Toshiba RD-XS34 DVD Recorder with 160-GB Hard Drive
Be Patient
We bought the Toshiba, video recorder about two months ago.  It does everything that it claims, but it takes a while to get it working the way that we needed.  All of the information is in the manual, but it's confusing & takes a while to figure it all out. One of the hardest things for me was the remote control.  Under the number pad, on the bottom the remote flips open to reveal many more useful buttons. The Toshiba does have a tuner in it, but we aren't using it.  The picture isn't very clear. We were using an indoor antenna at first & thought that was the problem.  Then we changed to a rooftop antenna & it didn't work any better, but then we finally got the tv guide working.  We are using the Toshiba for recording only.  For reception we are using Samsung t451 digital tv set top box, because our tv is a monitor without a tuner. The picture is much clearer with the Samsung.  We are using the Samsung as an input into the Toshiba for timeshifting our tv watching.  This works well as long as you remember to leave the channel set correctly.  One other disappointment is that you cannot record dvd's to the hard drive for viewing later.  The Toshiba must have some software that keeps it from recording copyrighted material. Overall the recorder does what we wanted. We are able to timeshift without a fee.