Sony RDR-HXD710 DVD Recorder with 160 GB Hard Drive and Freeview

Setup was incredibly easy, picture quality is stunning. I only had a set-top aerial with an amplifier and expected to be ordering a new roof aerial, but it found 70 stations. Picture quality appears to be better than our NTL cable connection.

I haven't used any of the editing functions yet, but dubbing onto DVD from hard disc is pretty easy, and works fine. I've only used SP quality (there are two higher levels) which looks as good as broadcast to me. You can dub an hour at SP in 5 mins, though you need to allow a couple of minutes each for formatting and finalising the disc - the latter if you are going to play in another machine.

In conclusion, this machine exceeded our expectations and has in a small way changed our lives. It is so easy to capture the programmes we like that the only challenge is finding enough time to watch them.

The solution was this machine. I looked for some time, but nothing had the spec I needed. This has! A large hard drive, DVD recorder multiformat, Freeviews, time slip recording, easy programming.

No more tapes. Just bring up the programme guide on screen, select a programmes and press OK, TIMER. Thats it. The 7 day guide means that I can set a weeks recording in a few minutes.

To list what you have recorded, just bring up the title list. You can view the recordings alphabetically or by date recorded. New recordings have the word NEW by them, quickly showing titles not yet watched. The large hard drive means that you can keep the recordings for a while before either deleting them or burning them on to a DVD to keep or share.

A great feature is being able to watch a previus recording or a DVD whilst recording a new programme.

My only slight niggle is that when you switch it on it takes several seconds before you can do anything.

This aside, the best piece of kit I have purchased.

The menu system is childs play and the list of programmes recorded are listed chronologically each with the name of the programme, the date and time it was recorded, how much space it takes on the disc and a thumbnail picture as well.

Sony provide a number of differnet recoding qualities with the best ones undetectable from the original broadcasts. The 8 day electronic programme guide makes set-up so simple even my better half can do it (and find the recordings to watch again too). Simply scroll through the programme listings over the next 8 days and click enter when you find the programme you want to record - job done.

Pause TV and chase playback are brillinat too. Recorded programmes can easily be dubbed to DVD if required. The DVD uses exactly the same menu system as the HDD.

If I had to suggest any improvemnets then an bigger hard drive would be great (but then there's the 910) and a second digital tuner so that you could watch one channel and record another (but our old freeview box lets us do that).

All in all an excellent unit that we now wonder how we previously manged without before.