Samsung DVD-HR734 (160 GB) DVD Recorder / HDD Recorder

Well where can I begin....This is quite an example of Japanese technology. One of the most easy to use and straight forward DVD/HDD Recorders at this price range. When these Recorders came onto the market the were bundled with 42 inch LCD TVs and made a great accompaniment to that unit. The Series 5 TV's had the sharp resolution to have buyers jumping at the quality of recordings. It features 4 modes of general record to HDD. This can make a recording time of an amazing 272 hours. OK I admit at the Longest play time and lowest quality the picture suffers with pix-elation and a small amount of breaking up of the frames but the audio is still very sharp and clean. It would certainly make any VHS look substandard. If your not fussed by Super High Definition quality then this Recorder is for you. Compared to my SKY + receiver the playback on the Highest Quality is virtually the same give or take a bit of definition to colours. The modes are XP, SP, EP and LP for the 4 recording modes. From 80 to 272 hours possible HDD recording time. The DVD recording also surpasses its competition with 8 hours Long Play recordings. Again at this long level the picture suffers but audio is still very sharp with no Wow or flutter. The DVD has managed to do what the disk manufacturers seem to say it cant. As I was recording onto TDK DVD-R disks that say the max recording time is 6 hours where the dvd recording with the Samsung has 8 hours 9 minutes. I set up my SKY+ box to copy my recording to the DVD recorder and wet to bed only to wake up in the morning to find the SKY+ box asking for a PIN number to one of my recording so I had 6 hours of a on scree message requesting a pin, but the disk still had 8 hours recorded. The One Touch Record feature is great as you can just start the recorder to record to HDD and then press the record button 2 times to make the record for 1 hour in increments of 30 minutes. Other features like commercial skip and Divx playback make it also great for DIVX VOD Video On Demand recordings. Its quite easy to goto http://www.Divx.com/VOD and just enter the DivX code that is on the setup menu of the recorder and then download the activation video to release the DivX VOD features. Also very handy for putting compressed movies or trilogies onto a DVD and playing back without swapping disks. I had recorded about 12 episodes of Sponge Bob Square Pants from Sat TV and then transferred them to DVD in DivX format for my brothers son so it keeps him occupied and as a 6 year old he can operate the next episode button like any person could its that simple. Also has a schedule menus for timed recordings usual features like Dolby Digital out to surround with Component RGB out too. Comes with Multiple inputs to hook up Camcorders to a 1394ab firewire port at the front under a flap, 2 scart sockets 1 input and 1 output. An S video output along with 2 RCA jacks for audio out to stereo. A coaxial Digital out and a TOS link optical audio out too. Nice display with a Blue LED behind the on/off button with a soothing green behind the HDD and DVD select buttons. The setup and PVR menu are quite straight forward. Also has a good power saving feature as the HDD spins down after approx 10 minutes. Can be a bit slow to spin up perhaps 10 seconds before the tally counter begins to show recording but its acceptable.
At this time I have not discovered how to Record programs from the HDD to the DVD recorder but I'm sure is possible. Enjoy New £129.99 S/H about