Toshiba is a leading manufacturer in the DVD recording technology, and its products are quite budget-priced. Toshiba DVD recorders support DVD-R/RW and DVD-RAM formats.
Toshiba DVD recorders use VCR Plus+ function for timer recordings, an IR blaster for automatically recording from different channels, and the IEEE-1394 input (FireWire) for transferring material directly from camcorder.
The DVD-RAM format is more versatile than DVD-R. It offers some basic TiVo-like features:
- Time Slip (watch the beginning of a recording in progress);
- Pausing Live TV (pausing a live show will command the unit to start recording the rest of the show);
- Simultaneous recording and playback (you can watch an older recording while the unit is set to record another).
Toshiba D-R2
This is the start-up model of the Toshiba DVD recorders line. It has all the basic features and even more when compared to other brand-names in the same price category: e.g. IR blaster or FireWire input.
Toshiba D-KR2
This model is an upgrade of the previous D-R2 model. It includes a 3D Y/C Comb Filter to eliminate dot crawl and color bleed effects. This feature is meant to output a best quality image even with demanding video scenes. There's no difference in price among these two models.
Toshiba RD-XS32
This one is the first DVD recorder with a built-in hard drive from Toshiba (80 GB HDD).
Other features
- Connectivity: Progressive scan output, component video output, composite and S-video in and out, FireWire input, IR blaster;
- On-screen display;
- VCR Plus+ timer recording (no on-screen program guide though);
- Multi-region DVD player.
Toshiba RD-XS52
This item is practically identical to the previous, but comes with double hard drive recording capacity (160 GB) at a $100 price difference.
See other combo units from Toshiba: Toshiba TX20 and TX60 DVD recorders with TiVo, TOSHIBA D-VR3 (a DVD/VHS combo recorder).