Sony RDRHXD870

9 years after purchase strong as ever – I bought this until in 2009, and used it heavily at first for both recording and disk playback. As time evolved I hadn’t had the need to use it, however with the demise of the Foxtel music channels I got it out of the garage. What amazed me 9 years later was the quality of the recording. Playing back on a 55’ TV (at time more likely to be max 42’) the quality of the S Video recordings is almost indistinguishable from the original

The menu system is sold (albeit dated) and works well

Faultless, impressed – I purchased this model to replace another brand that had failed, it has performed faultlessly, it is easy to use and copying from the HDD to DVD is fast and accurate it picks up all the tv channels easily, it is used every day. though it was a superseded model it had every thing i needed and a good price too Reliability, ease of use, high speed copy to DVD excellent Would have liked a bigger HDD drive

Bad – *** WARNING TO EVERYONE WHO OWNS A SONY DVD, DO THE OPTIMISE HDD OFTEN **** We are going to switch to Panasonic next and see how those units work. The product does work and for our first DVD Recorder I would rate it as "just alright". On the negative side there are several things that annoy you. The machine isn't easy to use. When editing or after dubbing to DVD, the screen goes into 4:3 mode and not wide screen. If you have a Sony Bravia LCD TV you always need to press the "Full Screen" button, (I believe there is something wrong with the way this DVD communicates with a Sony Bravia TV). ** After 2 years the system crashed loosing everything on it. The instruction manual tells you to "Optimise HDD" regularly. We didn't know because we never read the 155 page booklet. We were big Sony fans from way back and bought several electrical items, but now we believe it is not worth the extra money.

Good – I showed a friend how easy it was to use, and she promptly went out and bought one too. I love it. This replaced my old video/DVD player combo and I haven't missed the latter for a second (except for its 'immediate record' button)! Recording quality is excellent. I have a full Sony set - TV as well as this and am very glad I did. Very good price for the features. The ease & usability of this is just great. Well designed controls. I love the little thumbnails that make finding things I've recorded easy, and the ability to sort & view in various ways. Makes recording and playing back as easy as saving files to a computer disk, and finding them is just as easy. Love the HDMI connection - no more cable clutter. Well designed remote control and a nice sleek little unit. Timer recording is now SOOOO easy, and from the Guide it's just an absolute breeze. I record more now, because it's so quick and easy to a/do it and b/find and play it back. Worst thing is how long it takes to startup and get it recording. There's no 'instant record' type button, so it takes a while to get it going - longer than the old video recorder! Took me ages to find out how to stop it Timer Recording (no help in the manual). And the Guide takes a heck of a long time to appear (though this may not be the fault of Sony)

The manual IS clunky and it's particularly hard to find the detailed info you actually want (vs wading through piles of text that you don't). I also wish it had an HD tuner.