Samsung DVD-SH855M - DVD Recorder 250Gb Hard Drive - With Freeview & HDMI (Electronics)

Very disappointed I have just spent 5 hours trying to get this unit to work. I could probably live with the slow EPG (and it is slow) and also the less than intuitive interface and poorly arranged remote. The killer blow for me is that when powered up, it interferes with my local Multiplex 1 signal (I live in Kent) so I can't receive any of the BBC channels to either my TV's digital tuner via RF passthrough or into the unit itself for recording. I can still get a good signal to my TV if I don't go through the unit or if I do go via RF passthrough and the unit has no power. As soon as power is supplied to the unit, the signal is lost to the TV (even when the unit is in standby). Not the same issues as reported elsewhere here, but it seems to be indicative of the lack of quality control with this unit. I'm just about to package it all up again for return. A product to be avoided.

Worst DVD recorder I've ever come across! Bought and returned within 48 hours. Guide book unintelligible.Remote control confusing and poorly laid out. Battled for 10 hours to try and get it to do anything it claimed it could. Avoid this one folks. A real turkey!! Dennis Macdonald (Dunblane 2/4/08)

I wish I read these comments before I bought one! As so many people have discovered this unit is RUBBISH. It is very difficult to use (complicated by the fact that the Samsung TV and DVD remotes look so similar!). I can reiterate everything everyone else has said. My main problem is that my unit will not record from Digital without freezing juddering - and worst of all - making a horrendous noise straight from the bowels of Satan. It will be going back on Monday. Avoid. My Samsung LCD TV however is awesome. No faults whatsoever.

Is it just me ? I tried to setup this machine for a friend last night and hit 2 problems. First is that it doesn't appear to allow "series recording". Second is that after recording, the title doesn't appear to be placed in the program library, just the date and time of recording. This may be because I just did an instant recording however I would be interested to know if it does actually store the titles of timer-recorded items, imagine the difficulty of looking through 400 hours worth of library and trying to remember when something was recorded. I have a Sony RDRHXD970 and it's a dream compared to this !!

Not same quality as Samsung LCD TVs I owned one for two weeks then got my money back because...well here's a list. The program guide can take more than a minute to fill up each time you select the guide to display - (not signal strength problem). The timer record function will not start to record if you leave the machine on and does not give you a warning either just a tiny little flashing icon on the front display so I missed programs. When playing an interactive DVD 'Telly addicts' with HDMI link to TV the picture blanks out for a few seconds between sequencies and can sometimes miss off the last few words of a sentence when it does this - seemed better on scart but still not perfect. Found that when playing some DVDs like interactive you cannot get at the settings menu which only accessed when HDD is selected. I found that I would have to reject the DVD and shut the drawer empty (as you still can not get the settings menu with the drawer open) then I could select the HDD make my changes then reselect DVD and put the DVD back in the player. With digital optical output connected to 5.1 amp I select this as the audio output when I watch a dvd film but when I want to watch a program recorded on the HDD with sound played through TV on HDMI then you have to go to settings menu and change sound output back to PCM and then vica versa. When using time slip record function, on play back it was not continuous and intermittently kept freezing picture and audio for approx a second and would then continue to play but with a bit of recording missing (this may have been a fault impossible to believe that its so poor at is main function). When switching on always defaults to analogue TV tuner. My unit claimed to have 1080i upscaling ( although tech details dont mow state this feature on Amazon) which I dont understand from Samsung as their excellent LCD TVs are 1080p and so are not compatible. I now own a Sony HXD870 and I don't suffer any of the above - the machine is a dream.