Sony RDR-HX900 DVD Recorder with 160 GB Hard Disk Recorder
Good dubbing speed, Excellent picture quality, So-So editing
I bought my HX900 2 months ago and have about 25 fully edited 3hour(LP mode)DVDs of network TV under my belt so far.  I've read all the reviews to date and would like to add some observations not yet mentioned.  Even though I am generally very happy with the unit, I'm focusing on some of the subtler negatives that may influence some prospective buyers and avoid some gnashing-of-teeth after purchase.<br /><br />Picture quality is excellent.  Network TV recorded at LP quality is nearly indistinguishable from the broadcast (and I have a very good antenna).  The unit seems to clean up snow and other glitches.  Dubbing at the maximum 8x speed is to DVD-R's only and is quick (15 min for 3 hour DVD) and almost completely flawless.  The only transfer error I've found occurs if you alter the title name or any menu information on the DVD-R before you finalize it; Then it won't run on a standard DVD player, and mine is a SONY DVD player, so I doubt it's a compatibility problem.<br /><br />The editing is good, but not great.  The concerns in other reviews are overblown about the permanence of the the A-B editing. The marking of points A and B are simple and intuitive and can be adjusted to a specific frame.  I've done several hundred commercial deletions at this point and not a single unwanted deletion yet, and I am now hitting remote keys quite quickly.  The A-B editing leaves a 'tail' starting about a quarter to a half second before the 'B' mark, making precise edits tricky.  There is a processing time of 10-15 seconds for each A-B delete, so it still takes 8-12 minutes to edit a one-hour network program even when you get good at it.  The next version of the firmware should include multiple edits.  Also, you can't split a title into chapters.  What I've done, is duplicate the whole title to a DVD+RW working disk, then copy back to the hard disk (which occurs at 1x speed only) then do A-B editing on the two copies separately to create chapters: quite time consuming.<br /><br />Finally, managing all your titles on the hard disk is tedious.  I have 120 titles at LP quality and still have 50 gigabytes of space left.  There are no subdirectories for the titles so collecting all my \\"West Wing\\" titles for dubbing takes 2-3 minutes when in full-display mode.  You can speed it up by displaying only the title names, but then it's hard to tell what show it is without the thumbnails.  Then after dubbing, it doesn't remember which shows you dubbed, and you have to reselect through the exact same process to delete the titles.  It should offer a \\"delete after dubbing\\" option or leave the shows selected.  You can creatively use the title sorting by date or alphabetically to jump up or down the list more quickly.<br /><br />The final archived DVD-Rs are wonderful, including a menu selection that works on any DVD player I've tried.<br />Finally, managing all your titles on the hard disk is tedious.  I have 120 titles at LP quality and still have 50 gigabytes of space left.  There are no subdirectories for the titles so collecting all my \\"West Wing\\" titles for dubbing takes 2-3 minutes when in full-display mode.  You can speed it up by displaying only the title names, but then it's hard to tell what show it is without the thumbnails.  Then after dubbing, it doesn't remember which shows you dubbed, and you have to reselect through the exact same process to delete the titles.  It should offer a \\"delete after dubbing\\" option or leave the shows selected.  You can creatively use the title sorting by date or alphabetically to jump up or down the list more quickly. <br /> <br />The final archived DVD-Rs are wonderful, including a menu selection that works on any DVD player I've tried.