light means it is not recording for example. I am still trying to find out the use of the TV/STANDBY button. I thought that it meant TV on, record any channel! WRONG. Still I have Freeview integrated in my TV, so no problem.

For me the picture quality is outstanding. Those with problems might check their connectivity, or signal. It has always been exemplary for me.