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Toshiba RD-XS35 DVD Player/Recorder with 160 GB Hard Drive | 
 enlarge | Brand: Toshiba
Category: CE
This item is no longer available
Avg. Customer Rating:  43 reviews
Media: Electronics
Autographed: No
Memorabilia: No
Shipping Weight (lbs): 16.2
Dimensions (in): 13.1 x 16.9 x 2.2
MPN: RD-XS35
Model: RD-XS35
UPC: 022265412039
EAN: 0022265412039
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| Features:
| • | DVD player/recorder with 160 GB hard drive; measures 17 x 2.5 x 13.25 inches (WxHxD) | | • | Records onto DVD-R/RW and DVD-RAM discs; plays CD-R/RW, VCD, MP3, WMA, JPEG | | • | TV Guide onscreen programming, time-slip and simultaneous play/record features | | • | Video connections: composite (3 in, 1 out), S-Video (3 in, 1 out), component (1 out), Firewire | | • | DVD offer Dolby Digital/DTS decoding; optical digital audio output |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com Product Description
The Toshiba RD-XS35 Multi-Drive DVD Recorder is designed to provide you the greatest flexibility for recording and storing your favorite movies and TV programming. In addition to recording compatibility with DVD-RAM, DVD-R, and DVD-RW discs, the RD-XS35 provides a spacious 160 GB hard drive, enabling high-speed dubbing from the hard drive to disc without any deterioration of the digital signal. You'll also have instant access to recording programs saved to disc. The RD-XS35 also features playback compatibility with Video CD and CD-R/CD-RW discs as well as MP3 and WMA digital audio formats. With the JPEG Viewer, you can easily display your favorite digital photos and create custom slideshows with a few simple clicks of the player's remote control. The TV Guide On Screen Interactive Program Guide provides an easy to read listing of the television programs available to view or record. The full 2004 version incorporated in the RD-XS35 provides an 8-day program listing, flexibility of recording directly to DVD or the HDD, the ability to perform keyword searches for locating favorite programs, and includes the G-Link IR Blaster for controlling cable boxes. When recording television programs, the name of the show, along with the channel and date, are automatically captured. The Chase Play feature enables you to begin watching a recording that is already in progress. The Live Chase Play feature lets you "pause" a live recording and then return to it later. During playback of both modes, a bar graph can be displayed on-screen depicting the "progress" or location of the playback signal with regards to the real time recorded signal. The advanced 3D Y/C digital comb filter (4MB, 10-bit) analyzes sequential fields of information to eliminate dot crawl and color bleed. It also significantly reduces detail noise, seen as shimmering or flicker, in complex or intricately detailed scenes. The Black Level Expander increases the black threshold level, so blacks are pure black, not dark gray, improving overall picture contrast. You get vivid, realistic sound, thanks to Toshiba's 24-bit/192 kHz pulse code modulation (PCM) audio processor. PCM audio translates digital signals from your DVDs and CDs into warmer, natural sound. The DVD player offers Dolby Digital and DTS decoding, and you can connect to a multi-channel home theater surround sound system via the optical digital audio output. A Firewire port (also called IEEE1394 or i.Link) is available on the front panel for connecting compatible digital video camcorders. The RD-XS35 provides automatic recognition of the device and on-screen menu controls to easily direct the downloading process with the recorder's remote control. Here's the full range of video and audio connections: - Composite A/V: 3 in (1 front), 1 out
- S-Video: 3 in (1 front), 1 out
- Component Video: 1 out
- RF: 1 in, 1 out
- Digital audio: 1 optical
- Firewire: 1
Tech Talk
Component video (also called Y/Pb/Pr) features a three-jack video input, which provides separate connections for luminance (Y), blue color difference (PB) and red color difference (PR). This results in increased bandwidth for color information, resulting in a more accurate picture with clearer color reproduction and less bleeding than you would get with S-Video or composite (RCA yellow video plug) connections. You will need a separate RCA left/right audio cable for sound. What's in the Box
DVD recorder with 160 GB hard drive, remote control (with batteries), and printed operating instructions.
