Dr Gadget - Gadget Shop - Toshiba RDXV47 160Gb HDD/DVD/VHS Recorder

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Binding: Electronics Brand: Toshiba EAN: 5017151616115 Label: Toshiba Manufacturer: Toshiba Model: RDXV47 Publisher: Toshiba Release Date: 2007-03-08 Studio: Toshiba
Accessories Logitech Harmony 1000 - Touch Screen Universal Remote Control Logitech Harmony 895 Remote Control Logitech Harmony 525 Advanced Universal Remote Control Logitech Harmony 785 Universal Remote Control Logitech Harmony 555 Universal Remote Control
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Spotlight customer reviews: Customer Rating: Summary: Very good for the money but some issues Comment: As the other reviews say this unit is very good functional value for money and once you've sorted the connections (see below) very easy to use. It disappoints slightly with its rigid enforcement of region and copyright controls as you cannot copy your old videos to the hard disc and we had to buy a supplementary multiregion player to play current DVDs. The big surprise though was its bizarre feature/design fault where many of the output options do not support VHS playback. You are not warned in the spec or the instructions (and even the Toshiba help line were no use). If for example you connect using the S-Video output you cannot play VHS videos and you (and the helpline) will think the unit is broken. So use the SCART output and IF you have a spare SCART input left, all will be fine Customer Rating: Summary: Witchraft! Comment: A am approaching 40 years old and therefore officially unable to operate even the most basic form of home entertainment system, let alone one with so many functions as the Toshiba RDXV47 (I mean, "RDXV47", its name alone is your guarantee you'll never get any of it to work....I feared the worst even when I was adding to my Amazon basket). But, for reasons I still don't fully understand, I can actually get everything on this machine to work. What's more, I pretty much got them all to work, first time out of the box, with very little reference to the manual. The folks at Toshiba have produced something that is intuitive, and actually makes everything easy. Honest. To install it, I drew a quick diagram of what my old DVD player was already plugged into what (TV, games console, Sky box), then unplugged my old DVD player, plugged in the RDXV47, switched everything back on and...it all still worked, and the Toshiba just automatically tuned itself in. Then I put in a VHS home movie, pressed play and then hit the 'dub' button and.....recorded my old VHS tape onto the hard disk. Then I put in a blank DVD, formatted it (following the simple on-screen instructions) started playing back the home movie from the hard disk and pressed 'dub' again. The machine recorded the movie straight onto the DVD. I kept telling myself it shouldn't be this easy. I have now transferred all of my precious and fragile VHS footage (wedding, children, etc.) onto DVD and the HDD with zero stress or frustration. The machine had paid for itself already. Then the ultimate test - setting the timer to record something. Normally impossible for VCRs - tradition dictates you press 19 buttons in the strictly prescribed sequence, then switch the timer on and still either record the wrong channel at the wrong time...or record nothing. Not so here. It's all just dead straight forward and works every time. I have not missed a baseball game this season, and can fit hundreds of them on the big HDD, especially if I record in Long Play mode. The machine also records TV programmes onto the hard disk at the single touch of a button (handy if a programme comes on and you want to record it straight away...no searching for blank tapes), it also plays back AVIs and DIVX movies. I cannot rate this device highly enough - it does everything you need it to do, and does it so simply and intuitively...even for men of a certain age. Customer Rating: Summary: Seriously This is What Your Looking For Comment: Ive Actually turned on my computer just to write this it does anything DVD TO VHS vice versa,put your saved stuff on sky plus either to it big Hard Drive or on to disc or vhs, it does everthing, but sadly want make toast thats the only down fall it Mint, Top Notch the top B*llocks, Buy Now or its your loss...... But ive got one so i dont care wat u do. Do it Though Customer Rating: Summary: Good self-contained unit Comment: I've had this about a week now. It's very easy to set up - within an hour I'd watched a divX CD, recorded to the HDD and transferred a video cassette to DVD. Recording to the HDD is very easy and it's possible to watch a recording while recording something else at the same time. Editing is time consuming but simple enough whilst transferring recordings to cassette/DVD is easy. Playback on the VCR is