Other Source Component Reviews

This is very cool, but the implementation is a bit strange. You select the record mode by pressing the remote's rec mode button repeatedly to cycle through the modes, which are numbered 1 through 5, until you get to the one you want; you can also select them in the Quick Menu. The strange thing is that mode 1 is manual, mode 2 is SP, mode 3 is LP, and modes 4 and 5 are manual. Also, the front-panel display doesn't differentiate between the three manual modes; it simply indicates "M" when you pick any of them, so you can't tell which one you've selected by looking at the front panel.

The Performance
I tried recording at various bit rates, with no surprising results. SP mode exhibited a horizontal resolution of 450 lines per picture height, as did a manual mode at 6.6 Mbps. LP mode exhibited a horizontal resolution of about 275 lines per picture height, while the lowest bit rate (1.4 Mbps) had less than 250 lines and looked mighty soft, even defocused. In the back of the Operation manual is a big table of estimated record times for each bit rate; the bottom line is not to go below the SP bit rate if you want a reasonably high-quality picture.

There are three ways to record. After selecting the medium (hard drive or DVD), input, and record mode, you can hit the record button, which starts recording immediately. Once recording has started, you can enter the Quick Menu to specify an end time, or you can press the stop button at any time. Alternatively, you can program the machine to record much like a VCR; however, even with VCR Plus+, this is much less user-friendly than an electronic program guide, such as TV Guide On Screen. Finally, you can press the TimeSlip button, which starts recording on the hard drive and pauses the program until you hit the pause or play button; hitting TimeSlip again stops recording.

Like most hard-disk and DVD-RAM recorders, the RD-XS32 can play one recorded program while it records another on either of those media (but not DVD-R or DVD-RW). You can also start playing a program from the beginning while it's still being recorded on those media. The Relay recording feature continues recording a program on the hard drive if the DVD-RAM disc is getting full, and the A-B recording feature puts the first half of the program on DVD-RAM and the second half on the hard drive so that you can dub the second half to another DVD-RAM (or the other side of a double-sided DVD-RAM) at a later time.

I'm sorry to report that the procedure for dubbing material from the hard drive to DVD (and vice versa) is anything but intuitive. Rather than go into the gory details here, suffice to say it takes several convoluted steps and leaves a few seconds of black screen at the beginning and end of the dubbed material. Also, if you record to the hard drive and expect to dub it to a DVD, you must make sure that the material is recorded in "DVD compatible mode." (Why it doesn't always record in DVD compatible mode is beyond me.) I really wish you could simply select the recording you wanted to dub and hit "go."

Also, as the manual states, "Line-U dubbing (so called because you have to select the Line U input to dub) may cause slight deterioration in picture and sound quality of contents." In my tests, I didn't see or hear any appreciable deterioration, but that warning took me aback. For one thing, it implies that the dub doesn't take place entirely in the digital domain; if it did, there'd be no need for such a warning.

Of course, the RD-XS32 is also a DVD player. . .and a fine one at that. As I noted earlier, you can switch between interlaced and progressive component output, even while a disc is playing. The deinterlacer is quite good, faring very well on the waving-flag test (only minor jaggies). Cross-color suppression wasn't great, but only at the highest frequencies. The Snell & Wilcox Zone Test Plate from Video Essentials demonstrated that the deinterlacer locks on to the 3:2 sequence very quickly, and mixed film/video content from the Faroudja test disc looked excellent. These findings translated well to DVD movies, which I truly enjoyed watching.

The RD-XS32 is quite a study in contrasts (not the visual kind). It offers several unique features not found on any recorder I've seen, and its DVD playback is superb. On the other hand, dubbing—which should be one of this device's strong points—suffers from some serious drawbacks, and there's no EPG, requiring the user to program recordings like a VCR. Still, I came away with a positive impression overall; it beats the heck out of continuing to add to my DVD-R coaster collection.

Highlights
• Extremely flexible recording options
• Excellent DVD player
• Convoluted dubbing procedure