Sony RDR-HX900 DVD Recorder with 160 GB Hard Disk Recorder

Rating:
Summary: Great For A Large VHS to DVD Conversion Project!
Review: About a year and a half ago, I purchased Sony's first DVD recorder, the GX7. I have been very satisfied with it and it has let me burn about 200+ discs with almost no problems (see my review of the GX7). However, the GX7 does not have a hard drive and when I wanted to eliminate commercials from programs for archival purposes, I had to actually watch the program and hit the pause button at the breaks. I was hoping Sony would come out with a recorder with a hard drive which would allow me to edit out commercials without having to watch the entire program (this primarily relates to old sporting events and shows I have on VHS tapes). With its new HX900 model, I have gotten my wish.

The HX900 has a massive 160GB hard drive which will allow me to record a lot of programs. It also has six recording qualities (1, 1.5, 2, 3, 4 and 6 hour). I usually use the 1, 1.5 and 2 hour modes depending on the program I want to record, but I have actually used and been satisfied with the 3 hour mode as well (but not with the 4 hour mode, picture quality degrades significantly and I assume is even worse in 6 hour mode). For my VHS to DVD conversion, I'll pop in a tape in my VCR and set the HX900 timer to record for however long the program is on the VHS tape (with usually a little extra time). Then I'll step away from the machine and let the show record to the hard drive. Later, I'll use the editing function (the "A - B Erase" function) to eliminate unwanted elements of the programs (i.e. commercials, halftime shows for football games). I'd say it takes about 10 minutes of editing for every hour of programming, which I hope to reduce with experience. After I'm done editing, I'll dub to DVD+R discs (the unit accepts DVD+RW, DVD-R and DVD-RW, as well) at the same quality as I recorded the program to the hard drive. This allows for a "Fast" dubbing where a 2 hour program can be burned to disk in about 10 minutes. If you try to mix recording qualities, it takes much longer to dub. I've already converted about 15 of my 175 tape VHS collection to DVD since I got the unit at Christmas and hope to be done converting all of them by the end of the year, something I wouldn't have been able to do with the GX7 (I wouldn't have the patience). The time saved justifies the premium price of the unit in my book.

I do have some gripes. Unless you use the "VR" recording mode, all edits must be made on the original program on the hard drive (in other words, you can't record a program on the hard drive and then make edits without affecting that program). So if you've been editing a program and then you make a mistake and accidentally edit something out you didn't want to, you are out of luck. You'll either have to rerecord the program to the hard drive (assuming the source was a VHS program or a Tivo program you had saved). But if it is recorded directly from cable to the hard disk and you make an error, sorry, you'll have to hope for the program to come on again. I have decided that if I have a program that I know I want to archive, I'll record it to the hard drive, but I'll also record it to my Tivo unit, so I have a backup just in case I screw up in editing the hard drive copy (the quality is better with a direct record to the hard drive than recording from Tivo, but at least I'll have something). "VR" mode allows you to keep the original program on disk and to make the edits on DVD, but discs burned this way cannot be played on other DVD players whereas disks I create my way can be played on other players after they are finalized. I think this makes VR mode implausible for archiving purposes (what if your HX900 breaks, there is no guarantee that you'll be able to play your discs again).

I also don't care for the TV Guide programming guide that is built into the program because the DVD recorder has to be shut off in order to download the guide (I route all my electronics through it to get to the TV, so turning it off makes it impractical (I just use Tivo as my guide and manually record to the DVD recorder). If you do get the guide downloaded, it only shows two half-hour blocks on the screen, plus only about ¼ of my cable channels, so there is lots of scrolling. Not a big selling point for me.

All-in-all, I'm happy with the HX900. Yeah, it would be great if it were $200 to $300 cheaper, but that's still some time away. I think the time I'll save in converting stuff to DVD will be great.


