JVC HM-HDS1 - the good and the bad
Written: Dec 06 '04
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Pros: Everyday ease of use, Pause live TV, Flexibilty.
Cons: Reliability, Minimal editing capability in HDD mode.
The Bottom Line: Would be a fantastic product if it worked reliably.
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| cippico's Full Review: JVC HM-HDS1 Video Recorder |
First, the good:
I've had one of these since Nov 2001 and can honestly say that it has revolutionised our house's TV recording and viewing habits. You no longer have to fumble through VHS cassettes (or recordable DVDs, for that matter) to find a blank cassette to record your favourite shows on. You just press record and it's done. It really is SO simple. Every recording is indexed and shown as thumbnails in a navigation menu. You go straight to a recording rather than wait for a tape to rewind or fast forward. You can fast-forward *smoothly* at up to 360x normal speed. You can't even do that with a DVD recorder. You can even play at 1.5x speed so you can watch and listen at a faster rate. For example, in this mode the pitch is kept at the same but the gaps between words are shortened - very handy if you want to speed-watch something but haven't got the time to watch it real-time. Of course, the big seller here is delayed live TV. The classic scenario here is this: You start watching your favourite soap, the phone rings, you hit PAUSE on the JVC, you take your call and finish it, you hit PLAY on the JVC and you're back to exactly where you left off. I'm surprised how often this has proved SO handy. The other benefit is that it's on permanent back-record, so whatever channel you're watching you can rewind up to 3 hours back to review something you may have missed - or simply replay a scene that needed a second view, just to catch what was actually going on.
OK, now the bad:
The reliability has been atrocious. After 4 months the unit refused to record any audio. I was without it for 3 weeks whilst they repaired it. After 11 months it failed to display a TV picture in HD mode, although the VHS side was fine. They replaced it with a new one. Fast forward 2 years and it has now just failed AGAIN with the same previous problem, except this time it's out of warranty and only a very expensive repair will sort it out. I am staggered by this record and despite my glowing report above; I shall not be repairing it, but shall be buying something that has more mature technology in it. I despair.
Epilogue
I strongly believe that we're all going to be using HDD recorders in the future, probably combined with a DVD recorder for archiving. The JVC is a brave stab at that dream but ultimately fails to deliver. I hope this has given prospective buyers something to think about.
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 1200
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Epinions.com ID:
cippico
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Member: Andy Cippico
Reviews written: 3
Trusted by: 0 members
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