Hi I am looking to get a DVD/HDD recorder for around £300. I have seen the new Toshiba RD-XS34 advertised, what I want to know is can you record on HDD and watch a DVD and vice versa. The reason I ask is I was looking at the Lite-On 5045 and I know that this cannot. Any other DVD/HDD you can recommend at around £300? I would really love a one with a EPG built in as per Philips but they are too expensive at the moment. What is the Toshiba like for programming to record a TV show? i will be using it with my telewest cable STB. What is the "easy nav" thing like on the Tosh? thanks Andy
Hi, I have just bought the RD-XS34SB (£330 in Costco). Yes, you can watch a DVD whilst recording a channel. Programming is easy, I am at a disadvantage as I've been using a panasonic and just gone to a Toshiba, so I'm going through a big learning curve at the moment. However the Tosh is a very poweful machine. I have a question too if anyone can answer it. If I am playing back a hard disk pre-recording and I want to record a little segment onto DVD, is there a way of doing it without have to go through the create chapter routine ? Cheers
Thanks for that, whats it like overall? This will be my first DVD recorder. 1)> Do you use the IR control thing? I have a Telewest STB and understand that I will need a red-eye to convert the signals? 2)> Is it easy to programme TV recordings? or will a EPG be better? 3)> What is the easy-Nav really like? I know the blurb says easy to use..etc.. but what is it really like to use? 4)> Also does it allow bookmarking of titles recorded on DVDs, so that when you reinsert a previously recorded DVD it knows what it it is? 5)> Can you copy from DVD to HDD also (on non protected disks, ie my own) 6)> Is firmware ever released for DVD recorders, I know other manufacturers do so (eg Philips) to fix bugs etc done so on a CD that you make. Thanks again , and hope to order today (I live in UK also and can see it for about £310 delivered) a few more questions if I may as talking to Toshiba is different to a "real" user please 7)> If i have a recorded show on HDD, is it easy to cut out the adverts and then goto DVD for using in my DVD player upstairs? 8)> Also does it have a "fit to disk" from the HDD to DVD so movies recoreded in too good quality will still be able to be re-encoded to allow to fit onto a DVD disk? 9)> What kind of balnks work? RW ones as I want to re-record over. Thanks a bunch Andy
I am not THAT technically minded, but will try to answer the best I can 1)> Do you use the IR control thing? I have a Telewest STB and understand that I will need a red-eye to convert the signals? I have a sky+ box, I simply run everything through the AU channel and it picks up fine/ 2)> Is it easy to programme TV recordings? or will a EPG be better? Yep dead easy. you can "instant record" or set the timer which is very easy to use. I've only had my box for 5 days so am still trying to get to grips with it, but if you dont have an analogue aerial then you can only record the channel you are watching....I could be wrong on this though.... 3)> What is the easy-Nav really like? I know the blurb says easy to use..etc.. but what is it really like to use? Compared to my old panasonic E55, its not as easy, however once you get used to it, its not too bad. Theres no consistancy on the colour buttons, for instance, in one menu, blue will be save, in another it will be yellow but there are instructions on screen. 4)> Also does it allow bookmarking of titles recorded on DVDs, so that when you reinsert a previously recorded DVD it knows what it it is? You can bookmark recordings made to the HDD and also edit the program (cutting out commercials etc) and you can also bookmark DVD's that are not finalised. 5)> Can you copy from DVD to HDD also (on non protected disks, ie my own) Yes. 6)> Is firmware ever released for DVD recorders, I know other manufacturers do so (eg Philips) to fix bugs etc done so on a CD that you make. Thanks again , and hope to order today (I live in UK also and can see it for about £310 delivered) Not sure on this. Where did you buy it from ? a few more questions if I may as talking to Toshiba is different to a "real" user please 7)> If i have a recorded show on HDD, is it easy to cut out the adverts and then goto DVD for using in my DVD player upstairs? Yes, you can create chapters and edit out the ones you dont want. To play on another DVD player you will need to finalise the disk. Once this has been done, you cant write anymore to that DVD. With my old recorder (which didn't have HDD), I could pause recording on the DVD and fastforward the sky+ box though the commercials and then unpause the DVD recording. This is something I am trying to work out for the HDD. I.e. if I am watching a HDD recording, I want to record just a small part on to DVD without having to edit the programe - on the fly recording if you like....if you work it out let me know. 8)> Also does it have a "fit to disk" from the HDD to DVD so movies recoreded in too good quality will still be able to be re-encoded to allow to fit onto a DVD disk? Yes, it will adjust the Bitrate automatically so if you find that you have a 2.5 hour film for a 2 hour disk it will do its business. 9)> What kind of balnks work? RW ones as I want to re-record over. DVD-R DVD-RW and DVD-RAM
thanks so much for your time dnxdy, I phoned today but they were out of stock, back in on Monday they said. re question 9) what I meant to say was what brands work best sorry. What I want to do is record shows straight from TV or copied from the XS34 HDD to DVD. The best will be DVD-RW I think so what brands are best? So you could fit more than 1 TV show on a DVD at a lower quality? Also will the recorded DVD be ok for editing on my PC? ie will it be a "normal" DVD, as I want to be able to shrink it/re-encode it for playback on my PocketPC iPAQ? Toshiba emailed back and said "Dear Andy, Thank you for your recent enquiry. Please find the information that you requested as follows: The RDXS34 is exactly the same as the RDXS32 but with a bigger hard drive. You can record a program onto the HDD and watch a DVD at the same time. The unit does not allow bookmarking so you cant re-insert a dvd and carry on watching it. You can record from DVD to HDD as long as the disk is not copy protected. Firmware is generally not released for DVD players unless there is a major manufacturing fault"
Also did you get a CD-ROM with it with the manuals on? I can only find for download 1/2 of the user manual at the Toshiba site? If so I will give you my email address if thats ok for you to send a copy. Cheers Andy
Who did you email at toshiba cos I want to put my question to them. If you live in the UK, you can buy media at www.ukdvdr.com. I only buy DVD-R's and they are fine. I'm not one for low quality recordings, after all the whole point of DVD is to get good quality, but yes you can lower the compression rate to fit more onto a DVD - how much I'm not sure. I generally use Datawrites as the quality is pretty good, I'm sure the cheaper ones are OK, but for me, I dont want to take the risk. Ideally you are looking for Ritek Dye on the disks. If you are going to edit the finalised DVD on your PC, I would not opt for anything less than 4.6bitrate but as I say, I've not lowered the resolution to test this. Give it a try..... I forgot to add that on the RD-XS34SB, you can high-speed dub, a HDD recording onto DVD, which is a fantastically nice feature....so instead of recording to DVD in real-time, you can speed up the process, I'm going to test this tomorrow so will let you know.
