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Review: First up, please note that the full height box and black remote pictured on Amazon's site at the time of writing is *Not* the RD-XS34. The latter is a half height model with a curved, cream coloured remote. Any correct picture you see won't do it justice anyway - I thought it was a case of 'nice features, shame about the box' until I saw it in the flesh. It isn't gorgeous, but looks better than it does online. The remote is both nice looking and ergonomically fairly well designed, although a few of the features under the fold up flap would be better placed on top. This box has most things that the competition have, and a few more besides. 160GB of HD storage is unusual at this price point, and you get excellent, frame accurate editing thrown in. I've set up chapters in videocam footage I recorded to the hard disk (it will of course set chapters for you if you wish), created a playlist with unwanted footage excluded, and written the result to a DVD-R, complete with title and scene menus, in minutes, and without reading the (very large) manual. It does all the trick play stuff - pause live recordings, record and play simultaneously, (both only while recording to HD or DVD-RAM), show live TV in a pip box while playing a recording, etc. Don't underestimate the value of DVD-RAM recordings, btw - if you want to keep things for many years, or to record on one disk over and over again, it's far better than DVD-RW. There are a couple of extras I found no mention of in specs and site and magazine reviews. Firstly, old VHS edits (by their nature, at least 2nd generation copies) seem slightly better after copying to disk, so I would guess there's a Time Base Corrector somewhere in there. Secondly, there's a wire that plugs into the rear which has an ir transmitter on the other end that should be placed in line of site to your digibox. You can then change digital channels from the 34's remote, and program the timer to do the same. It even does it automatically via VideoPlus. However it won't turn the digibox on or off. (Presumably because the codes for on and off are the same, so it doesn't know whether the box is already on; but I would have thought it could tell that via the scart lead...) The downsides? (a) The cooling fan is too noisy. Maybe, because the unit is half height, Toshiba slung in a minute fan vertically, rather than mounting a large fan horizontally. You won't hear it while watching TV - but if you're recording and there's no other background noise, you will certainly be aware of it. Modern PCs can be quieter. So make sure you can store it behind a closable panel. (b) Like almost all of the competition, the build in tuner is analogue. Since the 34 controls an external digital box, and since VideoPlus defaults to selecting the digital version of terrestrial channels, this means that the analogue tuner doesn't get used; and since (I believe) PDC control doesn't operates over external boxes, the built-in PDC is in turn worthless. (c) The lead-in time for timer recordings is very long - the box turns itself on 8 or 9 minutes before recordings start. Once it's in that timeframe, you can't change timer settings or add new programs. (d) Getting picky here: if you delete a recording via the content menu, the display returns to the select input or channel rather than to the content menu. (e) You can set the end time of a recording you've just started, but there's no one button start time like my old Sharp SVHS deck had. Neither, if you've started a recording manually, can you tell it to power off when it finishes; tho' there are some power save options. Overall, a superb machine, but the noise loses it a star. |
DVD, TV & Video