simple - I've not tried recording to cassette, because, frankly why would you when you have a HDD? The main use I've had for the VCR so far is transferring recordings to HDD, then editing and burning them to DVD. Obviously, the quality of the final DVD is dependent on the quality of the input recording, but there's no real noticeable drop in quality. The DVD playback is fine and recording is easy. DivX files can be played back, including from CD. I keep saying "simple" and "easy" a lot, I know. Despite the positives, there are some drawbacks - this is three basic machines in one. I've never owned a DVR or DVD recorder, so the step-change in functionality is enough for me, but there are no advanced features. As stated in the specs, there is no EPG, and only one tuner - you can't watch one digital channel whilst recording another. There's no 1080 upscaling or HDMi interface and there's no USB link. I knew all that when I bought it, so I'm fine with it. The only actual problem - a big one for me - is that it is not interoperable with my computer. It does not recognise any DVDs I've made on my Vaio laptop, although I've not tried it with any DVDs burned using other Toshiba equipment. I contacted Toshiba who simply said "laser mismatch" - in other words "oh. nevermind. tough". therefore, I've not been able to test the dubbing to HDD from DVD. Bizarrely, it does play back CDs with DivX files, but they cannot be dubbed to the HDD. In summary, this is a good starter machine that does most things well - with the rare benefit of enabling you to edit and tranfer your videos to DVD. Customer Rating: Summary: Great but not quite perfect Comment: Having read all the reviews on Amazon about this machine, I decided to take the plunge while the price was so good (£165). While overall it's a great machine, it does have some disapointments. The first thing I discovered was that it is not multi-region (at least one reviewer said it was). It may well play NTSC VHS (I don't know, I don't have a tape to test it with) but it certainly wont play region 1 DVDs. The next thing I discovered was that it wont copy DVDs recorded on another machine. This is a pain if you have, say, old camcorder footage that has been previously transfered to DVD and you want to re-edit on the Toshiba's HDD. This is obviously none copyright material, so why not let it be copied freely? The last problem that I discovered was when transfering old camcorder-shot VHS material from the 1980s. Sometimes during the transfer, the machine stops dubbing and shows a message that it will not dub copyright material??? And when it does copy, it's a bit hit and miss on the final result, with copies suffering from tracking style problems. I guess the solution is to hook up a seperate VHS/DVD player for the initial dubbing of old material. Not ideal and defeating the object somewhat but once they are transfered, that's it. On the plus side, using the HDD for recording is great. Setting it at LP, the picture is perfectly acceptable. The thumbnails are essential for identification as the recorder doesn't automatically name the recordings and doing it manually via the handset is tedious. It does actually list the channel, recording setting and day/time/date of the recording but the time/date function does sometimes default to 'Mon 01/01/07'(maybe this is a fault on my machine?). The timeslip function is another great feature. If a TV programme is about to start and you're still making your sandwich, just press 'timeslip' and carry on with your chore. When you sit down 10 minutes later, press 'timeslip' again and the show starts from the begining and you can watch it as if live (and fast forward the ads). You can even watch a previously recorded programme on the HDD while recording something else on the same HDD at the same time!!! Transfering from HDD to DVD is easy. I transfered 2 movies, total running time 3 hours (after I had edited out the ads) using the auto function to fit them neatly onto the disc. The result was perfect and the quality great. The finished disc had a neat menu (don't think it will do chapters) and played fine on another player in the house. My TV is a bog standard, 3 or 4 year old telly. Not even widescreen and I've not had any of the problems that have been mentioned in some of the other reviews. I have a freeview box connected by scart and a normal sky box, again scart connected. Everything is just connected as if the Toshiba was a normal VHS machine and there are no problems with not being able to watch one channel while recording another that have been experienced by other reviewers. So, despite the problems of transfering old video material (and that may be just unique to my stuff), it's still a great machine and at £165, it's a great bargain. More Reviews
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