Sony has hit the market with their new 80GB Hard Drive and DVD recorder in the UK which is integrated with Freeview. This new device is designed to give you the option of recording Freeview television straight to a DVD, straight to a hard drive or even move video from the hard drive to a DVD.David Mackenzie sums it up nicely in his review, if you are looking to record digital TV to disc then this certainly does the job. But given the fact that this device allows you to record to a hard disk, it lacks the feel of a professional PVR. For example it has the great PVR feature of pausing live television, but whenever you pause live TV you must wait two minutes before you can un-pause the video.
David's review also lists a few other minor annoyances that prevent the Sony RDR-HXD560 DVD and hard drive recorder from being a top notch device; slow menus and the fact that he could not figure how to do 'Series Recording' being a couple of examples.
I personally think the Pioneer DVR440HX hard drive/DVD recorder looks like the better contender to the Sony RDR-HXD560 and would like to see David to a review of the Pioneer 440HX to compare.
