Hitachi DV-RX 7000

Author's product rating:   

Picture Playback	Excellent
Sound Level	Excellent
Ease of Use	Very Easy
Range of Features	Above Average
Value for Money	Excellent

Advantages:	Looks Good and is Very Easy to Use
Disadvantages:	Sometimes stops recording for no reason

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

We had this DVD Recorder for just over a year, and we were very cautious as to which one to go for. After much deliberation we thought we would go for the Hitachi DVD Recorder, which we bought from Argos at around £350.00.

I have always rated Hitachi very highly, and most of there stuff does ooze quality, as does this DVD recorder. We were very impressed with it. It looks real sophisicated. It is very slim and stylish and would fit almost anywhere.

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Some of its Features:

It has lots of connection points, which is always good, and can be used with scart leads, coaxial cables and rgb scart etc. Some Televisions only have maybe one scart lead socket, so if this is the case, you can always connect up via the DVD recorders coaxial cable sockets. I must add though that this does alter the quality slightly. It is always best to use Scart connections rather than the coaxials for optimal results.

The DVD Recorder as 5.1 dolby digital and DTS, which is used on playback or recording.

It also has different recording settings, so you can decide whether you want perfect quality playback or just mediocre playback, by use of its four quality settings. The setting are as follows:

XP = The best Quality, but with this you will only be able to record
up to 1 hour.

SP = Good quality recording which allows 2 hours to be recorded

LP = Is better than video quality and allows up to 4 hours recording

EP = Not very good recording, the playback is rather like video recording, which was once deemed ok, but now with us all being spoilt by Digital Viewing, we only really want to watch in this type of quality.

The DVD recorder itself is very easy to use, and has a really straight forward menu screen to work from; which allows you to record a year in advance if you wish, or rather just to record things when you choose. From the menu, you are able to view playback and edit which is really easy, albeit a little jumpy occasionally.
You can view picture in picture if you are using DVD Ram discs with this recorder, this is a great little feature.
From the menu, you can finalise discs which allows the discs to be viewed on other dvd recorders; although I must point out that the recorder would have to be -dvd to allow for this, and I will also point out that DVD ram discs can only be used on the machine that they have been recorded on. (finalised or not).

The machine has an info button which is a good feature, as it allows you to see exactly how much space you have left on the disc you are recording on.

Overall this machine is really the business, and it looks good too. It is a rarity to be able to buy a quality item that looks so stylish and works so well for that kind of price. We are more than happy with it.

The only drawback I have to mention about this machine, is that occasionally it will stop recording by itself for no apprent reason. We just think it may have very sensitive copyright protection incorporated within it.

Would highly recommend this DVD Recorder to anyone who likes something that looks cool, and does everything you want it to do!