Product Description

Recordable formats: DVD-R/-RW, DVD+R/+RW. Playable formats: DVD-R/-RW, DVD+R/+RW, DVD-RAM, CD, CD-R/-RW, VCD, SVCD, DivX.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #34571 in Consumer Electronics
• Brand: Toshiba
• Model: DR17DT
• Released on: 2007-03-08

Features

• DVD recorder
• 1080i Up Scaling Via Hdmi
• Freeview and Analogue
• Audio Dolby Digital / Dts Surround
• CDR/RW playback

Customer Reviews

Absolute Tosh
There are 3 things wrong with this product:
1. It is extremely user unfriendly (very complicated menus and bewildering options, including cryptic symbols that appear on the "Display" menu - great if you wear an anorak indoors and prefer browsing through the DVD manual to actually watching anything you've recorded).
2. The Freeview box works fine but when you record things it invariably records them in aspect ratio 4:3 and it is impossible to then play them back in 16:9 (I have a Sony HD ready widescreen tv). I've experimented with the aspect ratio settings (trying "Auto" and "16:9" to no effect).
3. Perhaps the worst thing is the picture quality. It's okay on SP - 2 hours per disc but there is no LP or, to be exact, what Toshiba call "LP" is really what other manufacturers call "EP" and gives you 4 hours per disc. This is annoying as many films are around two and a half hours long and LP is a good option to record them with. However, Toshiba's "LP" (really EP) quality is terrible (worse than my old £75 LiteOn DVD recorder) and it really isn't worth recording anything at this setting. For some bonkers reason Toshiba have included there own "EP" (6 hours per disc) and "SLP" (8 hours per disc) but you'd have to be insane, blind or just a fan of low quality, blurry, pixelated crud (usually in 4:3 - ho, ho) to want to cram that much onto a disc.

So, don't waste your money. Buy something with a real LP option that also gets the aspect ratio right. This is the worst piece of technology I've ever bought!

not that impressed (yet)
I've only had this player 2 days but I must say my first impressions are not that great. On paper this machine seems to do everything, but I took a risk buying it as I couldn't find any reviews for it online. My first comment is that it's so s......l......o.......w. Put in a DVD movie and it takes an age for the menu to appear. Once playing a movie things are not much better. The 1080p upscaling (via HDMI) seems to work - however Iam not sure it's any better than the xbox360 over VGA.

The user interface looks dated and again is very slow to nativate around. I've yet to attempt any recording, but I hope it will score better in that area! So far only 3 stars (for HDMI output and styling).