Daewoo DSD9503TFPB - 160GB Freeview Recorder With Twin Tuner & Freeview Playback - Black

I purchased this from Amazon , received in June, great price and specs, 2 channel, series recording etc., easy to set up works like a dream up to a point. The point was reached after it was in use for 2 months. The Daewoo did freeze occasionally at first, a small niggle, but recently the freezes have gone into overdrive I'm having to switch off and on more and more often today so far at least 6 times I would love to give this a 5 star review and if it worked properly it would get one. I am contacting Amazon about a replacement and if it works properly I will give a new review Daewoo DSD9503TFPB - 160GB Freeview Recorder With Twin Tuner & Freeview Playback - Black]]
UPDATE
engineer out and changed capacitor, new digital ariel fitted, now machine works a lot better, still has occasional glitches i.e. not recording, freezing but is now liveable with. All in all a good buy, but could be better.

You may be puzzled why some people in the review area ' love it ' while others ' hate it '

I am a retired University Lecturer in Computer Science and I repair all my friends Computers so I know exactly how these machines work.

Its all down to the Firmware and many people who hate it I suspect have the older Firmware .

I bought a Daewoo DSD9503TFPB and it has the latest version which is ' 3.2 '

I live in London and have a strong signal from Crystal Palace.

Its a far thinner unit than I was expecting - which allows me to give it enough airspace without having to rearrange all my other machines.

Note a lot of problems can be traced back to units not having enough airspace - the DSD9503TFPB does not have a Fan on the Hard Drive and with the correct airspace it does not need it and it runs cool and very very quiet.

The picture quality is ' Outstanding ' and it was so easy to use that I bought a second one.

Believe me you cant tell if its a recording or a direct Broadcast { its that Good }

The biggest advantage is being able to record a whole Channel { or two } and then delete what you don't want. While playing its possible to speed it up to * 24 times so you can whiz though a lot in a short period of time.

Pro's and Con's

It does have a few quirks -

{ quirk 1 } the remote control is very cramped so its not a R/C that you can use in the dark although you will soon get used to it

{ quirk 2 } With PIP on it cant handle widescreen Auto but switching to nonauto widescreen sorts it out.

{ quirk 3 } if you are recording One Freeview source PIP does not work when in fact there is no reason for PIP not to work.

Good Points

{ 1 } So far the Hard disk is silent { and running very Cool } - it does not spin up until I record or play back something { and even then you cant hear it } and the Recording quality is excellent.{ you could never tell it was a Recording { its equivalent to 15 MB's to 20 MB's per second so very high quality }

To give you a Comparison if you buy a DVD lets say the new WALL-E DVD the average will be around 7 MB's { it may vary between 5 and 10 MB's } so the Daewoo is double the quality of a DVD - no wonder they have such a great picture.

{ 2 } now as far as I am aware only the BBC and Channel Four has this function - its a digital PDC { Programme Delivery Control } so lets say something should start at 8 pm it can detect if the program is running late or early so you never miss anything - also it has a ' offset ' so on the other channels it will start early and end late by a few minuets { unless two program times clash of course }

{ 3 } its possible to move the PIP area ' left-right-top-bottom '

{ 4 } The front panel displays the Channel number its tuned to - very handy when you have as many Freeview sources as I do .

{ 5 } Timer and Record very easy to set - its all just clicking on the EPG so there is no actual times being typed in.

{ 6 } When playing a Recording PIP still works { not all units allow this }

{ 7 } when you are recording two Freeview Channels its possible to play a past recording ' at the same time '

{ 8 } It uses ' Chase play ' - lets say you have set newsnight to be recorded but you arrive back before it ends - While its still being record you can press play and watch the start { but it will still keep on recording the whole program }

{ 9 } A very big Plus point - the Recording store lists recordings by Program name { and time/date } and they are easy to play or delete + it stores the EPG info as well so even if its something you recorded a year ago - there is still the EPG entry to view.

{ 10 } it can accept a larger Hard Drive as it has the software on a chip so bang in a bigger drive and it will format correctly .

Look out for a Seagate® DB35 Series 3 Ultra ATA/100 320GB ST3320820ACE that are specifically made for PVR's so for £50 you will double the capacity.

Be Warned you cant fit a normal Computer hard drive as they are not designed to work with PVR's you will end up with loads of problems - stick to a Seagate® DB35 Series 3 { note only consider doing this ' if you know exactly what you are doing ' + you will invalidate your guarantee so don't try if you are not 100 % confident }

They work well for a few months and then they become unreliable, developing a firmware fault that gives the message `disc being initialised'.
I reported this fault after ten months and was `fobbed off' with advice to format the hard drive. It is now thirteen months old and is unusable even as a set top box, as it stalls and randomly selects programmes when it then reboots.
It's unfortunate, as I have had some very good Dawoo products in the past but I won't be buying anything from them again.
Don't take my word for it, Google "Dawoo PVR faults" and you will find that I am just one of thousands who have been disappointed with this product.