Product Description

DVD Recorder / Hard Disk Drive with Integrated Dual Digital and Analogue Tuner, 160GB capacity and series link recording function

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #285 in Consumer Electronics
• Brand: Sony
• Model: RDRHXD870S.CEK
• Released on: 2007-03-10
• Dimensions: 7.94 pounds

Features

• 160GB HDD Max recording of 455Hrs
• Electronic Programme Guide
• HDMI output with 1080p upscaling
• Integrated Dual Digital and Analogue Tuner
• HDMI Upscaling: Y

Manufacturer's Description

All you need to know about the Sony 2007 Hard Disk Drive Recorder range The new Sony range of Hard Disk Drive Recorders give you more time to do the things you want to do. Whether that’s going out with friends, playing your favourite sport or enjoying time with your family. These new features allow you to watch what you want, whenever you want.

Definition High Definition: HD means Higher Definition - up to 4x more detail and clarity. It really is the future of home entertainment. The industry standard for HD is 720 lines, however, Sony are leading the way with 1080 lines - or HD1080. Standard Definition: Standard definition is what we've been watching for years on our TV's, it can still produce superb quality images and if you're going to play back your footage on a SD TV then a SD Hard Disk Drive Recorders will deliver great looking results.

Hard Disk Drive (HDD) Recording HDD recording is changing the way we experience home entertainment. Record directly to HDD and store a massive amount of content without the need for tapes or discs! RDR-HXD870: 160GB Hard Disk Drive for up to 455 hours of TV recording RDR-HXD970: 250GB Hard Disk Drive for up to 710 hours of TV recording RDR-HXD1070: 500GB Hard Disk Drive for up to 1400 hours of TV recording

Integrated Digital Tuner FREEVIEW Digital broadcasts offer 30+ TV channels as well as 20 radio radio stations including entertainment, children's, news, music and lifestyle. The FREEVIEW service is a simple way of getting a wide choice of digital channels and no contract. What better way to enjoy them than with Sony BRAVIA televisions.

EPG (Electronic Program Guide) The 8 day on-screen guide allows you to select the programme to watch or record at the touch of a button. Simply press ‘Enter’ to store the programme to your built-in Hard Disk Drive Recorder. Select the programme you have recorded from the on-screen menu, then sit back and enjoy.

HDMI (High Definition Media Interface) A HDMI interface allows for the best picture possible from your Sony DVD/HHD/Blu-ray player/recorder to your Sony BRAVIA LCD TV.

BRAVIA Theatre Sync With a single touch of a button, control your entire Sony entertainment system and remove the need for additional remote controls.

Series Recording Never miss you favourite shows again! Just follow the simple steps below; 1. Access EPG 2. Select programme 3. Press ‘Blue’ to access Series Info for episode detail 4. Choose to record one episode only or select ‘Series Timer’ to record all episodes 5. Series Info screen shows programmed episodes 6. Series Recording display in 8 Day EPG for future episodes

Pause Live TV & Simultaneous Record and Playback You can pause your favourite TV shows, movies or live sports and pick up where you left off ! With Simultaneous Record and Playback, you can watch one show and record another, making sure that you never miss you favourite shows when they clash!

Photomovie You can playback your favourite photos, view thumbnails and play a slide show while you listen to music! Just simply place a photo CD/DVD in your HDD Recorder or connect your digital camera via USB and you can easily access your content with the intuitive menu system.

Music Jukebox You can playback your favourite songs/albums, sort by artist, album, track and genre with this great feature. Simply place a music CD/DVD in your HDD Recorder or connect your MP3 player via USB and you can easily access your content with the intuitive menu system.

Automatic Programme Title Labelling Isn't it difficult to find that programme you recorded on the VHS tape you want to watch and cant easily find? Now with Automatic Programme Title Labelling you can easily find your recorded shows, just by looking at the name and the synopsis!

