Poor EPG on SONY RDR HXD970

[Orion3]

Has anyone any idea why the Freeview EPG on the RDR-HXD970 is so poor?

I have three other bits of SONY kit that have Freeview EPG’s, a Bravia 46X3500 (simply awesome!) a VTX-D800U Freeview Box, (reputed to be the best standalone Freeview box ever made precisely because of its program guide... see what they go for on eBay if you don’t believe me!) and the quite superb RDR-HXD910 (a two year old predecessor to the RDR-HXD970), none of which thank goodness have Freeview EPG’s that look anything like the RDR HXD970.

The EPG on the Bravia TV really shows up the HXD970, it is clear, defined and intuitive and looks every bit as good as you would expect from SONY, a natural progression from RDR-HXD910 and VTX-D800. The HXD970’s EPG apart from looking cheap has several annoying small failings. It only fills about half the TV screen when displayed on my Sony Bravia and it only shows a time line of an hour and a half for each channel. Neither does it scale to display complete channel names.

The worst part however is when it comes to setting the machine to record using the Freeview EPG. Once it has started recording it would appear to be totally impossible to set further programs to record or even just look at the EPG! I know the machine has only one tuner and don’t expect to be able to ‘watch’ another channel while it records, but the facility to set the EPG for further programmes while it records can’t be rocket science as this presents absolutely no problem whatsoever for the RDR-HXD910 which is a one tuner machine also. Can anyone explain how a two year old machine can do something that the very latest model can’t? I have even tried updating to the latest firmware which has just been released but it makes no difference.

I’ve bought Sony kit for the last 25 years precisely because in general it does exactly what it says on the tin and up to now I’ve not been disappointed. Yes the HXD970 probably is cutting edge in many ways (1080p upscaleing etc) and yes it probably does more that the older model I have (photos & mp3 recording) and yes the picture quality is fantastic, but for it to fall down on such basics is frankly pathetic and very very annoying.

Surely it can’t be beyond Sony to do another firmware update to correct these stupid problems so the HXD970 can be as good as HXD910 was when it came out over two years ago or should I sell it all on ebay and buy Panasonic in future?

[MuksC]

my Panasonic DMR EX87 (and the EX77) are the same, you can't use the EPG while it's recording. you can set a manual timer recording though.

it's an annoying niggle but not the end of the world. does the Sony not even allow you to set a manual timer recording?

[marty2005]

Because it is not Sony's own firmware. The same firmware is in the Pioneer. Looks like they sourced it.

It is bland looking.

Hopefully the next Sony dvd recorders will have xmb like they do in Japan.

Yeah, you can do manual recordings.