Daewoo: SV-900

Robert Carnegie, Scotland, on February 9th, 2008
It crashes, it loses channels, when I change channels other devices glitch, and the SCART tape output is overlaid with a ghost of the tuned digital channel picture and/or sound, I think, as is recording from AV2 (auxiliary box port), whereas AVF (front panel phono) loses sound and -may- not provide stereo when it is working. And tape handling is sluggish, and the remote tends to register double presses, and going from paused play to record sometimes doesn't work. If it does, it takes five seconds to go, and records at two seconds before the pause point. This seems to be the only VHS tape recorder with built-in Freeview, but I gave up and plugged a set-top box in instead. What a pity!

Brian Carson, London, on October 26th, 2007
This could have been a cracking Unit but the Design really does let it down. For some unbelievable reason the designer decided to create a dual function button for the stop control - it shares the same function as ' eject ' Just imagine you are watching a tape and you press the stop button - unless you stab at the button ' very quickly ' instead of the tape stopping all of a sudden the tape is ejected. { leave your finger on the button for a nanosecond longer and the tape ejects } In fact this has happened to me so many times { when all I wanted to do was stop the tape } that I now do not use it to playback any tapes. The eject tape button should always be well away from any other frequently used button and not incorporated with the stop button. The other Big let down is that it only has a now and next EPG - there is a 14 day EPG but to use it you need to ' pay ' a £ 4.99 subscription to ' setpal ' If you do not pay the subscription you will then notice the unit ' auto updates ' itself far more than any other unit I own { I own eight freeview units } Every Month it will attempt to do this ' at least ' five times. Is the ' auto update ' downloading updated software ? No it is in fact downloading ' Adverts ' - if you look at the now and next EPG you will be bombarded with adverts. There is a secret ' backdoor ' method of getting into the inner workings but its very complex to set up hence why I will not list the instructions here as it is possible to disable the whole unit if you do not know what you are doing but it is possible to disable the adverts . search for ' backdoor Daewoo SV900 hack ' but please dont try it unless you are confident with hack's On my unit the signal from the freeview receiver to the Video unit is reversed so the actual left hand sound comes out of the right hand speaker and vice versa so I never use it to record films. If they can redesign the remote control to move the eject button and they drop their silly idea about a subscription EPG it could be a ideal unit for people who do not like a extra stand alone freeview unit but as it stands its not very ' user friendly ' unit and I am sure if people use it for a few Months the stop/eject button will catch them out time and time again.

PC, on May 18th, 2005
Has no volume control - has ads in the epg!!!!