| Product: |
Sony RDR-HXD890B |
| Date: |
11/12/08 (2972 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: Picture Quality is fine
Disadvantages: Many, Many things
The Sony 'RDR-HXD890' is both a Freeview Hard Drive recorder, and a DVD recorder, which has a current price of £174.80 from Amazon.
The capacity of the hard drive is 160GB, which equates to roughly 23 hours in the high quality recording mode, and 455 hours on the lowest quality setting. The machine is labelled as being 'Freeview+', which means you have the ability to pause and rewind live TV - handy for a quick trip to make a cuppa without missing anything.
Sounds good? - well it isn't - or not in my experience anyway.
After reading a number of positive reviews on Amazon, I found myself disappointed when I actually used this product.
Firstly, on a positive note, the picture quality of the recordings which the HXD890B produces are very good - with the high quality setting not losing any detail from the original Freeview broadcast. This however, is probably the only good thing I found about the machine.
The Downsides
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Firstly, the manual is the most difficult to understand piece of literature that I have ever had the misfortune to read. I really struggled with the explanations - and I consider myself to be a bit of an expert when it comes to hooking up AV equipment - being a gadget fan, I have done a fair bit of it in my time.
When I finally got it set up, I was informed that I would need to reconnect my old Freeview box (which I was hoping to get rid of) in order to access the Guide+ feature on the machine. This is really not good enough - it's got its own Freeview tuner for goodness sake. Basically, unless you use it in collaboration with another Freeview box, you can't change channels when the machine is recording, and you can't use any of its other advanced features.
My advice would be to buy a simple Hard Drive recorder with a twin tuner - that way you can do all the stuff that this machine should be able to do, without the need for two Freeview boxes.
You may find the Sony RDR-HXD890B to be good if you've just stepped up from a VHS player, but if you're a long term Freeview user, you will be disappointed with the unresponsiveness and dated feel of the user interface. My six year old Netgem iPlayer is ten times better than this machine, both in its onscreen layout and easy of use. The menu's on the Sony look so dated it's unbelievable.
I guess you can tell that I didn't like this piece of equipment - I sent it back to Amazon.
Technical Bits
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160GB capacity for a max recording of 455 hours onto the Hard Drive
Electronic Programme Guide (8 Day on digital)
Integrated Digital and Analogue Tuner
BRAVIA Sync
HDMI output with 1080p upscaling
USB Port for Digital Camera
USB Port for PictBridge Printer
i.LINK (DV) input for Camcorder
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Best avoided - and the next model up shares the same electronics, so give that one a miss also!
Summary: USER UNFRIENDLY MACHINE
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Last comments:
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- 07/10/09 For now I'm sticking with the DVR that comes with our cable service. I'm waiting to see if DVR prices will drop too because it always seems like the second we get something, a brand new cheaper version comes out with better features. =\ But overall this one definitely sounds like something to avoid. |
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- 23/04/09 You're right to highlight the fact that it only has one digital tuner (I seem to recall the word 'dual' being used, but that's only to include the analog tuner too which was a trifle misleading of Sony to say the least), but since it's advertised as such, and since up till VERY recently, all HDD/DVD Recorders only had one tuner, there's little else to be done except chose between a machine like this, and as you say, a twin tuner PVR (but with no DVD recorder). I can't understand the point you're making about Guide+. AFAIK, it's really for the control of an external box and takes its EPG from an analog channel. It's the normal Freeview EPG that times DTT programmes. By the way, Freeview+ is the generic term for a recorder with series link and accurate timing facilities (like Sky+). Machines like this could already pause live TV and such like before Freeview+ was formalised. I guess the more people that buy an integrated digital TV, the less the single tuner will matter, since they'll at least have all the facilities they had with a VCR+TV plus digital playback quality. I hedge my bets by having one of these for programmes I might want to archive AND a Topfield twin-tuner PVR for the usual dross! |
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- 05/01/09 nice to know the downsides before buying it. cheers for the review :) |
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