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- Average user rating: 3.5 stars out of 14 reviews Back to product review
- My rating: 0 stars
Full user review
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7 out of 7 people found this review helpful
4.0 stars
"Way cool, free schedule, works great"
Pros: easy setup, free channel/program guide, lots of space for hd recording
Cons: tvguide software gets in its own way sometimes, select wheel on remote
Summary: So I broke down and bought this. Had a moto hdt101 previously (and still do). picture quality is identical. The disk drives make the difference. Recording HD with dolby shows is great. Chapter marks work as advertised. TV Guide filled up in about a day (the hdt101 had a listing for that day and put it in a selector box but did nothing with it...now that info is useful on the sony).
The tv guide software is ok. it does what it is supposed to do, but it does not allow you to traverse to, let say, tomorrow without scrolling through the whole day your on in half hour increments. That's kinda dumb. it's almost as if its dumb like that to advertise the scroll wheel on the remote. the scroll wheel is entirely too sensitive to being pressed.
Also the TV guide software wastes a lot of space on the screen. However, it is free, it does work once you get used to it. and it does display all the preview info about whatever episode is being looked at.
The record to VCR is a really cool feature, yeah its a cheap gimmic, but I can see using it more often when the blueray/hddvd come out.
I think it is a little on the expensive side. I did a calculation. If I were to buy 2 250 gig drives, it'd cost me about 200 bucks a pop. a hd tuner 200. software package, 100. cables and stuff, 50 bucks.
the 200+200+200+100+50. that's 750 dollars. Ok so you buy the name, make it 100 bucks for being sony. so 850 at the most. 999 is a bit steep, but I did it, I'm enjoying it and once people see it they'll want one too.
- 2 replies to this review
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According to Sony design engineer, this recorder uses special hard drives that are designed to run continuously. Even with the power off, the hard drive continues to spin. So if the hard drive fails, don't expect to replace it with the cheap ones you see advertised at the discount store.
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To program something days ahead, enter a number, say 24, and a menu appears that includes option to move the guide by the number of hours you enter. You select that option and push the enter button.
