Sony RDR-HX900 DVD Recorder with 160 GB Hard Disk Recorder
great machine but TVGOS is terrible
5 months later: TVGOS is getting more stable but still fails once a month or every other month. I advise using a little UPS with this recorder because all your TVGOS gets lost if the power blinks. The DVR is still working perfectly.<br /><br />What else can I tell you? Ok, the clock is really accurate. Also it's best to not schedule one show immediately after another - say 9-10 then 10-11 because you'll lose the ending of the first show if the 2nd one is on a different channel. HQ+ mode is fantastic but you can only fit about 40 minutes onto a DVD. Standard SP mode is all you really need for a regular TV. Keep the user manual handy; there are lots of little features you'll want to look up. I think the user manual was really rushed. You have to cross reference lots of stuff, always jumping 50 pages back and forth. TVGOS doesn't sort the channels by number, and this is a huge pain to do manually. Don't bother, just jump to the channel you want in the TVGOS listings. I only notice the fan noise when its super quiet in the room. Its not an issue. You can't do high speed HD-DVD dubbing in HQ+ mode ... stick with SP!<br /><br />Bottom line after nearly 10 months of ownership: still very happy with the unit, picture quality is great, use a UPS with it, it takes some effort to learn how to do everything. HD capacity is great: I recorded the entire season of Lost in HQ+ and still had room for a couple of other shows. In SP mode the HD wouldn't even be half full yet.<br /><br />DVR Nits to pick: I wish the Start/End X minutes early feature would let me start/end early or late. When editing out the commercials using the A-B Erase feature, it's hard to find the exact instant the recording starts. Some sort of frame counter would be helpful there. The F3 super fast forward jumps longer and longer the longer you leave it on. I'd prefer it to go 6 minutes a jump, which is about how long the typical commercial block runs. F2 is a bit too slow a jump as well. Adding titles is a bit cumbersome; each number on the keypad is 3 letters from the alphabet and the number. That's a lot of buttons to press, but I think all DVRs are like this?<br /><br />TVGOS Nits: TVGOS must send out some kind of Show Is Over signal which ends the recording. Sometimes this isn't until several minutes after the show is actually over. Some kind of look ahead feature would be nice too: if you've scheduled your show to record weekly but it isn't on this week you have to reschedule it. This shouldn't be this way; if the show IS on this week you can access its schedule data and it will show you when its on next time. So why lose the schedule if its off a week, why not just set the next date to 2 weeks from now? Last TVGOS nit: it sure would be nice if updates were done at a known time, and a whole lot faster. Getting the full schedule takes days, and this stinks when you've had a blip and are trying to reschedule all your shows.<br /><br />end update<br />***********************************************<br /><br />Original Review:<br />I've had this unit for 4+ months. Works great, records great, super quality picture.<br /><br />You are pretty much forced to use the TV Guide Online Service (TVGOS) feature, which is easy ... except it is very undependable. Every so often - once a month, or week, or day (seems to be random) the schedule will dissappear and it will take all your scheduled programs with it. Oh, the recorded shows will still be on the HD, but the scheduling will be gone. And you will NEVER know when, or how often, this will occur. Wait a couple days and most of the TVGOS will be back, and you can reprogram all your stuff ... until the next time. And there WILL be a next time. I've read several message boards online, and I gather all DVRs that use TVGOS do this. Oh, and forget about the \\"I'll just do manual recordings like on a VCR\\" solution. When TVGOS forces a reset you lose those too.<br /><br />TVGOS is faulty. Do not buy anything that uses it until they workout the bugs.