Home > Consumer Reviews > Sony RDR-HXD995 Freeview+ 250GB Hard Disc Drive DVD Recorder

Great product. I purchased the 160Gb version last year and was so impressed I purchased this version for my study. Easy setup, fantastic features, no messing about with discs and if you want to keep a recording it is easy to burn to a disc and also has basic editing facilities as well.

Great product. Get one today.

P.S. I even got one for my Mother-in-law as her VHS Recorder broke. She is not particularly good with gadgets but she found this easy to use. She managed to record with little tuition and was able to play the track with no tuition. This Recorder is very intuitive to use. She did struggle with the deletion of tracks but having showed her once she has not forgotten how to do it.

Beats the Sky+ and Virgin Media products into a cocked hat and no subscription charges either.

I am very satisfied with this product. I read some reviews here, and it helped to make a decision. This is definitely not the cheapest DVD recorder on the market, but as with everything, you get what you pay for. I record films from freeview to the hard drive, watch them later, and delete them afterwards. I have recorded only one DVD - I prefer watching films once. Recording a film is just a press of a button. No need to check starting or finishing times. (Here I have to mention, that sometimes this type of recording ends up not to record the last few minutes of the film - which is very annoying-, but there is another button that extends recording time in ten minutes intervals).
I like the little extras as well. You can watch the film you are currently recording. Or you can watch another film from your hard drive while recording.
However -in freeview- you can NOT watch another channel while you are recording one.
Highly recommended, reliable equipment.

I am pleased with my purchase. Delivery quick, set-up and everything fine.
It has separate analogue and digital tuners. I connected my video recorder to transfer my precious videos to DVD without a hitch.
It has The Guide Plus+ feature where you can easily select any channel to view or record it. It can be customised to select a channel from analogue, digital or set top box as required.
The instruction book is comprehensive, although a bit of a slog if your impatient. One of the reviews said it was noisy, i found that the only noticeable noise is when burning to disc, and then only for short intermittent periods.

The only irritating problems so far have been;
You can't watch another channel on this unit whilst it's recording, even via a different source (e.g. record digital and watch analogue).
Recording programs via the Guide Plus+ does not take into account overrunning programs that precede it, which means that you miss half your program if the football goes into extra time!
The finalise screen selection during burning to disc is limited and doesnt show recorded time data.

The reality lived up to the hype. Money well spent. Wonderful range of features. Great picture quality almost HD at times. Easy set up. Works well with Sky. I love the automatic search facility for alternate dates and times to avoid clashes when setting up recordings.
The following would have made it even better. A more user-friendly freeview programme guide. Larger buttons on the remote. The ability to access the programme info window on recorded programmes (as on Sky).

This is an excellent unit.

I will address some other reviews comments also, as dozens of reviews have already been written.

Noise. Not above average during operation, and only some minor internal workings during it's scheduled brief automatic update check (usually early hours). Unless you are sleeping in the same room as the unit and are extremely sensitive to noise it should be no problem at all.

The functionality is good and the specifications are excellent. I would pay more for a second internal digital tuner, which would make this box more like a "Sky+ with DVD recorder" box. I.e. record one digital channel while watching another. Although you can record one channel and watch a different pre-recorded item. However, the limitation is easily bypassed if you have either a Freeview built in to your TV or a seperate legacy Freeview box.

Connectivity is excellent with pretty much any option you could reasonably expect for a domestic installation. Also, a wide range of signal types are accepted so you can record from almost any external source (e.g. FreeSat) if you so choose.

Recording formats (compression rates) have lots of choice so if you can sacrifice a little some quality (easy to do on all but the largest of screens by anyone not wishing to be fussy) then the amount of recording time potential on the unit is many 100s of hours.

Only two slightly minus points...

The manual, while quite comprehensive could have been better presented/readable.

The on-screen digital guide is not so hot or fast to navigate. Also, if an old box like a DIGIHOME DVB915 can have a mini PIP above the channel lists plus an "info" (i.e. summary) preview panel, why can't a super box like this?

Overall: excellent unit, good quality.