Toshiba RD-XS35 DVD Player/Recorder with 160 GB Hard Drive
Working great for me!
I need to first say that I have been anxiously awaiting the arrival of this unit and have spent a great deal of time researching previous models XS-32/34/52/54, and read many, many, many user reviews on them, as well as downloaded and reviewed the installation and operation user manuals for most of them. <br /> <br />After all my research I narrowed it down to 2 models which best suited my needs, the XS52 and this one, XS35. They are both very similar using the same 160 GB HD, same IR blaster funtion to set top cable/sat box, and same navigation software, but there are a few major differences.  The XS52 will only burn to -R/-RAM while the XS35 will burn to -R/-RW and -RAM. Why they left -RW out of XS52, I don't know.  The other thing is that the XS52 uses the VCR+ Plus timer recording feature where the XS35 uses the TVGuide OnScreen system.  VCR+ Plus codes are not listed in my local paper or guide, so this would be a pain for me to have to search for and setup, although I am sure it works fine, the TVGOS is much easier for me.  The last difference I could see is the XS52 offers an HDMI output and upconversion on DVD playback to 480p, 720p and 1080i for \\"near-HD\\" quality. <br /> <br />The only thing I didn't like about the XS35 was that it didn't have the upconversion like the XS52, but was I really missing something here??? I wanted to know if I should get the XS52 for the upconversion, so I brought home a Toshiba upconverting DVD player to see if I could tell the difference in quality between it and the XS35's progressive scan DVD player.  After watching my favourite scenes on many DVD's I decided that I could not tell any difference which made my choice much easier.  I wanted to save my HDMI input on my TV for later this year or next year when HD DVD/Blu-ray become more available, those DVD's will make a huge difference.  So I went out and bought the XS35. <br /> <br />Some of the features of the XS35:  <br /> <br />1) TVGOS program guide:  A lot of people have been reporting problems with this on older versions.  I cannot say that I have had any problems with this.  In fact it was the easiest thing to set up.  It simply asks for your zip/postal code and within 24 hours of setup it has downloaded all the channels to it's guide and all the programming for 8 days.  This is very convienient to use with the timer programming, I can tape \\"Lost\\" weekly and \\"South Park\\" daily and it will do it for me.  So far I really enjoy this system since I don't have cable or satellite and I don't have a guide, this is really nice to see what is on next. <br /> <br />If I did have a Cable/Sat box I could use the IR blaster to change to channel 405 at 10:00 pm then to channel 253 at 12:00 pm and it would do it.  This is what the manual says and although I have not used this feature it is a nice one to have for potential future use. <br /> <br />You can also just press REC and start recording to the HDD instantly instead of setting up a timed recording.  Just press stop to stop it. <br /> <br /> <br />2) DVD - the playback is as good as I could imagine.  I had been using my Xbox as a DVD player.  I can't say I see any huge differences or improvements, but it isn't worse either.  Both are great for me.   <br /> <br />The benefit is that I can burn to DVD anything I want to keep, (superbowl, movies on tv, seasons of tv shows, etc.)   <br /> <br />It does support both DVD-R/RW and RAM unlike XS52 which only supports -R and -RAM.   <br /> <br />3) The fan does not run all the time, like many have said about the XS54.  It is very quiet when it does run. The lights on the front make it easy to see what you are doing at the moment.  If you are recording there is a red light ring around one of the buttons on the front of the unit. If you are on the HDD a blue light is on and when on the DVD it lights up green.  There are separate lights too not just one so if you are color blind (like my dad) you are not confused by only one light position. <br /> <br />4) The easy-navi button gets you right into the list of programs you have saved and is easy to use.  Easy to delete when finished with a certain recording and it tells you how much time you have left to use on the disk to manage your files. <br /> <br />5) Playback - Great playback features.  You can playback a recording while recording another program live. You can also pause live TV with the Timeslip feature and then skip through commercials in 5s, 10s, 30s or 5 minute intervals to catch up to the live feed, also skip back at 5 s intervals if you missed something. <br /> <br />All in all I am happy with this HDD/DVD recorder and despite not having the HDMI upconversion for DVD playback (which I can't see a difference in anyway) it has everything I think you could want.   <br /> <br />There are going to be other units Panasonic/Pioneer available that do similar things but I like the way this one works. <br /> <br />5 stars from me...good luck! <br /> <br />