Box Contents

Customer Reviews

Easy to use
We bought this dvd a few weeks ago and I think it's great; it was easy to set up, use and you can watch a program at the same time you are recording. It is good value for money as it has a large memory.

Excellent Product - Better than buying Seperate boxes
I've recently bought a whole string of new Audio and Video kit. This Sony box is by far the best of the lot!! It does everything with relative ease. Picking a program out of the EPG to record is easy, and adding series link isn't much harder either.

Freeview image is excellent and much better than any i've used/owned before. DVD's are clear and upscalling the image is a bonus.

I had a small doubt about the fact it only has 1 digi tuner, but believe me you can multi task still on the unit with ease. I often play something pre-recorded off the hdd whilst i'm recording another program. This works fine. Same is true with watching DVD's whilst recording. You do not have to do anything special to do these functions either, the Sony box just happily manages and multi tasks.

You can record off your sky box easily too by picking the program out of the alternative EPG provided in the Sony. There's a little link tool in the box that makes this possible.

Finally, Xvid and Divx files play perfectly and better than any unit I've used before. No skipping or lip-synch issues. I love this product!!

prices vary on the Web, so shop around. Amazon is always a reliable vendor.

Good unit with one irritating flaw in the firmware.
On the whole I am very pleased with this unit.

Good points:
Mostly does what it says on the tin. It has more features than I will ever use. The USB port on the front will even accept a keyboard for text entry when labelling titles and discs. This feature in NOT mentioned in the manual.

When not fast copying the HDD and DVD drives are quiet.

If you are copying stuff to keep, then you can record it to HDD, edit out the adverts and the start/finish announcements before burning it to DVD.

Bad points:
If you are using the remote control to enter text, the manual says that you can either select the letters on the screen or repeatedly press the number keys SMS style. It would be helpful to have the letters included in the legends on the remote control.

I have my sky + box connected upstream of the recorder to the Line 1 input so that if I want to copy stuff across it makes use of the RGB output from the Sky box. Unfortunately this means that you cant watch the Sky box whilst recording from the built in Freeview tuner. It would be good if the Line 1 input could be passed through even when recording Freeview. (I don't have an HDMI input on my telly). I have found a `plug around' around solution to this problem, but it involved me having to purchase a SCART distribution amplifier (£30) and use 2 SCART inputs on my telly.

If you want to record stuff using the AV inputs on the front then you can have any format as long as it is 4:3. A means of selecting 16:9 would be helpful.

The Manual is appalling. It is so bad that even Sony miss understood one section when talking to me an the phone - more of which later. I am fortunate to have relevant engineering experience and background to assist me with setting up and using the kit, but I don't know how the average non techie who just wants to `plug and use' would cope.

There appears to be a serous bug in the firmware. Fast dubbing between the HDD and DVD is fine. However, if the material on the HDD has been recorded at SP and you wish to copy more than 2 hours worth to a 4.7Gb DVD, then there is a problem with 16:9 material. 4:3 material copies across just fine but 16:9 material is copied across squashed into 4:3 format. To give Sony their due, they did respond to my message on their web site with a phone call to try and help. However the chap I spoke to told me that the it was due to `having to compress the material to make room on the disk'. I know for a fact that this is wrong particularly as I can work around the problem by loading the files from the DVD to my PC, modifying the WSS flags and then copying them back to DVD-r. I have tried further communication with Sony, but they seem reluctant to talk to me any more. I get the impression that they think I don't know what I am talking about. I am convinced that a modification to the firmware would sort the problem. You could argue that all I need to do is force my widescreen telly to display 16:9. However if you are replaying the discs on a 4:3 set then you don't have that option.

I find the menus a bit clunky to use however I can put up with that.

I see from the above that I have written more about the bad than the good. Will I be sending the unit back? No. Would I buy it again? If the Aspect ratio problem was sorted then defiantly yes. If not then I would certainly look elsewhere first.