Sony Rdr HXD710 Dvd Hdd Recorder

I have two of these. The first has given me great service for the two years since purchase - well used too. However the second 710 (purchased because of favourable impression with first 710) started giving trouble a year after purchase. Frequent crashes required reset/reboot (hold power on button for 10 secs) but this morning after 18 months light use it finally gave up the ghost. NOT IMPRESSED WITH POOR RELIABILITY. As other reviewers said, great when it works. SONY Quality is NOT what it used to be.

When I first got one I was thouroghly impressed with it. Sadly after six months, I started to find it increasingly "buggy". It frequently crashes, typically failing to respond the the controls, appearing to record a program, but not being able to play it back, or just simply locking out. The solution each time has been to hold the power off button down for 10-15 seconds which seems to cause a hard reset. Another problem is with the chanel menu. If I look at what is on, it frequently has no details whereas the Sony DVB box which is downstream in the rf line can show details of what is on. The menu on the DVB is also a lot more ergonomic. I have also had the machine spontaneously format the hard drive, losing all my recordings. I have had ''software update'' enabled since the machine was first plugged in, and have received only one update, which if anything, seemed to make matters worse. They know there is a problem, but are not sorting it. I used to regard Sony as a mark of quality, but not now. Final verdict - it will be good when (if) it is finished. I wasted only £500 finding that out.

Although I use it a lot and it is now fairly old . . . . I have had problems with it since new. The problems were small enough o begin with that I did not think it worthwhile to return it under warranty. BIG mistake. Now the timing is all over the place ( Clips recorded programmes) and it keeps crashing and NOT recording anything at all. I am NOT a happy SONY customer and will not be buying another. Panansonic here I come. I do not recommend SONY PVRs.

I have asked the site administrator ( twice ) to correct my overall rating which should show five stars. Actually, I wish I could give ten stars for this machine !

Great machine that has totally transformed how we watch TV. Now we watch very little live TV - we just record the week's programmes and watch them when we feel like it, skipping the adverts. The quality of the live TV and recordings is excellent.

I cannot add anything to the other reviews on this site. I researched the market very carefully before buying the machine and I haven''t been disappointed. A couple of less-than-obvious points: 1. The tuner seems to cope much better with signal noise (the bugbear of Freeview) much better than the tuner integrated in my TV set, also a Sony. The result: Very little digital mosaic noise or loss of picture. 2. As with all HDD recoders, the unit has a cooling fan. So far, this has been virtually silent and much quieter than my old JVC VCR. If you have a half-reasonable FreeView signal, you can''t go wrong.

I have now had this box for a couple of months and from the word go it has been excellent. The set up was simple and just worked first time. Using the 8 day epg I was able to leave the box over Christmas and came back to a huge set of perfect recordings. Topping and tailing the films is easy to remove adds at the start and finish,then the transfer to DVD could not be easier. I never miss a programme I want anymore and never need to watch anything because there is nothing better - there''s always something better on the hard disk. I was so impressed I bought a second machine for my mum because it was so much better than her tedious video. She''s also very impressed - new technology does not always come easy to some of the older generation. Time to throw away the tapes forever! Expensive but worth it...

What a superb piece of kit. I spent ages deciding which DVD/HDD recorder to buy and am certain I couldn't do better. It is SO easy to use - even my wife can use it! Having the integral Freeview box makes it extra-easy. As well as watching something that's still recording, you can watch something you've recorded already while you're recording something else. Dubbing to DVD is easy. Quality is A1. No more arguments about which tape is free or frantically trying to find where the last recording ended... Trying not to over-enthuse, but very difficult! This has been a life-changing purchase! The Comet price below is NOT the "lowest UK price". I bought from Superfi at £419.95, but they're currently awaiting stock - I'm not surprised!

After two months getting to know this machine the whole family thinks it is absolutely brilliant. Programming is a breeze using the 8 day EPG menu which takes care of any changes to scheduled broadcast times. Picture quality is fantastic on a 32 inch screen at ‘Standard’ mode, I cannot imagine why the ‘HQ’ mode would be needed unless your television screen is the size of Berkshire. 50 hours recording capacity at 'Standard' quality on the HDD is huge, and you can watch a programme already recorded on the hard drive while simultaneously recording another one which is a very neat trick ( and allows you to ‘pause’ live TV ). Assuming that the long term reliability is OK I think Sony have really cracked it with this machine.