BenQ: DE350

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Comments (2)

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Roy Szweda, Milton Keynes, UK on June 12th, 2006
This machine is my first HD-DVD recorder but I have earlier experimented with DVD recorders and making movies on the PC. My first, a Liteon was going great until the write laser failed! So it had to go back for a refund. I liked it because it also did CDs and VCDs which more recent machines seem to have left behind (probably to simplify the optical pick-up and save costs). My second was a Panasonic which I still have for upstairs dubbing my camcorder vids over. That is a fine machine but has some shortcomings. Basically I had got used to an archive of easily-accessed recordings via the Sky+ box. This is worth every penny (until it goes weird on you). So I thought that when the price dropped sufficiently I would get a HD-DVDR. Last month Novatech had another of its irresistible offers for a Benq 350 for £200. It has a 250Gb HD which beats the Sky+ by more than a factor of 5. That's the problem with Sky+, OK for programming recordings etc., and timeslip but the HD simply isn't big enough. Maybe if they let you trade quality for space it would be OK but there's no sign of that. Anyway, to the Benq and my first impressions of this fine machine. It was easy to set up - came in a nice box with everything you need and an easy to understand manual plus blank RW disk. So for this alone it deserves five stars. That said it is not quite as user-friendly as it could be (but then most consumer kit falls short on the software). The Sky+ has set a high standard that others should emulate IMHO. Also, the Benq uses DVD+R and DVD+RW contrary to the Pansonic which uses DVD-Rs and DVD-RAM. So I had to go out and buy some new disks (well I had to get some Ritek ones from BuySafe online which worked fine and have printable faces (because I like to finish off the recordings with a coloured disk). Connectivity is good enough for what I need at the moment but it may fall short for some enthusiasts so check out the company spec first. Presently I have it in between the old VCR/Sky+ and TV though I will try out other ways in due course. It has s-video in and out so I can connect my camcorder/VCR to it and thence to the PC’s Hauppage video card for YouTube clip making. The recordings I have made so far have not been disappointing. Of course the lowest quality is marginal but would probably be OK for radio etc. The DVD RW was fine and the first couple of DVD+Rs were OK too. So this machine does what I expected of it for both HD and DVDs. Plus we were able to skip through Eurovision at 100X (Sky+ 'only' goes up to 30x). Another thing I like is the eject button on the remote which the Panasonic lacks. On the other hand I have not figured out how to title the DVD – it is fairly straightforward doing the titling for each individual recording on the disc through the usual laborious ‘virtual keyboard’ and remote. It is fairly quiet too though it had not switched itself off or gone into standby after I left it recording to DVD last night. I don’t think you can dub from DVD to HD even with your own DVDs but going the other way is easy and much faster than real time. Another thing I have been doing is recording some of the (few) good tracks from Later With JH onto the HD. You can then go into the menu and tick these then it plays them in sequence so you can make up your own TV station! No sign of a shuffle play as yet nor saving your ‘playlist’ but it only takes a few seconds. Now I have nearly 200 recordings on the HD it gets tedious having to linearly scroll up and down hence my request for better interface s/w next time Benq. Likely I’ll find other things to report on with this complex beastie so I may well add more info in due course.

sean n.ireland on October 24th, 2006
awful,freezes and have to turn off by pulling plug out, tray sometimes doesnt open, hissing on recorders