Toshiba RD-XS34 DVD Recorder with 160-GB Hard Drive

Prepare yourself for ultimate quality, ultimate convenience: the Toshiba RD-XS34 combines a top-notch DVD player with a DVD-R/DVD-RW/DVD-RAM optical-media recorder and a hard-disk drive (HDD) recorder with a stunning 160 GB storage capacity. Whether you're watching the latest DVD movie releases in your home theater, recording your favorite TV programming, or archiving home movies and other videos to long-lasting DVD, the RD-XS34 is your ticket to world-class entertainment. And did we mention that the unit spins your homemade CDs filled with JPEG image files or MP3/WMA music tracks?
The RD-XS34's HDD lets you store around 175 hours of audio/video programming (at the lowest resolution), ample room for time shifting your viewing and keeping a fair number of "must watch soon" content at the ready. Imagine the complete contents of a fleet of VHS tapes at your fingertips--all easily accessible with no clumsy fast-forwarding or rewinding, and, potentially, in much higher resolution.

When you have programs you decide you want to keep, just offload them to DVD. Archiving is lickity-split: 32x normal speed when transferring from the HDD to a write-once DVD-R and 24x when burning to DVD-RAM. Time Slip recording/playback lets you begin watching a recording that's already in progress or "pause" a live recording and return to it later.
The RD-XS34 also offers an HDMI (High-Definition Multimedia Interface) with upconversion capability from standard 480i to high-definition 720p or 1080i--perfect for viewing your DVDs, camcorder footage, and television programs on a high-definition or HD-ready TV, now or in the future. HDMI provides a single-cable digital connection for the highest-quality interface between the DVD player and a compatible television, keeping audio and video signals digital until they reach the monitor. Other picture enhancements include 3-D digital noise reduction (DNR), mosquito DNR, and block DNR.

Front-panel inputs accommodate VCRs and camcorders, including digital camcorders through an IEEE 1394/DV input. The digital-video input even includes controls for your camcorder to simplify the process of selecting and transferring the scenes you want. Other inputs include 3 each composite- and S-video (1 each on the front panel) and an RF/antenna input on the rear panel.
For DVD recordings, you can create virtual titles on the hard drive--including menus and chapters with thumbnail images--then burn your programming to DVDs with high-quality MPEG-2 encoding (the DVD-Video standard). A convenient library function maintains an inventory of all your recorded content by disc or title so you can sort by date, time, or genre.
The RD-XS34 offers the flexibility of recording on both DVD-RAM--perfect for instant chapter access and for multiple rerecordings--as well as on DVD-R, widely regarded as the most widely compatible of the many DVD formats (great for sharing camcorder footage with loved ones). DVD-RAM offers double-sided recording (9.4 GB total storage), and the format is rewriteable, too.
Advanced timer programming lets you use the unit like you would a VCR, specifying a time and channel for recording, and built-in TV Guide On Screen interactive program guide greatly simplifies this. Significantly, this model gives you the option of recording audio in linear PCM audio--much higher resolution than the MP3-like Dolby Digital 2.0.
For playback, ColorStream Pro progressive-scan component-video outputs (switchable between 480p and standard 480i) provide great color detail and high purity when connected to compatible televisions. The unit also has standard composite- and S-video outputs, with an RF coaxial output for passing tuner signals to an external device such as a VCR (the RF output does not pass a DVD or HDD signal). Both Dolby Digital and DTS 5.1-channel surround-sound signals can be routed through the player's Toslink optical digital-audio output for direct connection to a full-featured audio/video receiver.

Test Report

RD-XS34 Is A Very Good Product / Report November 9, 2005
I think this product is unfairly rated very low by some frustrated users. Actually I could have been one of those who gave only one star, because in the begining, it did not seem to work at all. Now I have owned this machine for over a month now, and I really love it.

I did a fairly complete research before purchase, and among the comparable products from SONY, TOSHIBA, PIONEER and PANASONIC, I chose this one, and I believe I made the right choice. The negative reviews are mostly targeted on the EPG systems. But if you have problems with EPG on XS34, then possibly you will have more headaches with all other manufactures with EPG. Contradictary to what people said, it is quite easy to just use the Time Recording (like you do on VCR) with this unit. It is true that it is not an easy job to manually re-set the clock (and I think Toshiba should consider improve on this), but you do not have to manually re-set. Leave it there for 24 hours and it can pick up the right time through over-the-air broadcast (which is exactly the case I had). I guess it could only be a problem if you live in an area where you do no have any over-the-air broadcasting, in that case, you need to contact the Toshiba support for firmware upgrade.

The DVD recorder is fairly new thing in our life, and fairly complicated compared with VCRs. Most users who complain are the ones who just purchased the product and before they adapted to the new way of operating the machine. Once you become familiar with the unit, you will feel a lot happier and the more you use it, the more you like it. Each product has its strength and weekness, but comparing with the cost and overall quality (picture quality, ease of use, edit function etc), XS34 is a very solid product in my opinion.

Reasonably good / Report November 7, 2005
I recieved this unit after Toshiba was unable to fix my xs-32.
Unhappy my other unit broke but happy I was upgraded.

Anyway, I was a little frustrated getting the xs34 going but after using it for a couple of months I am happy with it.

Read the other reviews and haven't experienced many of the issues reported.

My unit got the TV Guide info on the first night. Only issue with TV Guide is the unit displays info in some bizarre fashion. I thought displaying the channels chronogically would be appropriate. That took a couple of hours to edit. TV Guide not ready for primetime but adequate.

Remote wasn't as friendly as the xs32.

All in all - a resonable unit that I would not give a big recommendation to. If price were significatly less than competing brand then I would consider.


This product is no good. TV Guide won't work and.... Report October 2, 2005
I have a cable box but TV guide never works even with an instruction from a technical service. In addition, a pay-per-view was subscribed through TV guides scanning cable channels.

Here is exactly what happened.

This happens overnight while TV guide checks all the channels. (During that time, a dvd recorder is turned off but a cable is on.) After TV guide is set up, it checks every single channel on cable, froom 1 through 999. Channel 2 after 1, 3 after 2. Based on my contract with a cable company, there are many unscribed channels. When a dvd recorder checks those
unsubscribed channels, it selects most recent subscribed channel until it reaches a next subscribed channel.

For instance, if channel 300 is subscribed but not 301 though 399, TV guide goes back to channel 300 until it reaches channel 400. So, TV guide selects channel 300 one hundred times.

If channel 300 is a pay-per-view channel, a program starts. Because a dvd recorder clicks a pay-per-view channel again and again and again and again, a program starts. When I turned on just a TV but not a dvd player last night, a pay-per-view which I DID NOT subscribe was on. That channel was 853, playboy channel. Because TV guide has a problem, I repeated a set-up several times. Whenever a set-up is done, TV guides repeasts a channel check and an issue of a pay-per-view program happens.

I complained to Toshiba but they don't ever addimit the product's flaw. They won't ever reimburse me pay-per-view chages which I have never subscribed.

This product and a customer service is more than terrible.



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