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| Brand: Toshiba
Category: CE
This item is no longer available
Rating:  20 reviews
Sales Rank: 21459
Media: Electronics
Shipping Weight (lbs): 16.8
Dimensions (in): 22.3 x 19.1 x 8.2
MPN: RDXV47
Model: RDXV47
EAN: 5017151616115
ASIN: B000OA051K
Release Date: March 8, 2007
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 6-10 of 20
 Great for DVD/HDD/TV ... rubbish for VHS video. February 19, 2008
Homer (I am everywhere, I am nowhere.)
5 out of 8 found this review helpful
The (mostly) rave reviews here, and the decent price, convinced me to buy this machine. br / br /Well it arrived today, and I must say it's a bit of a disappointment. br / br /Yes, mine is multi-region, it plays region 1 2 DVDs, it plays backup copies without problem, it plays PAL NTSC tapes, and it records unprotected material to DVD, HDD and VCR (all tested and confirmed). br / br /But there are two very serious problems, at least one of which is a design fault. br / br /First, when you play tapes on the VCR, you can only get audio through the scart connector, you won't get any sound at all through the audio leads. Yes, really ... I'm not mistaken. So for those who have a TV with no speakers (i.e. use an external amp), the VCR is essentially useless. br / br /At first I thought the unit was faulty, so I immediately called the provided Toshiba helpline number. They just confirmed my fears. This is a "feature" of the unit. Yes, they /deliberately/ designed this thing to /not/ output audio from the VCR through the RCA audio connectors! br / br /Undeterred, I decided to try splitting the scart signal into composite audio and video. I have a tonne of leads at home, and I was sure I'd find one that worked. Short answer: No. br / br /It's quite bizarre. When you split the scart signal, and feed the audio to an external amplifier, you do indeed get an audio signal from both the VCR and the DVD ... /but/ ... the TV signal (in my case Sky) comes out as white noise. After a bit of fiddling I discovered that setting the "decode" option in the channels setup to "on" for my (one) channel fixes that problem ... but introduces another ... now the DVD and VCR audio won't play through the (split) scart connector ... I only get the TV signal. br / br /So that's that then. I have to choose between white noise on the TV signal, but perfect DVD and VCR audio playback, or perfect TV signal audio playback, but total silence from the DVD and VCR, or perfect TV and DVD playback through the RCA connectors, but total silence from the VCR. br / br /Then there's my second problem, and bear in mind I've only had this machine for a whopping 2 hours so far, so the list may get much longer as the days go by. The second problem is fast searching on VCR tapes results in a blank screen (a nice shade of blue). Once you stop searching, and press play again, the picture /does/ return, but it kind of makes the whole "search" feature of video tapes completely useless. I tried this on an "LP" tape, and amazingly it does show a picture while searching ... but not on "SP" tapes (i.e. all pre-recorded material). br / br /I have to assume that this is an /actual/ fault, as opposed to a design flaw, but given the obviously stupid design of this machine, nothing would surprise me. br / br /In essence, the VCR functionality is little more than an afterthought, and an extremely poorly implemented one at that. br / br /As for everything else, so far it all works fine, but I'm so bitterly disappointed with the excruciatingly bad VCR support, that I'm only awarding it a 3/5. br / br /My advice ... forget it, and buy the more expensive Panasonic.
 Fabulous value for money with unexpected benefits February 15, 2008
S J Buck (Kent, UK)
9 out of 9 found this review helpful
Just purchased one of these, mainly for its ability to copy from video to DVD. On arrival it only took me about an hour to get it all setup and working, which may seem a long time but I have a difficult cabinet that requires a lot of messing about with cables when a new device is added. Some previous reviewers have said the instruction booklet is over complicated, but I have found it not too bad (and I am basically not very good with instruction books). I haven't had a video recorder for a couple of years now so it'll be great to be able to record stuff again. br / br /I've already successfully recorded to the HDD drive and copied a much cherished TV program (that will never be shown again) onto DVD. This doesn't have a digital tuner so you can't record one program while watching another but aside from that and the fact that as far as I can tell it is not high def (but my TV isn't high def so I don't care) it does everything I want. br / br /Highly recommended. br / br /Update 19th March 2007. br /Have now successfully copied hours and hours of video onto DVD. One unexpected benefit I've found is that if you record onto -R (and probably +R as well) I've been able to copy a half show to the disc leave it unfinalised and then a add another 1/2 hour show to it a few days later. So long as the disc isn't finalised you can keep adding to a the -R disc until its full. I always thought you could only write to a -R once and that was it. Still very very happy with it.
Very Versatile - but has failings.... February 2, 2008
David Shakespeare (London UK)
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
...to complement my Toshiba 37" LCD TV (and SKY HD box) I wanted an all round dvd recorder/player (in this case the VHS play/record was a bonus)... br /I finally went for the Toshiba RDXV47 after reading the many very good reviews on here.. br / br /Initial setup was very easy - all plugged in /tuned and recording in less than 20 minutes. Excellent - and hardly even had to look at the manual... br / br /I'm a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to picture quality (hence my SKY HD) and my initial feelings were a definite drop in picture quality via a scart straight pass through when switching from original SKY (SD)picture to output from Toshiba. br / br /A noticeable overall softening of the picture.... This was again heightened when a recording was made at the best quality setting and played back. Again a second drop in quality. The recording on playback was not as good as I expected - I presumed that there would be hardly any drop in quality - but there was. At lower quality recording levels things became even worse - don't go there ! br / br /The two combined - ie. the intial picture softening via scart connection and drop in recording quality on playback gave a picture that is (to me) just about passable in this day and age... br / br /For 'day to day' useage it just about meets my requirements.... I was thinking of returning it and going for another make but no - i'll use it from time to time to backup any stuff from SKY to DVD or to convert a few old VHS's to DVD.... br / br /If Toshiba brought out the same machine with an HDMI and upscaling 'built in' it would be a winner - the RDXV47 is outdated by todays standards and needs a 'rebuilt' - A Freeview tuner onboard as well would make this a really super machine.... As it is - for 165-00 from Amazon - good value for money - it's just a pity it didn't really give me any 'wow' factor...
5 Star Product January 29, 2008
Alan Frost (Perthshire, Scotland)
Like many of the current reviews I searched the internet high and low for a product of substance. This Toshiba product excels! It is sturdy, easy to use, my 17 year old son had it working 10 minutes after getting it out of the box, and good to look at. It has style (from a "techie" persons point of view). br / br /Thank you Amazon for providing a product of quality and a swift delivery.
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