Toshiba RD-XS34 DVD Recorder with 160-GB Hard Drive
Great Recorder Without Serious Problems
I almost did not buy this DVD because of the negative reviews I had read on Amazon. I am glad that I bought it 2 months ago. There are no serious problems. <br /> <br />True that the \\"TV Guide\\" took almost 4 days to download and not the 24 hours stated in the manual. But it is definetely NOT TRUE that the \\"TV Guide\\" is needed for scheduling recording. You do schedule them with the \\"TV Guide\\" menu, followed with the \\"schedule\\" submenu, but you do not need the download. <br /> <br />Which brings me to the negative aspect of the the unit. It is its manual. This manual does a diservice to a well engineered machine. It has no index. It is hard to find how to access any of the unit's functions. This difficulty is compounded because many functions can be accesses from several menus.  The manual uses bad and sometimes incomprehensible English, and it seems to be written by lawyers. It is loaded with phrases \\"it may\\", \\"sometimes\\" etc. This may come as a surprise to these manual writers but machines are not probalistic they either do or do not. This unit is no exception.