Sony RDR-HXD870

(Compared to failed 15 month old Samsung HR725 which it replaced) - attractive and well finished exterior - quiet - best of all, much better editing of programmes - especially removing unwanted sections from programmes to be retained - lots of recording speed options to make best use of recording media - good manual ( necessary for the vast range of menu options)

Doesn't want to read some of the DVD-Rs recorded on the Samsung (but that may not be the fault of the Sony) Nothing else, so far

great hard disk capacity

no simple way to flick between channels , sometimes a delay which can be annoying . Also remember if you are recording something you cannot watch another channel , unless you opt out of Freeview My advice is buy a recorder that lets you record and watch something at the same time

Picture quality and hard disc facility

None

Easy and convenient to use. No more badly saved images by VCR.

The uprating to HDMI was not a good as hoped for.

It worked, after three weeks trying to understand the manual.

Poor difficult to understand manual. Gemstar listings do not include all channels, which makes preset recording very difficult I still do not understand how to make the functions work.

Hard disk drive very quick and easy to use

Too early to complete the reliability boxes. Can't record a digital programme at the same time as watching a different current digital programme which was what I thought it was able to do BUT I now find I am not alone in what I thought it could do

Excellent reproduction.

Display on standby almost unreadable it is so dim. I had great difficulty understanding the instructions.

Looks good, ease of use, hdd and dvd recorder in one package

No twin tuner

Nice bit of kit for the money.

Single Tuner.

Very easy to set up and very easy to use

The major plus point of this player must be its ease of use. Both myself and my kids were up and running with it in a matter of minutes. The remote control looks complicated but as you only really use a few buttons and these are handily placed it takes no time to get used to it. Recording to HDD or DVD is very starightforward using the TV guide and the playback quality on DVDs is excellent. A great purchase that does nearly everything I need for a great price.

The TV Guide is a little cumbersome to use and scrolling forward to record future progs is a bit time consuming. The only regret I have is that I would possibly have bought a player with two digital tuners as, obviously, you cannot change freeview channels during recording - it does have an analogue tuner and this works excellently for terrestrial channels. But no regrets a great buy.

Excellent picture quality from the digital freeview tuner (it has an analogue tuner as well but I can't see me using it) - easy to set timer recording from the EPG. Great also for editing and copying home video from my digital camcorder. Lots of excellent features I haven't even tried yet. My son thinks its great having his Doctor Who episodes available on tap from the HDD.

doesn't play some of my DVD -R's that I've recorded on my PC. I haven't really explored this yet though. The same blank DVD -R's work fine on the recorder.

User interface and robust software compatability

none noticed

looks sophisticated, great lights and power saving when the tv is off! overall an incredible buy!!!

recording guide can be slow to load, ugly orange light when watching a dvd - would have been perfect if red!!! when recording cannot bring up recording guide.

quite easy to use, smart looking

No HDMI leads to connect to tv

Good picture, especially with HDMI

Slow start-up

Synchro record. Divx player

Disc loading time.

Ease of use

plays all my dvd's.. upscaling on star wars looks amazing on my 100mhz phillips ambilight - I fail to see how blue ray would be better quality

Relatively easy to set up and easy to operate

None so far

Is easy to use. Have mainly used to copy from Sky + Box to HDD so far.

You cannot copy DVD film to the HDD so that you can watch later. Don't want to copy the DVD, just wanted to be able to rent films and watch later then delete.

Ease of use,simple timer recordings,easy setup,a great machine.

twin tuner, only one being digital.

I found this machine to be very good both recording to H/D and DVD as a multi/ format, I found this machine to be excellent plus the price to be off good value.

I think it would be better if there had been an extra HDMI outlet

Very easy to use Excellent picture quality of recorded programmes even when not using highest quality recording level Love the ability to watch a previously recorded program on the hard disk whilst recording another

Sleek design. Clear menus. Easy operation following set up. Great reception and high quality recordings.

Tricky to set up. Not as easy as Sky Plus to use. The Freeview programme guide is limited.

Good picture quality and input locations.

Can loose Timer progs loaded to record at later dates, Sony should sort this problem out! Still not managed to record direct to dvd disc.

Super large HD, selecting and recording a programme very quick and easy, high speed dubbing makes creating discs fast. Easy to install, with multiple options for various other hardware.

