This Toshiba RD XV47 is rather a large, heavy and cumbersome beast weighing in at a respectable 5.8kg. Its measurements are 435mm wide, 100mm high and has a depth of 380mm. Constructed from an alumimium type alloy and coated in a semi-glossy black finish, this Toshiba is no slimline beauty by any stretch of the imagination.

The front facade of the machine has an attractive thin silvery grey aluminium strip running through the centre in order to break up an otherwise totally black coloured machine, save for the buttons which are silver.

This Toshiba has three main functions which are:

1 Video Recorder

2 DVD Player

3 HDD Recorder (160GB)

These three features are useful in as much as you can play VHS tapes and DVD all in this one unit without the need for a seperate Video Cassette Recorder and DVD Player, which apart from being more practical. is also space saving.

The internal 160 GB HDD (hard drive) also allows you to record directly onto this drive without the need to use any blank recordable DVD's although if you prefer, this machine also allows the convenience of recording your favourite programme directly onto a DVD-The choice is yours!

The reasonable 160 GB HDD will allow you to record up to 34 hours of programmes in its 'best quality' mode, and as much as 272 hours on its 'lowest quality' mode.

This Toshiba comes with all necessary cables, a full infra red remote control and a decent instruction manual that you can actually understand!

Setting up the machine on first use was a breeze because after making all the necessary connections, you just press the 'on' button and then another quick press of the 'enter' started the Auto Channel Tuning which quickly picked up all available channels or stations such as Sky or Freeview etc.

On the left-hand side of this machine is where the Video Cassette Recorder is situated with its accompanying buttons, stop/eject, REW, FWD, Play and REC, all of which can obviously be activated via the remote control.

The right hand side houses the DVD Player/Recorder with its accompanying buttons also.

Near the centre of the machine are three buttons for VCR mode, HDD mode and DVD mode. Whichever of these modes are selected activates its corresponding mode obviously, with a nice feature being that these three different modes also light up three different colours on the front panel of the machine for your ease and convenience, an intense orange glow when in the VCR mode, a vivid blue glow when in the HDD mode and a bright yellow glow when in the DVD mode.

Being a three in one there are plenty of options available to you. You can copy a VHS tape onto a blank DVD or onto the HDD, even copy a DVD onto a blank VHS tape if you wish. Record any programme onto DVD , VHS or the internal HDD. If you copy a programme onto the HDD you can later put it onto a blank DVD if you decide you want to, or even copy your DVD film or whatever onto the HDD! The possibilities are endless!!

This machine can play nearly all formats of DVD including Xvid (according to Toshiba) but in my experience this is not the case.

The rear of the Toshiba has two Scart Sockets,, Svideo connectors and all the necessary jacks etc. for your audio equipment.

There is a plethora of features to this machine but way too many to list them all here in this review!

However, there are a couple of annoying aspects to this Toshiba model. Firstly it takes almose twenty five seconds to load up a DVD, but more annoyingly, despite its makers claims that it can play virtually any type of DVD format under the sun I find it sadly lacking in that departement. Not only that, but if you should put in a DVD that the machine can not read, then, unlike other machines which will simply say something like 'no play' and then you simply eject the offending DVD out, this Toshiba RD XV47 will actually freeze up the machine rendering it totally inoperable. This happened to me TWICE!

I had recorded a film onto a blank Sony DVD (the type recommended for use in the instruction manual) and when I tried to play it back nothing happened and the whole machine froze. No amount of switching it on or off made any difference and the Sony DVD was completely stuck in the drive.

In fairness to Toshiba,they came and took the machine away and repaired it for me. However a few weeks later it happened again abd so they took it to repair again only this time there was an accompanying letter stuck to the machine informing me that I had been putting 'incompatible' DVD's into the machine and should this occur again, after them warning me, then they would charge me for an more 'repairs' despite me still being 'under guarantee'.

I thought this extremely odd as they were telling me that the DVD I was putting in was 'incompatible' despite me using the 'recommended' ones. Also, why was the machine being rendered unusable after an incompatible DVD being placed inside??Why did it not simply spit it out like any other DVD Player, and not keep it stuck in the drive and freeze the machine up.

Nearly 20% of all DVD's fail to play in this machine which Toshiba claim will play this, that and the other. Which is odd, because I have a cheap Argos bought DVD Player in my spare room which cost about £15 compared to the £350 I paid for the Toshiba, and it will happily play all the DVD's the Toshiba RD XV47 fails to cope with. There's food for thought!!

So now whenever a DVD gets stuck in the machine and freezes it up I have to take the covers off the machine and slowly pull the DVD out. Then switch the machine off, and back on again which seems to solve the problem but is not recommended!!!

This is a MAJOR fault with this machine, which is a pity because in all other respects this is a useful machine but it's simply 'pot luck' whether the machine will 'play' your DVD or 'freeze up' your machine!!