Game,Set and Video - Update (Toshiba V 711)

Member Name: macluke

Product:	Toshiba V 711
Date:	21/01/02 (748 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: great video recording , great pictures , videoplus extra facilities

Disadvantages: manual

For those of you who have read the article then this is the latest addition - for those who haven't read the article READ IT!! (then it will all make sense).

I have just received another email from Toshiba (couldn't some other companies learn from their efficiency). The NexTViewLink is not applicable to the TV and VCR as they come with automatic tuning features which lets them sink-in to each other. In other words when you switch over to view the channel you have set to see your vcr staions on then you should get the tv channels NOT a blue screen like I did! That is indeed true, however what they fail to tell you is to see this at work you have to set the vcr channel number (in most cases to 36) this is something it does not do automatically, so you have to do it manually. I have now got it working properly and it is great to see what you are recording rather than hoping who have set it to the right channel like before. Whilst I am updating I thought I would say a little more about recording satellite programmes. If you have the numbers for the videoplus routine its easy and simple as long as you do three things I didn't firstly switch on the tv as the number input appears on this not on the vcr,secondly press the correct two recording buttons, thirdly switch on the satellite receiver! There I was trying to input numbers and all I got on the vcr was the time. Then having switched the tv on I pressed the wrong two buttons. There are three record buttons next to each other the far left one is for instant record and the far right one is for timer recording with the middle one being used in each case (how confusing). After all that I forgot to swich on the receiver - what a wally. However waht impresses me with this is the fact that you do not have to switch the satellite receiver on to the correct station. If you videoplus it, it will put in the correct code for the station, if you don't do this then you have to look up the code in the m
anual. There is something almost godlike about watching the tv and seeing the satellite receiver tune into the correct station. Anyway enough of an update the rest is the original article, for those that have read it.

There I was waiting for dooyoo to add this little title to their repertoire when lo and behold Wdaijock beat me to it, just goes to show you've got to be on the ball. Anyway saves me writing about all the technical details just view Wdaijock’s op. although he didn't mention the extended videoplus facilities that not only allow you to use all those little numbers that come next to TV programs in the schedules, but it also has two extra bits. Firstly you can set all your videoplus programmes so as they start and finish up to 60 miuntes before or after as appropriate. Secondly using PDC (Programme Delivery Control) you set the videoplus and if the programme is delayed or overruns it automatically will start and finish at the correct times and as they say in the blurb even if it's two hours later!

I have already written about the Toshiba 46WHOB television and the Toshiba sd210e DVD player and thought I did not need a new vcr when would you believe it just after Christmas my Hitachi vcr started doing peculiar things to my brand new tapes, like eating them up and spitting out rubbish! So I thought well DVD recordables are very expensive and not up to much at the moment, vcr’s are dirt cheap why not go for the full set?

So trawled the web for info and also magazines, found that this vcr by Toshiba had won great praise from What HI-Fi mag. so decided to order it over the web. They got in touch and said it was a discontinued line and that a new one was coming out at the end of this month, did I want to cancel the order or wait. Decided to cancel order and check availability. So got in touch with Toshiba who were slow in replying, meanwhile bought one from comet online as they were doing a deal (£120 fre
e del.). It duly arrived and I can justifiably agree with Wdaijock and What Hi-fi it is a great video, does nearly everything you want just short on editing facilities but then those appear in the more expensive 851. Just getting used to it when Toshiba get in touch.

It seems I was informed somewhat correctly (despite this model only being out some 6 months). It is not being replaced but a new model is due out the v752 which as they say will be an improvement on the 711 but how they could not say - now that's what I call useful. Since this is coming out soon they do not expect a great demand for the 711 and hence its scarcity, now why can't they be truthful - we've come up with a better one that we can charge more for.

As for the 711 itself as I said it is a great little machine, however I do have a few niggles with it and these come about from write ups you will see about it in different places. Firstly it does look a bit naff (well the silver one does), it looks fairly chunky although it is not heavy, in other words it's not slinky looking like the SD210E DVD player, which was a bit of a come down, perhaps I should have bought them the other way round.

Secondly the write up said an easy to use and understand manual, well I'm sorry I don't agree with that, this manual is huge in comparison to what you get for the TV and the DVD player in fact it is nearly as big as both put together at some 60 pages. Worse still there are some glaring errors in the diagrams that it uses and if you are not technically minded you would soon be in trouble. One particular point is that it has an automatic setup once you switch it on; however if it fails (as mine did) to install correctly you have to do it manually, unlike other machines where you just switch off and start again. This is not made obvious in the manual especially since some things are loaded and others are not and it is these that you need to do manually.


One final point this machine has a NexTViewLink function which it says will work if you have an Easy Link/NexTViewLink/AV-Link function, i.e. whatever stations that are stored on your TV it can memorize these on the vcr, so where does it say in the Toshiba glossy brochure that its TV’s have this function - you guessed it nowhere. As such I have tried this and it does not do what it says it will do, so of course I only have one recourse to phone their help line which I've got a sneaking suspicion is going to be expensive, but then again I could try the email address I have first!

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