DVD recorders with bonus features

Round-up reviews let you compare four related products and find out which one is best for you

Round-up by: Guy Cocker

Last updated: 14 May 2005

Last year it was all about DVD recorders, this year the more advanced hard drive combis are winning favour. These units will change the way you watch television -- the hard drives are scratch discs to which live television is recorded, so you can pause or rewind at any time. You can also record everything in high quality and downsample to DVD for keeps -- all handled by the units themselves.

Toshiba's RD-XS34 is the machine of choice for recording fans. Its interface is easy to use, the recording options are plentiful to the point of being extreme, and its AV performance is second to none. And this is all while staying under £300 online. A bargain, we say!

The older kids on the block are the Pioneer DVR-520H and Philips' HDRW720. Of the two, Pioneer's box is better designed -- its editing features are as good as ever and the AV performance is pure gold. The Philips HDRW720 is decent enough, but it's limited by the fact that DVD recording can only be made from hard drive footage, as opposed to on the fly.

Lastly, the JVC DR-MV1 offers DVD and VCR Recording in one, which will be very attractive to the many people out there still with piles of tapes. However, it's let down by some poor implementation from JVC.

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	Toshiba RD-XS34	Pioneer DVR-520H	Philips HDRW720	JVC DR-MV1
Review date	14 May 05	7 Feb 05	13 Jan 05	2 Mar 05
Editors' rating	8.3	7.0	5.4	4.7
Price range	£300	£300	£380	£280
Review summary	Toshiba's previous model, the RD-XS32, set the template for the combined DVD/HDD recorder. Now, with a bigger hard drive and enhanced editing facilities, the RD-XS34 is the power user's recorder of choice. If it had Freeview integrated into the box it would be approaching perfection, but the hard drive size, ease of editing/recording, and image quality mean this should be at the centre of your AV setup Read full review	Although it lacks a programming guide like that of its TiVo-powered rivals, Pioneer's slim, beginner-friendly DVR-DVD combo boasts some thoughtful features Read full review	Saddled with a crippled electronic programming guide and hard-to-browse menus, Philips's new DVR-DVD recorder is more trouble than it's worth Read full review	JVC's promising but confounding VCR/DVD combo recorder is saddled with too many quirks Read full review
User rating				1.0
Product type	DVD/hard drive recorder	DVD/hard drive recorder	DVD/hard drive recorder	DVD recorder
Playable media	MP3, WMA, JPEG, CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD-RAM	MP3, WMA, JPEG, CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-R, DVD-RW	MP3, JPEG, CD-R, CD-RW, DVD+R, DVD+RW, DVD-R, DVD-RW	MP3, JPEG, CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD-RAM
Recordable media	DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD-RAM	DVD-R, DVD-RW	DVD+R, DVD+RW	DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD-RAM
Hard drive size	160 GB	80 GB	80 GB	n/a
Freeview tuners	1	n/a	n/a	n/a
RGB Scart	1 input, 1 output	1 input, 1 output	1 input, 1 output	1 output
Component	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
DVI	No	No	No	No
HDMI	No	No	No	No
Scart	n/a	n/a	n/a	1 input
	Full specification	Full specification	Full specification	Full specification