Instruction book a bit to wade through, (they all are) but all instructions clear and easy to follow. I'm nit picking really, good product

Ease of use, quallity of picture, speed of burning eg:2.5hour film 10 min burn time

none at all

wish I had never bought the thing as very disapointed in this sony product picture quality is the worst that I have ever had from sony

cheaper than sky+ / big storage / hdd functions

150 plus pages to operating manual

brilliant picture, very versatile operatioon

operations not always wholly intuitive - you need to refer to the book

Well built Configuaration options

Initial set-up too complicated Set up instructions could be improved Ease of use

It is a cracking machine that does what is says but I just don' think its as good as the older Sony HDD machines

System interface overly messy compared to older Sony units, things that you could in two steps now take 5. two tuners suggests can record analogue and watch digital, which isn't the case

fantastic quality

little difficult to use

Generally a well built product - sturdy!

Cannot record two programs simultaneously!

Easy to use but make sure it has the latest firmware installed as there are recording issues - all the info can easily be found at the Sony website on how to update this.

It does not have a twin tuner.

Ease of programming. Very good freeview tuner in an area where the signal strength is not good

Recorder has failed to record programmes on a couple of occassions for no obvious reason. Maybe finger trouble.

The information given by the digital guide is very limited. It only shows the programme title and type (e.g. movie, news etc) with no further details.

excellent product all round at a great price

hard drive easier to use than recordable dvd's. When set up and running does the job expected.

Found extreme difficulty in setting up. Manual next to useless. had to contact Sony help line. OK for programming same or next day. A100% failure when attempting programme recording any more than two days in advance.

Poor instructions with regard to recording on discs- how to format. It appears to be recoding but then isn't. Why show working when it doesn't record?

Simple usage - quick and easy to pick up funtions - 160GB means you have large recording capacity before having to delete to make space.

None really - Hemel is a bad Freeview area and can only get selected chan's on good weather days, not a fault of the machine. That said when you can get all Chan's the picture quality is breathtaking if used to Analogue only.

The picture is very clear and it is very easy to use once after the initial set-up.

It was very difficult to set the dvd up with my existing TV and Cable box. Especially, when the default language is in Spanish and I had to try and work out how to turn it into English just from the one page handout as the hand book did not address this issue. Then, once that was completed the hand book and installation is very complex.

Very easy to set up and use with the remote control. The hard drive is very useful and makes it easy to record and transfer to disc. setting up a recording is very easy from the title list, and the remote is compatible with the TV.

non as yet

Good EPG

None

Simple to set up Easy to use God results

None

Does the job it was bought for.

I keep changing the TV channel on the control panel by mistake and knock it off of the AV channel.

great product did what it said on the tin! goog value for money compared to the high street

only bad thing is when recording other channels cant be viewed, but knew that before purchace

freeview recording photo album picture upscaling easy use of record function

Overall product looks good.

Manual is vast and could be off putting

Ease of use Large HDD for storage

Excellent picture and sound quality. Fairly easy to set-up and use, intuative interface. Good control over the recorded programs.

Some of the advanced functions hard to find in the manual. Design of remote a bit clunky to hold.

fairly easy to use after reading manual hdi is brilliant design of model very good it sits well with other components freeview and recording is good

till i got used to it menues were a bit difficuilt but once learnt it is ok to use

Good system if you don't want to pay for sky+.

The signal is terrible, especially BBC channels. The external aerial runs into the DVD recorder and back out into my TV. The TV built in Freeview unit has no problems with signal quality at all. Every channel is absolutely fine. However, the signal quality on the DVD recorder jumps about causing the picture to freeze as well as the sound, which makes programmes unwatchable!! I am extremely disappointed with this as it makes the unit un useable on some channels, especially considering the price!

GOOD QUALITY OF BUILD AND PERFOMS WELL.

WHEN A TIMED RECORDING STARTS IT AUTOMATICALLY CHANGES WHATEVER YOU ARE VIEWING OVER AND DISPLAYS THE PROGRAM YOU ARE RECORDING.

Does all it says on the box.

Can not record while looking at other station.

Guide book too advanced. Sony need to issue a Dummies book for purchasers to understand how it works.