Product Description
The Toshiba RD-XS35 DVD Recorder with Hard Drive gives you more ways to record and play your favorite video entertainment. It records to DVD-RAM, DVD-R and DVD-RW discs -- or directly to the built-in 160GB hard disc drive. The TV Guide On Screen IPG allows you to schedule programs to record using the easy TV Guide functionality. Auto title, chapter, thumbnail creation WMA & MP3 playback Time Slip, Chase Play and Pause Live TV TV Guide on-screen IPG High-Speed Dubbing from HDD with DVD-RAM and DVD-R 181 channel tuner 3D Y/C Comb Filter On-screen camcorder download controls JPEG Viewer with WMA and MP3 Playback 3D Virtual Surround Sound Off-air recording with advanced timer programming functions Dolby Digital/DTS compatible Digital Video noise reduction recording and playback Auto Clock with Daylight Savings Time Adjust & Time Zone Adjust Parental lock Auto channel setup On-screen keyboard Satellite Manual Timer Programming and STB IR Control Universal remote control with TV controls 1.5x fast forward with audio, fast scan, slow motion, instant replay, instant skip Optical Digital Audio Output, 3 S-Video Inputs, 1 Outputs, RCA-Video Inputs ColorStream Pro progressive scan component video output (FireWire connection) RCA-Video output, L-R Audio inputs/outputs, RF tuner pass-through Dimensions(WxHxD) - 17 x 2.5 x 13.25
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| Customer Reviews: Read 38 more reviews...
 Working great for me! April 10, 2006
96 out of 98 found this review helpful
I need to first say that I have been anxiously awaiting the arrival of this unit and have spent a great deal of time researching previous models XS-32/34/52/54, and read many, many, many user reviews on them, as well as downloaded and reviewed the installation and operation user manuals for most of them.
After all my research I narrowed it down to 2 models which best suited my needs, the XS52 and this one, XS35. They are both very similar using the same 160 GB HD, same IR blaster funtion to set top cable/sat box, and same navigation software, but there are a few major differences. The XS52 will only burn to -R/-RAM while the XS35 will burn to -R/-RW and -RAM. Why they left -RW out of XS52, I don't know. The other thing is that the XS52 uses the VCR+ Plus timer recording feature where the XS35 uses the TVGuide OnScreen system. VCR+ Plus codes are not listed in my local paper or guide, so this would be a pain for me to have to search for and setup, although I am sure it works fine, the TVGOS is much easier for me. The last difference I could see is the XS52 offers an HDMI output and upconversion on DVD playback to 480p, 720p and 1080i for "near-HD" quality.
The only thing I didn't like about the XS35 was that it didn't have the upconversion like the XS52, but was I really missing something here??? I wanted to know if I should get the XS52 for the upconversion, so I brought home a Toshiba upconverting DVD player to see if I could tell the difference in quality between it and the XS35's progressive scan DVD player. After watching my favourite scenes on many DVD's I decided that I could not tell any difference which made my choice much easier. I wanted to save my HDMI input on my TV for later this year or next year when HD DVD/Blu-ray become more available, those DVD's will make a huge difference. So I went out and bought the XS35.
Some of the features of the XS35:
1) TVGOS program guide: A lot of people have been reporting problems with this on older versions. I cannot say that I have had any problems with this. In fact it was the easiest thing to set up. It simply asks for your zip/postal code and within 24 hours of setup it has downloaded all the channels to it's guide and all the programming for 8 days. This is very convienient to use with the timer programming, I can tape "Lost" weekly and "South Park" daily and it will do it for me. So far I really enjoy this system since I don't have cable or satellite and I don't have a guide, this is really nice to see what is on next.
If I did have a Cable/Sat box I could use the IR blaster to change to channel 405 at 10:00 pm then to channel 253 at 12:00 pm and it would do it. This is what the manual says and although I have not used this feature it is a nice one to have for potential future use.
You can also just press REC and start recording to the HDD instantly instead of setting up a timed recording. Just press stop to stop it.
2) DVD - the playback is as good as I could imagine. I had been using my Xbox as a DVD player. I can't say I see any huge differences or improvements, but it isn't worse either. Both are great for me.
The benefit is that I can burn to DVD anything I want to keep, (superbowl, movies on tv, seasons of tv shows, etc.)
It does support both DVD-R/RW and RAM unlike XS52 which only supports -R and -RAM.
3) The fan does not run all the time, like many have said about the XS54. It is very quiet when it does run. The lights on the front make it easy to see what you are doing at the moment. If you are recording there is a red light ring around one of the buttons on the front of the unit. If you are on the HDD a blue light is on and when on the DVD it lights up green. There are separate lights too not just one so if you are color blind (like my dad) you are not confused by only one light position.
