Toshiba DR20 Digital DVD Recorder with Freeview

Review by bobbie for Toshiba DR20 Digital DVD Recorder with Freeview
Rating:
received Toshiba DR20 within a few days of ordering,speed of delivery and packaging up to amazon’s high standards. Set up no problems with very clear freeview picture. Instruction book very comprehensive and needs reading very througly to get best from machine. Timer recording(epg) easy to programme. I prefer daily mode for everyday operation. Timing progs seem pretty accurate. I use DVD- discs to maintain aspect ratio as transmitted. My old machine did not need finalising of discs to play on other players as modern models do. Finalising can take some time to complete and then has to be un finalised to add further recordings. Machine is very quiet in operation. I am very satisfied with Toshiba DV20 and can recommend it.

Review by Maggie for Toshiba DR20 Digital DVD Recorder with Freeview
Rating:
If you just want to record programmes directly from live TV to a DVD disc, this could be the machine for you. The instruction manual could be better, but I nevertheless found the Toshiba DR20 to be easy to set up for basic use. Scanning Freeview channels and recording on to a DVD is straightforward.

My problem was persuading the Toshiba to recognise the existence of my Humax PVR, so that I could copy programmes from the hard drive of the PVR on to DVD. Putting this right involved juggling the menus of the TV, the PVR and the DVD recorder, with their three separate remote controls, and three menu systems. I was convinced that changing one of the settings on one of the machines would get everything working, but I could not tell which one was causing the problem.

In desperation, I spent half an hour on the phone to Toshiba technical support. At first the young man I spoke to told me that the Toshiba DR20 couldn’t do what I wanted, though the manual explicitly said that it was possible. He then said that I would have to swap the SCART leads over at the back of the Toshiba every time I wanted to transfer a PVR recording to DVD. When I said that this was unlikely to be the best solution, he told me that there would be no point in contacting technical support again because nobody there would be able to “help” me further.

After a bit more juggling, I managed to make everything work as it should simply by changing a setting on the Toshiba’s Input Select menu. I now have a DVD recorder that does exactly what I want, but it took several hours of frustration to make it happen, with no help at all from Toshiba.

Conclusion: good machine, though for anything more than basic use you might need a degree of perseverance (or more knowledge than I have!) to set it up.