dnxdy, you have a private message. What I want to do is not waste DVD-Rs as I will basically be watching recorded TV stuff, although I will want to keep some stuff and yes will goto DVD-R. However even then what I normally do is encode to DivX for smaller sizes and so my primary use will be DVD-RW if I can get it to play on my other set-top DVD players. Andy
did you manage to get a reply from Toshiba mate? regarding your issue? Did you try the high speed dub? did it work ok? I came home late from work so didnt manage to order it. Is it very noisy ? have you found anything more now you've had it a bit? can you explain a bit more about the editing out of adverts please, you have to make chapters you mention, how is this done? does it mean you have to manually watch all the program and mark in/out the points where the adverts are? cheers again Andy
did you manage to get a reply from Toshiba mate? regarding your issue? Did you try the high speed dub? did it work ok? I came home late from work so didnt manage to order it. Yep, high-speed dub is a dream....works perfectly, I can burn a film to dvd in about 6 or so minutes.... Is it very noisy ? Nosier than my panasonic, but then again my panasonic was a quiet little beast.... have you found anything more now you've had it a bit? Not really had time to play around with it to be honest, but will keep you updated can you explain a bit more about the editing out of adverts please, you have to make chapters you mention, how is this done? does it mean you have to manually watch all the program and mark in/out the points where the adverts are? Ok, yes, you do have to manually edit out the adverts, but you can fast forward through the program to the next edit point and then simply press the enter button to create a new chapter....piss easy. Haven't sent the email to Tosh yet, as I say I haven't had much time.... cheers again
Any news on email from Toshiba? Still waiting to get one!! Have you tried recording on DVD-RW and playing it on another set-top DVD player yet? whats it like? does it work ok?
what options are there for recodrding on DVD and HDD re bitrate? whats the acceptable level to watch? what rate? or do you record everything in the top bit rate setting? Any more gossip on the Toshiba? cheers
With regards to Bitrate, you can choose your own, the machine defaults to 4.6 which is fine. Obviously the higher the bitrate the less amount of hours you can record onto the HDD. I think the max is 9.2 which gives you around 50 horus or so, at 4.6 (std) you get about 70 hours, which is plenty.... If you have recorded a film that is, say 2 hours and 20 mins, and you want to back this up onto DVD, the machine has a function whereby it compresses the film to fit onto a 2 hour DVD (you can obviously go to LP mode and easily get the film on, but I suspect the loss of quality would be much more pronounced) I still haven't emailed Tosh about my prob, but to be honest, its a small bug bear that I can live with. Last night I recorded Solaris from Sky (using the timer-record function). Woke up this morning, it had recorded perfectly, did a high speed dub onto a DVD-R (took 6 mins), then finalised the disk (another 5 mins), dead easy.
I should point out that for ease of use I would opt for a SKY+ box (which I have and run alongside the tosh) but obviously the SKY+ back doesnt have the facility to backup onto DVD unless you are using a third-party applicance, i.e. a dvd-recorder. This is why I bought the TOSH, I didn't really need a another Hard drive as the SKY+ box was sufficent, however I wanted to back up the films onto DVD. If you opted for the SKY+ box, you could of course connect the box to your PC via a TV card and use your DVD-Burner.....
so when you want to keep a film, you use the tosh to record to its HDD, and then dub to the DVD on the Tosh. if you just want to watch something and delete it, you use sky?
so when you want to keep a film, you use the tosh to record to its HDD, and then dub to the DVD on the Tosh. if you just want to watch something and delete it, you use sky? Yep. Pretty much it.
Hi Mate Just to let you know I got my Tosh XS34 today!! wow what a lovely bit of kit, your right about the manuals!! seems loads and loads to learn. havent managed to connect it up yet tho. managed to get it for £300 inc a scart and 25 DVD-Rs. Can you watch a program on HDD as well as recoding to HDD? What else you found out? any hints etc? In the shop I bougt it from it was made region free by him putting in a disk and doing something? not sure what he did but apparantly mine is region free as well, is there a hack for this?
