A reliable way to follow your favourite programs. (Sony RDR-HXD870B)

Member Name: FairyG

Product:	Sony RDR-HXD870B
Date:	06/10/08 (284 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: User friendly onscreen display.

Disadvantages: None I think of. I'm very happy with this.

This is a great recorder if you already have Freeview with your Tv or a set top box. That will make it possible to watch a Freeview channel on your Tv while recording a different Freeview channel on the DVD. The fact that it's a dual tuner doesn't make it possible to do both with the DVD recorder alone and you can only record one channel at a time, so really the whole dual tuner aspect is pointless. However if you're not bothered about that, it's a good way of receiving Freeview.

On the upside, it's even better than just having a set top box alone, because with a set top box you can only record whatever channel is set on your Freeview, and then it won't record a different channel until you reset it. This one will switch Freeview channels so you can set it up to record several programs one after another on different channels. It also has HD upscaling which cleans up the Freeview signal, getting rid of the drag or pixilation you sometimes see on an LCD screen. You'll need a tv with a HD socket and you'll need a HD cable. I suggest getting a good quality cable as it makes a difference to result you will get. I can see a definite difference between watching the Tv Freeview and the DVD Freeview, so tend to mostly watch through the DVD.

As a gadget it's marvellous. You can chase play, which means you can set it to record, and then start watching the program you're recording a few minutes later. You can watch something you've saved to hard drive or watch a dvd, at the same time as recording something else. You can set it to record a tv series and it will pick up everything a week ahead. It has a range of quality options, and the high quality is really good, but be warned if you use HQ to record a one hour program it will use up two hours of memory.

Another useful aspect is you can seperate your store of titles into genres, or input your own name to store your favourite programs under. Very useful when your store of titles is running into the dozens.

There's a comprehensive instruction manual that to be honest I haven't used much. It tends to be easier sometimes just to press buttons and see what happens, and as it's a very user-friendly system it's fairly clear just by looking at what's onscreen.

This is a great recorder that's still doing well after eight months, with no problems. I would say the best set up is the one I've got, with an LCD tv with inbuilt Freeview and also my old video recorder, which makes it possible to record two Freeview channels at the same time.

Summary: Good if you don't have Freeview, but better if you already have it with your TV.

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