Toshiba RD-XS35 DVD Player/Recorder with 160 GB Hard Drive

by Toshiba

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 13.1 x 16.9 x 2.2 inches ; 13 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 17 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• Shipping Advisory: This item must be shipped separately from other items in your order. Additional shipping charges will not apply.
• ASIN: B000FA1G26
• Item model number: RD-XS35
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (46 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #81,660 in Electronics (See Top 100 in Electronics)

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

The Toshiba RD-XS35 Multi-Drive DVD Recorder is designed to provide you the greatest flexibility for recording and storing your favorite movies and TV programming. In addition to recording compatibility with DVD-RAM, DVD-R, and DVD-RW discs, the RD-XS35 provides a spacious 160 GB hard drive, enabling high-speed dubbing from the hard drive to disc without any deterioration of the digital signal. You'll also have instant access to recording programs saved to disc.

The RD-XS35 also features playback compatibility with Video CD and CD-R/CD-RW discs as well as MP3 and WMA digital audio formats. With the JPEG Viewer, you can easily display your favorite digital photos and create custom slideshows with a few simple clicks of the player's remote control.

The TV Guide On Screen Interactive Program Guide provides an easy to read listing of the television programs available to view or record. The full 2004 version incorporated in the RD-XS35 provides an 8-day program listing, flexibility of recording directly to DVD or the HDD, the ability to perform keyword searches for locating favorite programs, and includes the G-Link IR Blaster for controlling cable boxes. When recording television programs, the name of the show, along with the channel and date, are automatically captured.

The Chase Play feature enables you to begin watching a recording that is already in progress. The Live Chase Play feature lets you "pause" a live recording and then return to it later. During playback of both modes, a bar graph can be displayed on-screen depicting the "progress" or location of the playback signal with regards to the real time recorded signal.

The advanced 3D Y/C digital comb filter (4MB, 10-bit) analyzes sequential fields of information to eliminate dot crawl and color bleed. It also significantly reduces detail noise, seen as shimmering or flicker, in complex or intricately detailed scenes. The Black Level Expander increases the black threshold level, so blacks are pure black, not dark gray, improving overall picture contrast.

You get vivid, realistic sound, thanks to Toshiba's 24-bit/192 kHz pulse code modulation (PCM) audio processor. PCM audio translates digital signals from your DVDs and CDs into warmer, natural sound. The DVD player offers Dolby Digital and DTS decoding, and you can connect to a multi-channel home theater surround sound system via the optical digital audio output.

A Firewire port (also called IEEE1394 or i.Link) is available on the front panel for connecting compatible digital video camcorders. The RD-XS35 provides automatic recognition of the device and on-screen menu controls to easily direct the downloading process with the recorder's remote control. Here's the full range of video and audio connections:

• Composite A/V: 3 in (1 front), 1 out
• S-Video: 3 in (1 front), 1 out
• Component Video: 1 out
• RF: 1 in, 1 out
• Digital audio: 1 optical
• Firewire: 1

Tech Talk
Component video (also called Y/Pb/Pr) features a three-jack video input, which provides separate connections for luminance (Y), blue color difference (PB) and red color difference (PR). This results in increased bandwidth for color information, resulting in a more accurate picture with clearer color reproduction and less bleeding than you would get with S-Video or composite (RCA yellow video plug) connections. You will need a separate RCA left/right audio cable for sound.

What's in the Box
DVD recorder with 160 GB hard drive, remote control (with batteries), and printed operating instructions.

Product Description

MULTI DRIVE DVD RECORDER W/160GB HDD

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

97 of 99 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Working great for me!, April 10, 2006

By 

J. Campeau - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Toshiba RD-XS35 DVD Player/Recorder with 160 GB Hard Drive (Electronics)

I need to first say that I have been anxiously awaiting the arrival of this unit and have spent a great deal of time researching previous models XS-32/34/52/54, and read many, many, many user reviews on them, as well as downloaded and reviewed the installation and operation user manuals for most of them.

