Customer Reviews

Toshiba RD-XS54 DVD Recorder with 250 GB Hard Drive

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I should have listened to Gregory C. Weber in his earlier review of this product, but I didn't. I have owned and used the original Toshiba HDD-DVD recorder (RD-SX32) for the last year or so and have been quite pleased with it, though once you have been spoiled with a "one click" recording capability (which the SX32 does not have), having to specify exact start and stop times and channels is a bit of a bother--at least for pampered Americans like me. So when I saw that Toshiba had come out with a new version with a huge (250 gb) hard drive and had the "one click" recording capability, I couldn't resist, even though I had read Gregory Weber's review. However, being cautious, I called the Toshiba customer hot line to ask whether the new model (SX54) was compatible with my DirecTV satellite system, and I was told that it was compatible (wrong!).

Not only did the SX54 turn out to be irrevocably incompatible with my DirecTV, but the manual bypass, which is really pretty slick on the older SX32, has been converted into a monster that takes about five times as long to program a single recording. What were the Toshiba engineers thinking when they made this change?!!!

And like Gregory said, the fan does run 24/7 regardless of whether the unit is turned on or not, and even behind the closed glass door of my entertainment equipment cabinet, it's still quite audible.

It's really too bad that Toshiba didn't do a better job with the above issues. If they had, the SX54 HDD-DVD recorder would be pretty much a dream machine-so much so that I might never feel the need to upgrade again (famous last words).

I had purchased a Toshiba RD-XS52 DVD recorder 8 months ago from Amazon and was quite happy with it's performance. When the XS54 came out, I purchased one right away as a second home DVD recorder because of three features:
(1) The 250 GB hard drive vs. the XS52's 160 GB drive
(2) The RAM/-RW/-R write cabability (the XS52 only does RAM & -R)
(3) The new ethernet/networking capability

After getting one of the first XS54 units from Amazon, I quickly discovered a few flaws in the XS54 that caused me to send it back:
(A) The cooling fan runs ALL THE TIME, even when the unit is turned off (i.e.; in standby mode). I had heard about this flaw with the RD-XS32 and XS34, but my trusty XS52 does NOT do this- the fan goes off when you turn off the unit. Admittedly, the cooling fan is fairly quiet, but when you place this recorder in a bedroom or other place where you want/need complete quiet at times, I personally found the noise it made to be very annoying. Not to mention the fact that the expected life of the fan (a three-wire low speed/high speed affair and undoubtedly pricey) has to be relatively short when it is running 24/7. To be fair, if you have this unit buried in an entertainment unit with doors, you might not even notice the noise the fan makes. I called the Toshiba service hotline concerning this 'always-on' fan design, but all the the customer service drone on the other end could tell me was that the fan was 'always on to keep the hard drive cool'. This excuse for an always-on cooling fan is completely bogus- I verified that power is removed from the hard drive when the recorder is turned 'off' (i.e.; placed in standby mode) and thus requires no 'cooling.'
(B) The built-in TV Guide channel selection software is clunky, clumsy and difficult to navigate through. And that's being polite. Contrary to other reports that I have seen on this feature in the XS34, you CAN bypass the TV Guide selection feature- but they sure don't make it easy to do so. I'll take the straightforward, easy to program, non-TV Guide process of the XS52 any day.
(c) In the admittedly short time that I had the unit, I could NOT get it to communicate with my G5 IMAC, even though the user manual says that it should interface with either Microsoft or Apple software. The computer-to-recorder setup process described in the manual is poorly written and unbelieveably complex and confusing.

Addenda:
I see that an "A. Guest" wrote a reiew on this unit and gave it a 5-star rating BEFORE HE EVEN RECEIVED OR USED ONE. Give me a break. Read Thambi's second opinion on this unit if you have not already done so. He and I speak (and rate) from our hands-on experience with an XS54, not from 'glowing reviews' in a magazine or from self-serving spec sheets put out by Toshiba. You're not in Kansas anymore, Toto.
P.S.- Learn to spell and capitalize words correctly and you might be taken more seriously.

Knowing what I know now, I would purchase the RD-XS54 again. This DVR/DVD recorder will do everything you would expect from such a device. There is room for improvement though. My gripes, in no particular order, are listed below.

- As others have mentioned the fan runs 24/7. I can't hear it when I'm watching TV, but I can definitely hear it in a quiet room. After a while the sound blends into the background and you don't notice it. The RD-XS54 has a setting that will turn off the hard drive after a period of inactivity. As I understand it, the fan is meant to cool the hard drive. Toshiba should modify the unit so the fan shuts off when the hard drive shuts off.

