SONY RDRHX900 REVIEW

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Reviewed by UK Guest, 15th Dec 2004.

Review Summary: Look beneath the surface

Overall Score: 1/5

Review: First appearances suggest that this Sony RDRHX900 DVD recorder with 160GB hard drive (and it's larger sibling the RDRHX1000) are superb machines. It looks stunning, the build quality is high, the built in hard drive is huge, there's a good range of dvd formats and the HQ high quality record mode really does give "better than dvd record quality" as the sales blurb suggests. First appearances however can be deceptive and it's only when you start living with the machine that the problems appear. This perhaps explains why the glossy dvd magazines rate it so highly (they presumably do their reviews quickly) and yet the internet bulletin boards are full of grumbles from members of the public. The problems lie with the woefully inadequate editing facilities (especially when compared with Panasonic machines) remembering that this machine ain't exactly cheap. Okay so you record a 2 hour 1 minute film onto the internal HDD drive using a high quality setting. Fine so far. You now want to transfer it onto a DVD disc ... however it's too big to put onto one disc (if you want to preserve the quality). Okay so you then use the recorders built in option to split the recording in two on the hard drive and you then transfer these recordings separately to dvd. Hold on ... where is that split option? The simple answer is that there isn't one. An unbelievable omission. Either you have to write to dvd with a lower record quality setting (what a waste of the HQ setting) or (as Sony suggest) you use the A-B edit facility to start deleting chunks of the large recording as you write them to dvd ... longwinded, naff, and if you make a mistake with a delete then there is no going back. Before you buy this machine please just make sure that you have a clear idea as to what your requirements are from a machine of this price. You may be able to live without anything but absolutely basic editing options or maybe you can't?

Ratings

Value For Money:		1
Review Score:		1
Recommended?		No

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