After all my research I narrowed it down to 2 models which best suited my needs, the XS52 and this one, XS35. They are both very similar using the same 160 GB HD, same IR blaster funtion to set top cable/sat box, and same navigation software, but there are a few major differences. The XS52 will only burn to -R/-RAM while the XS35 will burn to -R/-RW and -RAM. Why they left -RW out of XS52, I don't know. The other thing is that the XS52 uses the VCR+ Plus timer recording feature where the XS35 uses the TVGuide OnScreen system. VCR+ Plus codes are not listed in my local paper or guide, so this would be a pain for me to have to search for and setup, although I am sure it works fine, the TVGOS is much easier for me. The last difference I could see is the XS52 offers an HDMI output and upconversion on DVD playback to 480p, 720p and 1080i for "near-HD" quality.

The only thing I didn't like about the XS35 was that it didn't have the upconversion like the XS52, but was I really missing something here??? I wanted to know if I should get the XS52 for the upconversion, so I brought home a Toshiba upconverting DVD player to see if I could tell the difference in quality between it and the XS35's progressive scan DVD player. After watching my favourite scenes on many DVD's I decided that I could not tell any difference which made my choice much easier. I wanted to save my HDMI input on my TV for later this year or next year when HD DVD/Blu-ray become more available, those DVD's will make a huge difference. So I went out and bought the XS35.

Some of the features of the XS35:

1) TVGOS program guide: A lot of people have been reporting problems with this on older versions. I cannot say that I have had any problems with this. In fact it was the easiest thing to set up. It simply asks for your zip/postal code and within 24 hours of setup it has downloaded all the channels to it's guide and all the programming for 8 days. This is very convienient to use with the timer programming, I can tape "Lost" weekly and "South Park" daily and it will do it for me. So far I really enjoy this system since I don't have cable or satellite and I don't have a guide, this is really nice to see what is on next.

If I did have a Cable/Sat box I could use the IR blaster to change to channel 405 at 10:00 pm then to channel 253 at 12:00 pm and it would do it. This is what the manual says and although I have not used this feature it is a nice one to have for potential future use.

You can also just press REC and start recording to the HDD instantly instead of setting up a timed recording. Just press stop to stop it.


2) DVD - the playback is as good as I could imagine. I had been using my Xbox as a DVD player. I can't say I see any huge differences or improvements, but it isn't worse either. Both are great for me.

The benefit is that I can burn to DVD anything I want to keep, (superbowl, movies on tv, seasons of tv shows, etc.)

It does support both DVD-R/RW and RAM unlike XS52 which only supports -R and -RAM.

3) The fan does not run all the time, like many have said about the XS54. It is very quiet when it does run. The lights on the front make it easy to see what you are doing at the moment. If you are recording there is a red light ring around one of the buttons on the front of the unit. If you are on the HDD a blue light is on and when on the DVD it lights up green. There are separate lights too not just one so if you are color blind (like my dad) you are not confused by only one light position.

4) The easy-navi button gets you right into the list of programs you have saved and is easy to use. Easy to delete when finished with a certain recording and it tells you how much time you have left to use on the disk to manage your files.

5) Playback - Great playback features. You can playback a recording while recording another program live. You can also pause live TV with the Timeslip feature and then skip through commercials in 5s, 10s, 30s or 5 minute intervals to catch up to the live feed, also skip back at 5 s intervals if you missed something.

All in all I am happy with this HDD/DVD recorder and despite not having the HDMI upconversion for DVD playback (which I can't see a difference in anyway) it has everything I think you could want.

There are going to be other units Panasonic/Pioneer available that do similar things but I like the way this one works.

5 stars from me...good luck!

37 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Few Minor Issues, But a Great Unit, August 23, 2006

By 

chemikalguy "chemikalguy" (Durham, NC USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Toshiba RD-XS35 DVD Player/Recorder with 160 GB Hard Drive (Electronics)

My wife and I purchased this unit as a co-anniversary present to each other. We wanted to replace a VCR that was used to occasionally tape TV shows, the news, etc., so we decided on a DVD recorder that had a hard drive for DVR recording. I read reviews on various models, and decided on this one. I haven't been disappointed.

