- Average user rating: 3.5 stars out of 37 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
"A few quirks, but overall a great unit!"
Pros: Large hard disk, Firewire input, Easy to setup and operate
Cons: No editing of programs, No RF output, Won't control my satellite box
Summary: I bought the RS-TX20 about 3 weeks ago and so far I love this unit! I bought it solely because I wanted to burn DVD's from my Canon DV Camcorder using the firewire input. I didn't really care that it had Tivo built-in because I'd never really used Tivo before.
Surprisingly, the Tivo aspect of it has become one of my favorite features. The 45 day free Tivo Plus service is really nice, although despite numerous calls to Toshiba and Tivo, it will not control my Zenith HD-SAT520 satellite receiver. Luckily, most of what I want to "tivo" is from off-air channels anyway, so I'm not too upset. I don't quite understand why the Tivo thinks I would like to watch Dr. Phil and Rescue 911, so I've turned off the 'Tivo Suggestions' feature and just tell it what I want to record. And, the Tivo remote is not very ergonomic.. Entering program names is a two handed operation due to lousy button placement.
Recording DVD's is very simple and the resulting product played in every DVD player I own (two Sony's, a Pioneer, and a Dell PC). It's great how the Tivo menu's burn into the DVD for easy navigation. What I dislike about the DVD recording is that you can only record DVD's from programs on the Hard Disk. No direct to DVD recording is possible. Plus, you cannot edit the recorded program in any way - it simply copies it exactly as it is stored on the HDD. That becomes an issue when you have a home video that you'd like to break up into multiple programs on a DVD.. You have to record them as individual segments on the HDD, then copy each of them to DVD. This method is further complicated by the inherent delay in the MPEG compression - by the time you hit the "stop record" button, it still records another 3-4 seconds before it stops. It would really be nice to be able to clean up the heads and tails of your programs, but you can't.
Otherwise, I'm thorougly happy with this unit. It's premium priced, but just about all of the DVD recorders with firewire are. Recording quality is great at the higher data rates, but don't even think about using the lower quality settings.. I use only "best" or "high" modes.
And, finally.. For anyone that has posted their disappointment that this unit does not do HD - wake up!! It is not an HD recorder and it never claimed to be.
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