- The built-in TV guide has a few "issues". First the positive. It's great for searching upcoming movies. It's also nice to be able to program a recording without having to enter start/finish/channel info. The RD-XS54 has a setting that allows you to have all programmed recordings start a little early and/or end a little late so the show doesn't get clipped. Now the downside. The TV guide needs a long time to update itself. I read that it takes about 3 hours for a complete update. The unit needs to be powered off without interruption during the update. Unfortunately, there is no way to know what time the update starts or ends. The RD-XS54 has an ethernet connection to connect to your computer network. It seems like that would be a faster way to update the TV guide, but it doesn't work that way. Navigating the TV guide is a slow tedious process. That seems odd to me since the information is stored in the unit and access should be almost instantaneous. It's great for movie searches, but for everything else I use my computer and the Yahoo TV guide.

- As with so many gadgets these days, the user interface WILL require you to crack open the operating manual. There is no way you will be able to figure out the RD-XS54 just by trial and error. Tech-challenged people who hate operating manuals should look elsewhere. For example, there are SIX buttons on the remote that say "MENU". All of them have different functions. In my opinion, if a device requires a person to read an operating manual then the design of the user interface is flawed. Want to be a billionaire? Start a company that does nothing but design good user interfaces for gadgets. There is no shortage of work. Gadget manufacturers could advertise the fact that their user interface is designed by (insert your company name here). I think it's one of the last great untapped opportunities out there. I'm waiting with my credit card in hand...

I decided to buy this DVR with a little bit of hesitation. I'd seen bad reviews knocking the product for:
1) Fan is on all the time
2) Hard to use / can't record manually
3) Can't burn copy protected content to DVD-R.

Due to the features and relatively low price (~$350), I bought one with trepidation. I'm pleased to report that the unit is far better than what I expected.
1) The fan noise is acceptable. Nonexistent if the unit is in an entertainment center. It's much less than a computer and just sounds like a low white noise hum associated with high end electronics.
2) The unit is surprisingly easy to use. I did skim the manual to learn how to use it so that I wouldn't have to do trial and error. The buttons are color labelled and the unit is intelligently laid out. It's easy to set up a manual recording by going into settings in the TV guide menu. TV Guide updated fine in my region (Tucson).
3) Not being able to burn copy protected content isn't a big deal. If I need to back up my VHS tapes onto DVD (for legal backup copies), there are devices that can be placed in the video stream to disable copy protection.

What I would improve:
-Don't like the IR receiver on the far right of the unit. My entertainment center blocks it when the door is closed.
-I wish the network setup was a little easier to do. Would much prefer the unit had built-in wireless or a USB port to throw on a USB wireless.

Overall, I love the features: TiVo-like capability without a subscription. BIG hard drive. Full access to features such as changing the recording quality. Digital optical output. S-Video output. HDMI upconversion. Network link (including setting up programs over email- although the email method could be friendlier). Love the cables that came with the unit including an HDMI cable and Ethernet direct link cable for connecting a laptop directly to the unit.

Great product for the money.
--
Update: Discovered a shortcut that makes going through TVGOS MUCH easier. When moving through the shows, you don't have to go in 30 minute chunks. Simply start typing a number or two on the keypad on the remote. After a second, a shortcut menu pops up and asks if you want to skip forward by that # of hours, skip backwards, or go to that channel. This makes it much easier to page ahead a day at a time by typing in "24" in TVGOS.

My husband purchased the Toshiba HDD/DVD XS54SU recently. We are now on our third one. No, it's not because we loved them so much that we wanted three of them. Read on - I'll explain. I studied the manual and learned how to operate the first unit. It was complicated. It took me forever to figure out how to set up a program to be recorded with the timer. After a few days, the unit would shut off and would not come on with the standby button. The only way I could turn the unit on was to unplug it and start over. Of course, because it would shut itself off, nothing was being recorded either. After many hours of thinking I must be doing something wrong, we decided to return it. We got another one. This time, the TV Guide wouldn't load and the unit again shut itself off and wouldn't come back on. So we returned that one.

Being the persistent and determined people we are, we decided to try the XS34. Guess what? Same problem. I called Toshiba. They, of course, said they hadn't heard of any such problems. They said it might be a bad lot.

Needless to say, the third unit is going back tomorrow. I must say even if everything worked the way it's supposed to, I wouldn't want this. Why would anyone want such a complicated device in their lives?

I've had this machine for a couple of months now. This recorder requires patience. It has an immense number of features and probably would take months to get familiar with all of them. I'm using the TVGOS (required a firmware update from Toshiba). I record profusely with it and it can store endless programs because of the massive hard drive. I've also copied an unprotected DVD and editted it, left out parts I didn't want, and put in chapter breaks, all very easily once I learned how to do it. And this barely scratches the surface of what can be done. Yes, it's true that the TV Guide is a little slow advancing in 1/2 hour increments, but it has a number of searches which are actually very quick and useful. For example, I can pull up all the movies that are going to be aired, and record whichever ones I want, and of course not even think once about available space. And yes it's true that a second tuner would be nice so you could record two different shows on at the same time. But I'd have to watch 12 hours a day just to catch up with what I have recorded. BTW, everything I do is off the air, so if there are any cable issues, they are not relevant to me. I'm giving it 5 stars. Not because it's perfect, because no complex machine like this can be. I give it 5 stars for the features and flexibility of the machine. And that 250 gig hard drive. This machine will forever change your view on how you watch recorded TV.