While some reviewers mention the fan noise as a problem, I haven't seen it as such. The fan (apparently) is temp-controlled, because it seems to get louder when using the unit, and stays louder for a few minutes after the unit is shut off. It's not incredibly loud, but it is noticeable.

The one negative I have to agree with other reviewers on is the manual and on-screen guide. They are not user intuitive at all. I am a highly technical person, and spent quite a while the first night trying to figure out how to play a DVD, even after thumbing through the manual.

Now that I've figured out how to use the DVD player, I've watched a dozen or so DVDs, and have absolutely no complaints. The video and sound playback are excellent.

I've used the DVR a half dozen times, and love it. I don't know how I survived without it. You simply go to a show on the TV guide on-screen, and press the record button. That is, after you've set up the basic recorder settings when you first unpack the unit. Once the unit records, you go to the 'content menu' which shows the shows you've recorded, the title, channel, etc, and even shows a screenshot! To play it back, you navigate to the one you want to watch and press 'play'. The coolest thing about it, and the DVD player, is that when you stop a show or disk, turn the unit off, and come back later, the unit knows exactly where you were when you stopped, and resumes from there. Sweet!

I'm set up to record a show using the DVR, that I will burn to a DVD. I will update my review once that is done, so that I can give my impression of that part of the unit, which is the only thing I've yet to do with it.

12-4-06 - Update

Now that I've had the unit for a couple of months, I wanted to update my review, especially having had time to play with the DVD authoring aspect of the unit, which for me was a secondary item. I wanted the unit mostly for the ability to DVR without having to pay TiVo a monthly fee. The DVR works flawlessly, and I couldn't be happier with it.

I've burned a handful of DVD disks using the unit and found it not particularly easy to do, although not overtly so. The manual, as previously noted, is not a lot of help. Of the 5 disks that I've burned, three of them were 'fully authored', meaning that I went in and manually added chapter breaks, created thumbnails for each chapter and for the main menu for each episode. This is VERY time consuming, so I didn't do it on the last two disks. The fourth disk causes any DVD player I put it in to lockup after five minutes or so. I don't know if this is because the unit automatically puts in chapter breaks at 5 minute intervals or what. I'm going to edit the content of that fourth disk, and burn it again to see if that makes the difference.

As a side note, I found that the unit will not recognize DVD+R disks, so you have to make sure you use DVD-R or DVD-RW formatted ones.

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Better than I hoped for, June 11, 2006

By 

Jim Thomas (Greenville, SC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Toshiba RD-XS35 DVD Player/Recorder with 160 GB Hard Drive (Electronics)

Wanted to buy a hard drive based DVD recorder last year, but saw so many bad reviews of most brands/units that I decided to wait. I bought a low end Toshiba recorder (D-R4) and have been happy with it. Thus I decided to try this new model without benefit of reviews. Had it a couple of weeks and I have to say I'm impressed. I have experienced no problems. The menu system is similar to my D-R4 so it was quick for me to learn. The TV Guide took two days for 1st download, but has been perfect since (have Charter Cable). Have recorded to HD from TV Guide and burned to DVD; copied existing DVD to HD, edited and burned new DVD; and copied programs from two existing DVD's to HD, changed bit rate to fit them both on one DVD (unit calculated new bit rate for me automatically). Editing out commercials on the HD is very straight forward. High speed dubbing will burn a football game to DVD in about 10 minutes.

In short, it has done everything I bought it to do flawlessly. The only reason I didn't give it five stars was the pain of reorganizing the TV Guide Channels after the 1st download to match our cable box order and the copy protection on HBO, VCR tapes (that I'd like to archive to DVD), etc. Of course I know that they pretty much have to implement the copy protection, but I don't like it anyway.