Rating:
Summary: Sony RDR HX900
Review: After weighing up the pro's and cons ...and PRICE!!,I am very tight fisted and very fussy!! I went for it. The guy at the Sony shop matched my best online price, so quite a saving from RRP.
The set up is a doddle,except if you live in the UK check that you have set country to ' I ' as this is correct for the UK.
Basic setting up is much like a VCR and playback and recording functions are very very straight forward. I was editing my Panasonic Digital Camcorder within 1/2 an hour of opening the box.
Recording onto hard disc from - Video tape or even a recorded DVD ( from another system ) did not pose any problems at all and infact the end product from a Video tape was better than the original source.
Lableing the HDD ( hard drive ) again is a simple process, it walks you through it.
When using this item, you get the feeling that everything has been already thought of and you fell like a well cared for child!!
The picture quality through my SONY KV32FX68 is magnificent, I couldn't ask for more.
It gives you the facility to record something to the HDD, watch something else you have recorded to the HDD and then watch what you have already started recording from the beginning while it is still recording...Cool!!!!
The only drawback I have found so far ( and this is still early for me as I only got the unit yesterday )is connecting to an Amp/ Reciever. I have been using a SONY DVP725s connected through an STR DB930 amp/reciever. I got superb 5.1 digital and DTS ( where applicable ) On connecting the HX900, I used an optical cable into the back of the STR DB930. NO 5.1!!! and DTS on US dics ( coz I got it chipped )NO DTS on UK discs (again where aplicable ) I have emailed Sony Support and am waitig to hear, proberbly something I havent set yet.
Over all, all I can say is BUY ONE!!!! you wont regret it

Rating:
Summary: TV Guide On Screen dosen't work
Review: I had and returned this unit. It's possible it was a fluke with just one specific unit, but TV Guide On Screen didn't work reliably for me. About 20% of the time it wouldn't record a show I asked for, or would attempt to record shows I never requested (often instead of shows I HAD requested).

Also, the interface for TV Guide On Screen is very clunky. The parts of the interface designed by Sony look and work fine, but the TV Guide interface for scheduling recordings or looking at guide data doesn't mesh with the rest of the interface, and is unintuitive.

Technically this unit doesn't run 24/7 like Tivo or Replay units, but it might as well. It seemed to turn itself on 4 times a day for 3 hour stretches in order to receive the guide data.

The actual image quality of this unit is excellent. I found the second to lowest quality to be acceptable for the majority of my shows. (The equivalent of 4 hours per disc.)

Because of the flaky TV Guide On Screen system, I'd really recommend looking instead at a Tivo-based DVD unit like those from Toshiba, or a regular Tivo box, or Sony's cheaper DVD-only GX-300.

Rating:
Summary: Sony RDR-HX900
Review: I had this DVR for a little over than an week and like to share some comments w/ others. Especially for those of you who want to use this DVR to record Hi-DEF programs thru DirectTV Hi-DEF STB which was my initial motivations to purchase this DVR since it has component I/P.

1. Video I/P: This DVR is indeed the only DVR , up to end of 2004 , which offers "component Video I/P". But, Pls be very careful, since the component I/P can only take "interlace" signals. In another word, U needs to turn-off the progressive-scan feature when U connects yr video device thru component I/P of this DVR. Otherwise, U won't see anything. This was noted on page 13 of SONY's user manual.

2. TV Guide: This TV guide feature does not work with DifrectTV high-def set-top-box (it was noted on page 34). So, the TV-Guide feature is pretty much useless.

3. Timer: This feature indeed allows U to hook yr STB's SVideo or Composite signals to either L1, L2 or L3 inputs and record the program seamlessly. But, even the DVR allows U to playback thru "progressive" component O/P, pls do remember the quality which U record to either HDD or DVD disc is NOT the high-def quality. SONY's HQ+ recording quality into HDD is very mis-leading.

4. Video quality: Video O/P thru the progressive component O/P is as good as my other DVD reference players which made by either Denon or Toshiba.

So, am I dis-apponited? U bet I am. Especially paying close to $700 to get a DVR which only accepts lousy "INTERLACE" component and TV-Guide feature is not compatible w/ the Satellite STB. For a capability-limited DVR like this SONY unit, U can pay $200 less by purchasing other name brands which offers same capability.