Easy to program

A bit too complicated to burn material to DVD Takes a long time to start up and shut down

ease of use,and quality of components,plus sony reliability.i have purchased a similar product from samsung and it no way compares to the sony in any category.i think you would struggle to find a better product at that price anywhere.

the only thing i could criticise,and it is a very minor point,is that the clock is very difficult to see if the machine is switched off.and that's it.

Sony recorder as expected, good picture.

Instruction booklet - difficult to understand. Connecting-up not explicit enough. Some digital channels not tuning-in, particularly BBC1 & 2.

easy to set up

none as yet

very stylish easy to use looks sleek

Looks good, easy to use once set up

Was very hard to set up and manual wasn't clear

Upscaling works well. Easy to use and transfer items from HDD to DVD. Remote can also control your TV (even if it's not a Sony)

No multi-region support available (even with Hacks)

Lots of features. Can record onto the HD and watch another programme from the HD at the same time.

Does not play any of my burnt DVD's - even though they are very high quality, transcoded using Adobe Encore DVD. Also picture quality can show artifacts due to poor compression of the image.

Easy to use for recording programmes anologue and digital. With digital you can watch another digital programme whilst recording. Updates everyday several times for the programme guides. Compact and not obstrusive, fits cabinet nicely

None really

GUIDE + For quick program record setting Edit recordings before burning to DVD Can record to HD whilst watching a DVD

Adjusting recorder settings (start + stop times) not easy, increment the minutes from 19 and it becomes 10 not 20.

Picture quality, ease of recording, jukebox feature

Unable to add an artist to tracks in jukebox

Quality of picture and sound is first class

Quite complicated menu - much more difficult than its predecessor but I'm getting used to it

Very easy to use when the instruction booklet has been deciphered!

I found the instruction booklet too detailed and not easy reference. The language needs to be more user friendly! I have bookmarked the pages relating to the most frequently required functions.

Great product and easy to use.

None

very easy to understand operations Can watch a previously recorded programme while recording a new programme Easy quick timer operation

None

I'm not technically minded but found this product very easy to use.

Not found any yet

So easy to use even for someone who is rubbish with technology

-very straight forward -lots and lots of hard drive space -very unimposing -very satisfied with it!

-some of the functions could be better thought out. Can't switch between functions e.g if you have pressed information and want to switch to display, you have to get out of information first. -if you press record during a programme then the recorder keeps recording indefinitely not just until the end of the programme. -it is as only good as your signal strength

We are back to one remote control for our living room.

None!

A lot of research has gone into the product. It is 7th generation Sony expertise!

Not bakc light on remote control - how can i see it in the darK!

Very easy set-up, and easy to use. Good on screen display revealing what you have already recorded, when and how long (and which you have watched before). Great that you can watch what you are recording, or watch anything else recorded on the HDD whilst recording onto it aswell.

Having a single decoder means that once you start recording something, then you can't watch or change anything else.

looks sleek and sophisticated.

not as easy too use for the less unknowledgeable people but once u get the hang of it its ok.

Easy to programme, good quality picture, improved signal strength.

Unable to watch another free view programme whilst recording

Quality of image and easy to use.

Found it difficult with the initial set up.. It isn't clear in the instructions about digitsal and analogue signals. O feel that prior knowledge is needed.

Good quality picture and ease of program recording set up and play back

Manual takes a lot of time to fully understand needs simplified instruction on basic operations

Built-in slide show with music, free view, usb connection, firewire connection

you can not play divx files from usb, you can not combine video files together.

i purchased this for my father as a christmas present and he is absolutely thrilled with it.

he hasnt mentioned any !!!!

great machine - loads of space to record hours of TV

bought for elderly gran - who does i admit find it a "tad" confusing! - but over all - GREAT machine

Looks good, easy to use

Instruction manual is very poor

Free view proglam and timer setting are so easy to use.

still i can not set plus guide. I'm worry about recent news about blue ray.

EASY TO USE AND SUPERB QUALITY

Ease of use. Very easy to record something, you don't need to be a techno wizard! Plays every DVD we have including those that won't play on other peoples DVD players. All round good product.

None.

Dependable, seldom needs to be reset, unlike some other PVRs. Image quality is very good.

Has one each digital and analog tuners, but a second digital tuner would have been of more use to me.