4) The easy-navi button gets you right into the list of programs you have saved and is easy to use. Easy to delete when finished with a certain recording and it tells you how much time you have left to use on the disk to manage your files.
5) Playback - Great playback features. You can playback a recording while recording another program live. You can also pause live TV with the Timeslip feature and then skip through commercials in 5s, 10s, 30s or 5 minute intervals to catch up to the live feed, also skip back at 5 s intervals if you missed something.
All in all I am happy with this HDD/DVD recorder and despite not having the HDMI upconversion for DVD playback (which I can't see a difference in anyway) it has everything I think you could want.
There are going to be other units Panasonic/Pioneer available that do similar things but I like the way this one works.
5 stars from me...good luck!
 A Few Minor Issues, But a Great Unit August 23, 2006
37 out of 39 found this review helpful
My wife and I purchased this unit as a co-anniversary present to each other. We wanted to replace a VCR that was used to occasionally tape TV shows, the news, etc., so we decided on a DVD recorder that had a hard drive for DVR recording. I read reviews on various models, and decided on this one. I haven't been disappointed.
While some reviewers mention the fan noise as a problem, I haven't seen it as such. The fan (apparently) is temp-controlled, because it seems to get louder when using the unit, and stays louder for a few minutes after the unit is shut off. It's not incredibly loud, but it is noticeable.
The one negative I have to agree with other reviewers on is the manual and on-screen guide. They are not user intuitive at all. I am a highly technical person, and spent quite a while the first night trying to figure out how to play a DVD, even after thumbing through the manual.
Now that I've figured out how to use the DVD player, I've watched a dozen or so DVDs, and have absolutely no complaints. The video and sound playback are excellent.
I've used the DVR a half dozen times, and love it. I don't know how I survived without it. You simply go to a show on the TV guide on-screen, and press the record button. That is, after you've set up the basic recorder settings when you first unpack the unit. Once the unit records, you go to the 'content menu' which shows the shows you've recorded, the title, channel, etc, and even shows a screenshot! To play it back, you navigate to the one you want to watch and press 'play'. The coolest thing about it, and the DVD player, is that when you stop a show or disk, turn the unit off, and come back later, the unit knows exactly where you were when you stopped, and resumes from there. Sweet!
I'm set up to record a show using the DVR, that I will burn to a DVD. I will update my review once that is done, so that I can give my impression of that part of the unit, which is the only thing I've yet to do with it.
12-4-06 - Update
Now that I've had the unit for a couple of months, I wanted to update my review, especially having had time to play with the DVD authoring aspect of the unit, which for me was a secondary item. I wanted the unit mostly for the ability to DVR without having to pay TiVo a monthly fee. The DVR works flawlessly, and I couldn't be happier with it.
I've burned a handful of DVD disks using the unit and found it not particularly easy to do, although not overtly so. The manual, as previously noted, is not a lot of help. Of the 5 disks that I've burned, three of them were 'fully authored', meaning that I went in and manually added chapter breaks, created thumbnails for each chapter and for the main menu for each episode. This is VERY time consuming, so I didn't do it on the last two disks. The fourth disk causes any DVD player I put it in to lockup after five minutes or so. I don't know if this is because the unit automatically puts in chapter breaks at 5 minute intervals or what. I'm going to edit the content of that fourth disk, and burn it again to see if that makes the difference.
As a side note, I found that the unit will not recognize DVD+R disks, so you have to make sure you use DVD-R or DVD-RW formatted ones.
 If they're going to make it, MAKE IT RIGHT! August 6, 2006
21 out of 22 found this review helpful
I don't get why companies make products that are feature rich, but don't send them home with test groups to fine-tune the detailed problems.
I had to send this unit back because it was so non-intuitive and not user-friendly at all. The pause live tv function was useless, and I encountered a bug that locked my system up every time (see this product's discussion forum below). How many more bugs might I find? This thing had to go back.
The feeling I got from this unit was that Toshiba tried to implement as many features as possible (by as many different people) without making any attempt to integrate them.
For instance, the TV Guide On-screen feature was most important to me, as it was a guide that comes over the air or cable for free -- no subscriptions required, and no digital cable box required. Great! However, it was as if TV Guide just sent Toshiba an applet to run on the machine that was basically set in its own world as far as the RD-XS35 was concerned. The only integration was the fact that I could press the record button to record something from the guide. The guide was slow, awkward, and hard to use. Info from the guide was not provided on a given channel unless you started the TV guide applet again.
