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Sony RDR-HXD1095
by 2night
Where to start? Well let me begin as saying this is the best, most used machine in my house. I have this hard disk recorder by Sony around three years now and it get used very single day without fail, if the TV is on this machine is on too. The reason it gets used so much is the fact that it can be used for so many things. This simple ... yet robust black monsters main use is as a recorder, it has an impressive 500GB of storage, but the best thing about that is that it stretches far further than that.
I know there are media drives that you can buy that have a lot more space than that and even Sky HD have a 1TB box that is double the space of this recorder yet I would rather have this machine hands down. Why? Well the fact that the quality of recording can be adjusted at the touch of a button means I can record at three settings down from their top video quality setting (HQ+) and the resulting picture is amazing, that's three down from the best and the picture is DVD quality. The picture on HQ is just brilliant, it's sharp, vivid, and not at all pixelated.
The fact that this machine can also burn my TV recording directly to a DVD at the touch of a button makes this much better than a 1TB Sky box (which I have by the way) the recordings can be edited, adverts removed (one of the most annoying things about Sky) you can rewind and pause "live TV" set thumbnails, individually title recordings, combine recordings and so much more. This machine also let's me view my photographs on the big screen by connecting my camera to it via the USB slot. The photos can then be saved to the machine and placed into named and dated albums.
Another function that I love and use all the time is the jukebox, this allows the user to burn Cd's on to the drive and listen to them any time they like. There of course is the DVD player, this up scales the already high quality DVDs to 1080p this is said to be full HD but when compared to a blue ray disc you can see the difference (blue ray being the better of the two) however the quality is improved as if you view the same disc on a standard DVD player you can notice the difference.
When it comes to the digital free view tuner the up scaling makes the picture look great as sky broadcasts in 1080i one step down from this in quality. I love the fact that I can hook up my sky HD box to this and view what should be in 1080i in 1080p also the fact that I can transfer recordings from my sky box on to this and then delete them from the sky box means I have more space to spare. Then if I wish I can burn the recording on to a disc and keep that show or movie for ever. This machine also show divx recordings and you can transfer old VHS tapes to DVD or just on to the hard disk. We did this for my christening video and the up scaling made the picture look one hundred times better, plus my mother can now stop worrying that the tape will snap every time it's viewed (which unfortunately is quite often). Now for the bad news, this cost me Euro860 in Dublin over three years ago, but I'm sure if it's still available it won't cost anywhere near that much now.
I can not recommend this Hard Disk Drive Recorder highly enough. But let me put it this way, if it was human, I'd marry it.
Thanks for reading :0) 2night.
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JVC DR-M100S
by eddyfenton
I've been using my JVC DVD recorder for a while now, and I've been fairly happy with it.
While set up is straight forward, the user interface can be a little tricky to use. It also is a little picky regarding which disc it can record on and play back can sometimes break up even on commercial DVD's.
The unit is also ... not region free which can cause problems if you have non region 2 DVD's.
It has built in analogue (defunct now) and digital tuners with a decent array of inputs and outputs for connectivity. The quality of the picture via the digital tuner is good, but not outstanding. There is definitely a loss in quality when viewing digital when compared to my Sony TV with built in freeview. It's not major, but you do notice it.
What is good is inputs for camcorders (DV input, and also standard video / audio connections) along with scart. This means that you can transfer footage straight onto DVD at very high quality. I'd recommend setting your recording quality to the highest for best results. Long play recording isn't great and should only be used for recording soaps and any other 'throw away' TV that you just want to catch up on.
By using LP you can get four hours of video on a recordable DVD. Also use re-writable dvd's - but check the brand you want to buy work on this unit before stocking up.
For example, I've found that Tesco branded DVD RW don't work, nor do several others I've tried. Tuff Disc brands do though and I'm sure many other's also. Just find one that works and stick with it.
Although DVD is now an old format, it's still useful and offers a way to archive your programmes and transfer standard definition video onto disc rather than have it stored on computer, hard drive or camera tape etc.
The unit sometimes resets itself when it encounters problems with a disc and very occasionally, it takes a long while to 'recover' from a problem and eject the disc. Warm up / turn off also takes a while.
The program guide is pretty good when you want to select something to record via the timer or watch a programme. You do need to regularly update the channel list though to ensure new freeview channels appear properly. It doesn't seem to do this automatically.
I know this review sounds quite negative, but if you can put up with these 'faults' and you want a decent unit that should prove reliable, this is a good choice. I believe that many of the issues I've raised are inherent in many other comparable units as well at the end of the day.
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