Sony RDRHXD970 - 250GB Hard Drive DVD Recorder With Freeview

Amazon Customer Reviews

(5 out of 5)

Fantastic Machine

I've had this machine for a month now, as a replacement for an RDRHXD860S that broke down after 2 months.

This machine seems to be far superior to the previous model and is far more intuitive to use. In operation it runs almost silently and performs at a much high speed (the 860 had a noisy fan and always had a slight delay before responding to each command).

All recording has been performed faultlessly and the ability to jump advert breaks at the touch of a single button is great. The 250GB hard disk is very rapid in it's operation and provides huge storage potential.

All in all a true 5 star machine and highly recommended.

(3 out of 5)

Not quite perfect

Contrary to some posts I found this very easy to set up, perhaps because I bought a Sony TV at the same time. Picture quality is excellent and the whole system is easy to use. The hard drive is enormous and I would estimate that you could store 100 - 120 programmes on it at any one time.

The EPG is a great feature BUT there is an design fault which means the system will often wipe the setting within 24 hours of it being set. There is nothing as frustrating as a DVD recorder which doesn't record what you have set it to record. I have subsequently found out that many other people have had the same problem. There ere numerous internet sites which show that consumers have been having this problem for many months but that Sony have denied that there is a problem. I have had an email from Sony today in which they admit that there IS a problem and they are working to fix it - so there's light at the end of the tunnel. If they fixed this then this machine would be perfect and excellent value for money.

(5 out of 5)

Can a black box change your life?

I bought this after a bad experience with a Sony 860 (which went back), so I approached this machine with some trepidation. The previous machine had great facilities, but just didn't work very well (poor sound, switched itself on and off etc!). Happily, this is a wonderful piece of kit and brilliant value for the money. Recordings to the HDD drive are superb (especially in HQ), and the EPG and series link work well. Setting programmes to record is so easy and dubbing to DVD is also simple and fast. Reviewing what has been recorded is a breeze; the recording list has thumbnails which play excerpts to remind you what the programme contains, as well as the programme title, time it was recorded, channel (BBC1..) etc.! Being able to start watching a recording before it has finished and the ease and fuss-free operation actually changes the way you watch TV. Also, it is a great DVD player and the upscaling via the HDMI link makes standard DVDs look near 'HD' quality. What's not to like?

(4 out of 5)

Timer Problem with this machine

I discovered the hard way that if you try to record programmes more than about a day ahead, they don't record and the instructions vanish from the list of scheduled recordings.

Sony admit this is a problem with firmware versions before 1.65. So before you buy one make sure it's got 1.65 firmware or newer. If not ask the supplier to update it for you. If he won't or can't don't buy it!

If you already have one with the problem, Sony downloads have the firmware on line and you can do it yourself - but its fiddly and I suspect would invalidate the guarantee.

The star-rating above applies to machines with the firmware upgrade in place. After all it does what it says on the box - but bear in mind the single digital tuner makes it much less flexible than other PVRs with 2.

(4 out of 5)

Life-changing (almost...)

We bought this Sony HDD recorder because we were sick of having video recorder, DVD player and Freeview box stacked underneath our TV. This machine replaces them all (well, my wife still insists on keeping the video recorder so she can watch her old VHS tapes, but...).

The best feature is one that users of Tivo or Sky+ are well used to: recording a programme (or a whole series) onto hard drive just by clicking the programme's title in the onscreen TV guide. The convenience of this cannot be overstated. No more hunting around for tapes or wondering if you've taped over your wife's precious copy of last week's Trinny & Susannah. Click the Title List button and all the programmes you've taped are displayed for immediate viewing, along with animated thumbnails of scenes from the programmes, like on a DVD menu. Recording onto DVD is another bonus if you want to keep your programmes, or lend them to others.

I haven't tried the "pause live TV" feature and one reviewer below suggests it's not all that brilliant. I also don't know about playing AVI files from the computer and I suspect this is a feature most of us won't use.

One caveat I have discovered is that you can't tape one channel and watch another. This is a significant problem, meaning that effectively the recorder is only good for taping if you're out or not watching TV. Otherwise we've been restricted to using the analogue tuner on our TV to watch one of the terrestrial channels. If you wanted to watch one digital channel and tape another, you'd be sunk. I suppose the only way around this would be if you had a digital tuner built into your TV, but as we're using an analogue TV and watching all our digital through the AV channel, then we'll have to wait, and hope they don't turn off the analogue signal in our area for a few years.