Toshiba RD-SX32?

[quasar1963]

Anyone in the UK with the toshiba RD-XS30 have any comments about this model? It is about to be released here in the States as model RD-SX32:
http://www3.toshiba.co.jp/dvd/e/lineup/hdd/index.html
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?id=1074788111642&skuId=6304135&type=product&pr...cat13900050019

[Justin42]

My dad just picked one of these up (he must be one of the first in the US with it) over the weekend and I spent some time with him setting it up and playing with it-- it's very nice so far, very slick. *Gorgeous* recording quality in 2hr SP mode. We did a few tests yesterday with both Hi8 home movies, and some stuff off DirecTV. Very fast DVD creation, it's a 4X DVD-R drive, so it flies getting stuff off the HD. Has a ton of different options, bit rates, Dolby Digital or PCM sound selection, etc. Lots of tweaking ability. Very easy chapter and menu creation, although "typing" in titles with the remote takes a bit of getting used to. The finished product looks very professional and works very well on all the DVD players we tried, except for media compatibility (See below about DVD burning speed issues)...

On the downside, the interface is a bit clunky (although I have no experience with other set top DVD recorders, it may be in line with them; it's not BAD, its just a bit overwhelming at first). There are so many options it's kind of confusing at first where to go to set which options, and the manual unfortunately reads like a Bablefish translation of a Japanese manual. I had to kind of skim it to get the general idea of how to do something and then just dive in myself.

We did have a problem with it, that since it always seems to burn as fast as the media supports (4X to 4X media; 2X to 2X media), you may have compatibility issues with marginal media. I haven't found a way yet to slow down the burn speed, but there may be a way to use its bitrate conversion mode to force a 1X burn. (record to HD at 8-10mbit, then convert to 4-5mbit when burning to DVD; it may force the burn to slow down)

With all that said, it's a great unit for tweakers and people who want a ton of features (which usually goes against a perfect interface). You can do a lot of great bitrate/sound rate adjustments to pick optimum quality. I think it's a great start that if Toshiba would release a firmware update to fix a couple minor issues (setting DVD burn speed, maybe fix some of the English translations in the menus), it would be a perfect set top DVD recorder...

I will more than likely pick one of these up myself if I can find another unit quickly! (Best Buy is running a 2 years financing deal this week....)

[royeiror]

Hi everyone:
I just got this model too, it seems like its just been released to the american market my unit was manufactures on march. so anyway, i live in mexico which is region 4 on the dvd standards, and this unit is region 1 one thing i want to fix, but since its just arrived i think i will need to wait a bit. Other thing is i noticed a firewire connector on it, so i figure there is a way to extract and upload data to the device, the thing is it asks for some driver which i couldnt seem to get som ac/v subunit thing. also my first burn on verbatim dvd-r disks was a coaster, whis by the way is bad news if it keeps showing up.

To sum it up it is a great unit, a bit complicated to get used to it, and the problem with the flip open control isnt the best, but i do hope that a lot of people hop on the dvd-r standalone recorders bandwagon, and we get, all the benefits of the firmware hacking and all of it, because hey, tivos shouldn't get all the fun.

So anyone else that has this unit, and know some tricks with it please share.

Rodrigo

[Gryphon771]

Greetings,

I purchased the Toshiba RD-SX32 last week and I have gotten to play regular commerical DVDs.

But now I'm ready to start recording my stored TiVo Series 2 programs over onto DVD-Rs. I'm having no luck in doing so. As far I can tell it's hooked up correctly, but I still don't get anything. All my other componets work just fine (dual deck VCR, LD/DVD/CD combo player, receiver, TiVo Series 2, digital cable box, TV, and multi-CD player). Btw, this is my first non-computer DVDR.

Does anyone have any insight they could share with me?

K