Toshiba RD-XS34 DVD Recorder with 160-GB Hard Drive
Nice recorder - just need to have some patience.
I was originally hesitant about purchasing this recorder after reading all of the reviews. I eventually gave in. This feature rich Toshiba model seemed to be the best buy out there. It has been a few weeks now and I am real happy with this model. The first few days of set up were a perplexing experience. The manual is hard to follow at times. Some sections are not clear at all about explaining the task at hand. I do recommend reading the entire manual at least once before figuring out how to use the remote and unit by yourself. The channel line-up that was downloaded was in a much different order than what I previously had through my cable box. I spoke with Toshiba's tech support and they mentioned that this is common. The tech support people are very helpful by the way. I decided that I could get used to the new line-up and I did. Setting a recording and playback is very easy and the resolution is quite good at SP. I love the time-slip feature. Burning a program or movie onto a DVD-R is easy with very little loss in picture quality.     Now for the negative comments that most people want to read about first. The hand held remote control is very slow in responding to channel changing (about 2-3 sec). Surfing through the TV guide line-up is also slow. There is no mute button on the remote. You cannot watch one channel while recording another without first installing a splitter. I have noticed that some of the very negative reviews given to this model were by people without much patience. For example, deleting a previously recorded program is easy. Just read the manual, it's in there. I also found no problem with the so called \\"fan noise\\". Yes the recorder does stay on all the time, even in stand-by mode, but the on going fan near the rear of the unit is not that loud. It is actually quieter than my PC fan.     So I gave this model a five star rating because I found that the pros greatly out weighed the cons. Just give this feature rich recorder some time and you willappreciate it more and more. And you can't beat the price!     UPDATED APRIL 3  Rikki H on March 24 mentioned, \\"Dan J. Grams said he didn't like the fact that you couldn't program a show manually. \\" Where in my review did I say this? He must of confused me with someone else. This recorder is very easy to use and yes it is easy to program manually. I still think this is a very nice unit and it is still the best buy out there. My brother recently bought the JVC DRM100S DVD Recorder and now wishes he would of bought this Toshiba model.