This is a wonderful product. I took a long time trying to chose a hard drive video recorder that did not require a subscription to a service. I am pretty sure this was the right decision for me.

It is relatively easy to program and use. Picture quality on my HDTV is excellent, much better than a VCR. It is wonderful being able to zip past the commercials in just seconds.

The hard drive is big enough to hold many, many hours of unwatched programs even at the highest quality. With the low price of recordable DVD's, I will save a little money not having to buy VHS tapes. Also, I won't have the problem of storing all those unwatched tapes.

If I could make a wish for something more, I would like the recorder to record two or even three programs at the same time. I would also like to be able to reset the clock without having to totally reprogram the whole machine. I would like the TV guide to advance more than a half an hour at a time

The main drawback is the price. Even though Amazon's price was the best I could find, this machine is not cheap. Still, if it outlasts the extended warranty which I also purchased, it should be worth the price.

When I first got this machine, the TVGOS software wouldn't let me schedule more than eight programs to record. Toshiba technical support tried to tell me that this was by design. It isn't. You can get past the eight program limit by performing certain voodoo rituals, after which it'll stop deleting a random program each time you store a new one.

But after that, it continued to periodically forget various items that I'd programmed for regular recording. They'd just vanish from the menu of scheduled recordings.

A few weeks ago, it lost the titles of all of the shows that were stored on the hard disk. This should have been a hint.

Last night, it corrupted its own hard disk while I was deleting programs and lost everything that was recorded on it.

At least a VHS recorder can only destroy one tape at a time.

On the other hand, when it works, it's really nice. If only it worked correctly...

Toshiba RD-XS54 DVD Recorder with 250 GB Hard Drive
I wasn't sure that I would like this recorder after reading some of the reviews. And I was concerned that my cable company wouldn't provide the TV Guide. I called my cable provider, which is the Charter Cable serving St. Louis County, Missouri. Two calls brought negative results - the "customer service" people never heard of the TV Guide and said that it wasn't available, even after supposedly checking with someone familiar with Charter's programming content.
I took a chance anyway and ordered the recorder. Two days after hookup I had 8 days of programming information, free of charge!
The free TV Guide is one of the many features that make this machine a great performer. Yes, you can manually schedule recordings. Yes, you can easily edit the commercials out of movies and produce great DVDs. Complete with menus, thumbmails and chapter titles that you choose and select. No, the 'always on' fan is not too loud. I cannot hear it until I am 2 feet in front of it. They must have replaced the supposedly noisy fan with a whisper fan.
Since I have had it for a short period of time, I haven't tried all of the features, such as remote programming. Check this out:
You can connect the RD-XS54 to your LAN router and program the recorder anywhere in the world via Internet. Have I done this yet? No. Am I going to? You better believe it.
I suppose the manual could use an index, but I was able to navigate quite nicely using the contents. When Toshiba provides a pdf version of the manual like they did with their earlier models (hint, hint, Toshiba), you could easily search for anything.
In summary, this recorder has everything I want and is great to use.

I'll try to get as much in as short a space as possible"

(1) All these DVRs use the same Gemstar TV Guide On Screen (TVGOS) system. Selecting a program is easy but setting it up is a very poor process with no backup capability. SAME ON ALL DVRS.
(2) This is a very feature heavy machine. AWESOME for power users. Not for the beginners or those who only understand TIVO. Get a crappy Sony that does little except record with the same quality and functions like an old VCR.
(3) Unless you have an extremely quiet room, you'll never hear the fan when the TV is on or if there is even a small amount of background noise, where there usually is. Never put ANY DVR in your bedroom that uses the TVGOS or else you'll hear the hard drive spinning as it updates itself at night. I don't mind it or would get a case with glass doors.
(4) This is by far the most feature rich DVR to come out. It does a slew of incredible things. The manual is over 120 pages for good reason. It works and I've done a lot with mine. It's a geeks paradise.
(5) If you are buying a DVR, make sure you do the research. This one has the ability to watch a program and put cue markers in. The Pioneers currently do NOT, which is rather remarkable. The Pioneer editing is OK but finished product to present to friends is not impressive, even though they are good quality recording machines. They are a different DVR.

EDIT - FIVE STAR REVIEW

It has its quirks but now that hard disk DVD recorders are out of production, we can all cry about perfection. This unit is far and away the most versatile recorder of all. Dumping video, editing, burning, you name it. It's not the easiest one to use, for sure, but it's not that difficult with a little time investment. The power of this little unit is amazing - you can even broadcast your video to PCs around your home network. Want to watch while you work but on your monitor in another room - it does it! Record a show by sending an email? Does that too. Has more features to record regular TV shows than any other unit and also does a fantastic job with recording and burning 16x9 properly. It's one of a kind and you're lucky to find one if you can. Easily worth the original retail price and then some.