The second most important feature to me was being able to "pause live tv" like a Tivo box, or a cable or satellite DVR does. Their implementation of this feature is HORRIBLE. It is nerfed to the point that this feature is useless. You see, in order for you to pause what you're watching, you have to enter "timeslip mode" which takes about 10 seconds to start! It will start recording the channel, bump you back 10 seconds, and LOCK YOU ON THAT CHANNEL UNTIL YOU EXIT THE MODE! You can, at that point, pause, REW, and FF what you're watching. But you have to exit the mode (which takes another 10 seconds and two confirmation messages) to change the channel and restart the whole process over again elsewhere. INCREDIBLY dissapointing and worthless.
Lastly, there is a "menu" button, an "EASY NAVI menu" button, a "content menu" button and a "Quick menu" button all on the remote, and all of which do different things, none of which are integrated. What the heck? Can they make operation of this thing more confusing? It was as if some engineer on one side of their R&D building says "ooh I have an idea for a main menu button" and he puts in in. Then another engineer on the other side of the building says "oooh *I* have an idea for a menu button" and he puts it in as well, but neither of them talk to each other at any point in the process.
There are 13 thousand ways to enter the setup menu of the device but only one way to exit it. With the exit button? NO, that would make too much sense. You have to open a hatch on the remote and find the setup button in the lower left hand corner and press it. Great. And there are a million buttons under that hatch, none of which seem to do anything useful.
The "info" button really pretty much does nothing, except in the TV Guide mode.
My advice - save your money for something that actually does what you need it to do. Why spend so much money just to be frustrated? Private DVRs are about to boom big time, and *someone* out there is going to get it right. Toshiba definitely did not.
Surprised there were problems! May 12, 2006
16 out of 17 found this review helpful
I own many Toshiba products, including a new laptop, dvd players etc... When 2 different liteon 5045s both broke in 28 and 29 days respectfully, I decided to stick with a good brand that has worked for us over the years.
I have to say they (Toshiba) thought of everything in the design of this unit. It is impressive when you read the manual and find out the many ways this unit may be customised for both; quality of audio and video (together and independantly!), and control of the appearance of the menu screens.
The TV Guide aspect is one that should be able to be bypassed if one chooses to get around the problems associated with it. However, you must deal with it.
After the first couple hours of viewing, we noticed that the sound would drop out for a split second. This problem is persistant and very annoying. Parts of words are completely missed. This does not make for good recording!
The other major problem is that recordings fail right in the middle of the program. The message beeps twice and tells you to contact service if it persists. It has! Many times!
As a result of the above problems, I am returning it. I may give another try at the same model. Haven't decided yet. On the whole, the shipping costs of the dvd recorders that have failed are enough to bleed anyone monetarily and time-wise.
If I get another of the same model, I will add to this to let people know if I fared any better.
ammended may 14th********
I finally got it to record a couple of movies and found another major problem that I did not have with the other dvd recorders we have owned. If you plan on recording from HBO, Showtime etc...DON'T!!!!!!!!!! It will not let you burn it to disk. All movies recorded on those channels are automatically "write protected". Unbelievable!!! Also, the picture quality is not as good as the "no-name" brands.
I am done with Toshiba!
Better than I hoped for June 12, 2006
14 out of 14 found this review helpful
Wanted to buy a hard drive based DVD recorder last year, but saw so many bad reviews of most brands/units that I decided to wait. I bought a low end Toshiba recorder (D-R4) and have been happy with it. Thus I decided to try this new model without benefit of reviews. Had it a couple of weeks and I have to say I'm impressed. I have experienced no problems. The menu system is similar to my D-R4 so it was quick for me to learn. The TV Guide took two days for 1st download, but has been perfect since (have Charter Cable). Have recorded to HD from TV Guide and burned to DVD; copied existing DVD to HD, edited and burned new DVD; and copied programs from two existing DVD's to HD, changed bit rate to fit them both on one DVD (unit calculated new bit rate for me automatically). Editing out commercials on the HD is very straight forward. High speed dubbing will burn a football game to DVD in about 10 minutes.
In short, it has done everything I bought it to do flawlessly. The only reason I didn't give it five stars was the pain of reorganizing the TV Guide Channels after the 1st download to match our cable box order and the copy protection on HBO, VCR tapes (that I'd like to archive to DVD), etc. Of course I know that they pretty much have to implement the copy protection, but I don't like it anyway.
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