I've had massively bad luck with PVRs. The market seems to be flooded with devices that freeze, shut off or have just plain bad tuners. For what this device does, it does well. The tuner is excellent quality, and provided you loop the aerial through the device and into your TV you can watch a third programme whist the device records another two with no impact to recording quality. Many other reviewers expected to be able to watch a programme on the recorder with timeshift whilst still recording two others, all I can say to them is read the box/feature-card before making a purchase! Some of the devices menus are clunky, and the recording browser in particular is sluggish and doesn't scale well to large numbers of recorded programmes, which is an issue when this is a 1TB device and this will likely end up with large numbers of recordings during normal use. An other key issue is that there is no feature to extend the recording start or stop time to account for shows running over their scheduled times. Sure, it's partly the fault of the networks, but I can pretty much guarantee that if I don't record the show following the one I really want I'll miss a pivitol cliffhanger in the last minutes of the show. Finally, there is no way to schedule repeat recording of a show. If I forget to schedule a recording I miss out, and this is a much needed feature! All of these could be fixed via a firmware update, so Sony, get me some new firmware! I'm writing this review after 6 months of use, and to be honest I'm very happy that I can at least rely on this PVR to not freeze half way through recording. Not once in that time have I had to restart the device, and in fact the power saving modes allow me to set it up to power down when not in use and still record any scheduled programmes.

I bought a hdd recorder today, set it up according to the operating instructions and was delighted for two minutes! The hdd has become inaccessible and through lots of searching online and referring to the manual I have given up and will be taking it back in the morning.

I found the install and set up easy. I have a Samsung 650 series LED tv which is highly regarded for picture quality; the HDT1000 picture is just as good, with a fraction more contrast (which may make it appear to be sharper). All the controls are fairly intuitive and the Program Guide works well. Some of the 'Anynet' control features work (using the supplied HDMI cable with the control function inbuilt) so when I select the PVR from the tv it will automatically start the PVR, and if I am watching the tv through its own tuner and select a PVR menu, the tv switches to PVR input and displays the menu. Some controls on the tv remote work on the HDT, such as the play button, but not pause. The HDT has 2 tuners so, as you would expect, it can only tune to 2 programs at once. However I frequently record 2 programs while watching a third on my tv. As long as you connect an aerial to the tv, the tv tuner allows this; at setup you can allow the aerial feed from the HDT to pass through at all times and so the tv tuner will still work if the PVR is off. My only disappointment is the lack of editing features. My old not-so-reliable LG HDD/DVD had the ability to trim, cut ads, divide and join files - none of these features is available on most modern PVRs. I think this is poor. Adding series record would be welcome. I also find there is a tendency for on-screen display to obscure the program a lot. The most glaring example is if you pause on a frame, the progress bar appears and stays on, blocking the lower part of the screen. If you pause to read something, eg credits, you won't see it all. More transparency would help, and shorter 'linger' times when starting viewing. When you press the 'Info' button you do not see the progress bar or an indication of the time elapsed; you need to pause to see this, which is not great. For average users I think this is a straightforward, quality unit.