By the way, my Samsung Satellite STB, model SIR-TS360 , is capable to convert any Component, SVideo or composite signals into 1080i format or Hi-DEF video signals. Why Samsung can and SONY can't and still demands ripe-off price-tage for the name of "SONY"?

Rating:
Summary: Quick, Accurate, Easy, and Quality
Review: I was at the #1 retail computer store the other week searching the aisles for the best DVD burner available. I have a burner for my computer (which by the way a computer burner is much quicker and provides much greater flexibility) but needed one to record programs from TV without having to change the entire world to accomplish it (i.e. new video card, find a way to get my dish setup to the computer, etc.). I figured that a component DVD burner would be the way to solve this. I was right!!

Yes it is pricey. $700 for a burner is insane. However considering that this player will allow you to burn in any format you wish including to the hard disk drive (HDD) if you wish makes this unit a gem. I had the entire season of Smallville on my TiVo box (integrated box with DirecTV so no integrated burner or ability to connect to USB) and I had promised my cousin Ryan that I would get him the episodes he missed via DVD. I also had another friend of mine in DC that needed a few episodes as well. Here is the trick. One needed it in DVD-R and the other needed them in DVD+R (when will format wars end??). I first burnt the episodes to the hard drive and then burnt them at 4x speed to the DVD-R and then to the DVD+R. I could have burnt them faster had I bought the more expensive 8x disks but didn't know that at the time of purchase. The DVDs came out flawlessly and even have chapter markings every 6 minutes for easy navigation forward and backward through episodes. I could have set the chapters myself if I had wished (like right at end of the commercials) but didn't want to take the man hours to do all of that. I also removed the commercials flawlessly from a few of the episodes (but got tired of spending the man hours eventually).

I have this burner connected to my Sony 36" Wega HD TV and it has a beautiful picture. I have DirecTV w/ TiVo so I do not use the TV Guide function.

I hope this review was helpful to you in deciding whether the extra couple hundred bucks for this burner is worth it.

Rating:
Summary: Could have got 5 star, but...
Review: I've been waiting for a standalone DVD-Recorder for a long while as I find converting my MiniDV Tapes to DVDs on PC is too tedious process.

I've tried some high-end Panasonic and Toshiba models which I think are very good too but lack style and video quality found in this Sony model. So, I wouldn't complain about the price of this model as if you shop around you can get it for less than $700.00.

Many might complain about lack of features like recording a long title into multiple DVDs. For me that was never a problem as I can have them as different titles so I can record each titles to seperate DVD. It basically has all the features we ever get to use.

It's still not the perfect DVD Recorder I dreamed to have as it's far from what we can do on a DVD Recorder using PC. But the bottomline is, the video and audio qaulity is the best I've seen from any high-end recorders from Panasonic or Toshiba and it has great style and finish. It might also easily end-up being your best DVD Player.

I've been using it almost on a regular basis now for over 2-months and I have to say, I kind of mastered enough not to find any issues. The user iterface is very sleek and simple to understand. Quality is almost as good as the source recorded.

Rating:
Summary: Very high quality and very easy to use
Review: This thing is superb. Recording w/ highest quality leaves about 40 hours of disk space. In this mode the video and audio quality is wonderful. It is very intuitive to use. Remote is nice (I would have preferred lower battery life and a backlight but this isn't all that important in the grand scheme of things). Menus are logical. Plenty of connectivity options for both input and output. Simultaneously reads and writes flawlessly - meaning you can start watching your show 15 minutes after start time and then skip cmxls (with a single touch you can go forward 30 seconds). Yes, it's expensive. Yes, it's worth it. Glad I waited for this option. DVD+RW alone isn't enough - you need a big hard drive to truly be free from VHS!

Rating:
Summary: another overpriced Sony
Review: True, this recorder has it all and is top notch. I gave it 1 star because, my God, it is WAY overpriced. Sony is making a Super Mega fat profit off this beauty. If it were priced 200-250 however, this would be the one to die for. I'll continue to wait until DVD recorders come down to earth and by that time they'll have more features such as multi-disc carousels, SACD/DVD Audio, much larger hard drives (250GB+) to handle HD programming, an HDMI port, & HD upconverting.