Intended to buy Sony RDR-HX900 but it has been discontinued?

T

TJF

Guest
Hi,

For the past few months I've been trying to pull together an entirely new home entertainment system through my new NEC 61XR3 61" Plasma.

Now, I've been looking for a DVD Recorder for quite some time and finally decided on the Sony RDR-HX900, but upon contacting a few stores they informed me that it had been discontinued and will be replaced by a new model in Q4 of this year.

Now, I don't really want to wait that long (unless it's worth waiting for??? Anyone know what the new model is?), so I'd be really grateful for any suggestions any of you may have.

I'll tell you why I liked the Sony RDR-HX900:

- Large HDD (160gb)
- Region free out of the box
- Support for a large range of recordable media; DVD-R and DVD+R
- The ability to automatically create chapters, menus and thumbnails for backed up recordings on DVD+-R.
- Different recording modes such as Ultra HQ, HQ, EP, LP, SP, etc...

Any suggestions for good (and recently released) alternatives would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks!
 
You may want to consider the new Sony 710/910 models. These models will not be released in the UK till Q4. The UK versions of these machines will apparently have a freeview tuner. The only difference between the two models appears to be the larger HDD of the 910 - 250Gb vs 160Gb for the 710.

You can already buy what I think are European spec versions of these machines from here - note that these machines have an analogue not a freeview tuner:
http://www.pixmania.co.uk/uk/uk/tv-video/dvd-player-recorder/50/3/categorie.html
 
In Bulgaria the new models 710/910 will be at the store in ten days.
They can record on DL DVD+R.
 
TJF said:
Hi,

For the past few months I've been trying to pull together an entirely new home entertainment system through my new NEC 61XR3 61" Plasma.

Now, I've been looking for a DVD Recorder for quite some time and finally decided on the Sony RDR-HX900, but upon contacting a few stores they informed me that it had been discontinued and will be replaced by a new model in Q4 of this year.

Now, I don't really want to wait that long (unless it's worth waiting for??? Anyone know what the new model is?), so I'd be really grateful for any suggestions any of you may have.

I'll tell you why I liked the Sony RDR-HX900:

- Large HDD (160gb)
- Region free out of the box
- Support for a large range of recordable media; DVD-R and DVD+R
- The ability to automatically create chapters, menus and thumbnails for backed up recordings on DVD+-R.
- Different recording modes such as Ultra HQ, HQ, EP, LP, SP, etc...

Any suggestions for good (and recently released) alternatives would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks!
Most makes do a large HDD.But 80Gb should be enough.No Sony recorders are multiregion out of the box unless they are modified by the dealer you buy from ,who can modifiy any make.Support for - and + is a red herring.You don't need both.
Pioneer recorders offer a genuine disc cloning feature that replicates any dvd with same menus chapters etc.
And Pioneer and Panasonic also have variable recording modes,both offer a flexible recording mode for exact time recording.
The Sony also lacked a DIVIDE feature on its HDD,which made its large capacity next to useless.
The Panny EH50 would do you perfectly
 
It may be worth noting that many of the failings of the Sony 900 seem to have been addressed in the new 510/710/910 models. For example:
(1) "- and + is a red herring" - true but it is worth noting that the Sony is the only DVD recorder that supports dual layer +R (8.5Gb per disk)
(2) Dividing titles is now possible
(3) Lack of flexible record - still true however the Sony is more flexible than it used to be as it now supports 9 different recording quality levels. Previously anything over 2hrs per disk had to be recorded in lower res 4 hour mode. Now there are separate modes for 2, 2.5, 3 and 4 hours per single layer disk. (Still, this is not as useful as true flexible recording.)

Also for me 80Gb would seem a little small. If you want best possible recording quality (HQ+) then 80Gb only gives about 10 hours.
 

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