Toshiba RS-TX60 DVD Recorder with 160 GB TiVo Series2 Digital Video Recorder
Excellent DVD Recorder and TiVo upgrade
I was an early adopter of TiVo about 5 years back and still have one of the original 30 hour units. I kept holding off buying a Series 2 as the capacity grew.<br /><br />When I saw the Toshiba RS-TX60 with 160 GB capacity and DVD burning functionality, I figured that was the one for me, especially at Amazon's great price (made even better by a TiVo and Amazon rebate).<br /><br />I've had the unit for a few days now and wanted to set down some impressions and correct a few FALSE impressions I believe have been written about the unit.<br /><br />1) Firstly and most importantly, when burning a DVD YOU CAN CONTINUE TO USE THE UNIT FOR RECORDING AND PLAYING SHOWS. There was one review that seemed to indicate that you had to \\"time\\" your DVD burning when nothing else was going to be recorded. NOT TRUE. Just as you can watch one show while recording another, you can also (a) watch a show while (b) recording another show while (c) archiving another group of shows to DVD.<br /><br />2) DVD burning is actually quite fast. I just burned 12 half hour shows for my daughter onto a single disk. These were recorded at low resolution. They were a bit pixelated but my daughter didn't care. She now has 12 shows she can watch in her bedroom on her computer's DVD player.<br /><br />3) The only time you can't record Live TV is when you're capturing digital camera footage you've filmed to the hard disk. This makes sense, you're already using the HD recording capability - naturally you can't use the player to record any TV shows.<br /><br />4) I'm not sure how useful the Toshiba RS-TX60 DVD recorder is for people wanting to put their own home movies onto DVD. Sure, it gets the job done, but I guess I prefer a more long-winded approach; I like to capture onto a computer, edit with Premiere, then export and burn to DVD for a more professional home movie. The RS-TX60 doesn't allow any editing, just a straight capture along the lines of recording to video tape without the ability to edit.<br /><br />5) The 160 GB hard drive is a dream come true after having lived with a 30 hour unit. I'm trying to fill her up to see what it looks like with a full 200 hours maxed out.<br /><br />Overall, initial reflection on this product is that it's a great upgrade for current TiVo owners. Switching my account to the new machine was painless. I decided to stick with the paid plus TiVo functionality rather than downgrade with the new machine to a Basic version.<br /><br />Adam