Electronics : Daewoo DSD9503T - Freeview Set top Box With 160gb Hard Drive Twin Digital Tuner

Rating: - Unreliable
I have some problems as some other reviewers.
The tuner unit freezes occasionally. It is extremely sensitive to room temperature.
The hard disk also broke several times and needed reformatting.
The unit fails to shut down and try rebooting/shutting down forever.

Some reviewer pointed out firmware issue.
This unit has a firmware update function, however, but as far as I now, it never happened.
Whom to blame?

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Rating: - good for the price
Had this 18 months and the kids have really caned it so wasn't surprised when the remote refused to access any menus today despite new batteries.
Daewoo helpline was prompt and keen to sell me a new remote for £55-and unimpressed when I informed them that was half the price of the original machine-was about to begin research for a cheaper route when my 11 yr. old spotted one of the function buttons was jammed-safety pin released it and now works again-incidentally it also seemed to be jamming T.V. remote!
Overall this has given great value though-comments about picture jamming when watching something on the time lapse ring true-only happens when you don't wait for the recording to finish-and switching off and on to reboot doesn't affect settings-good to know which plug is which-the 'freeze' can also be avoided if your t.v. is tuned to other tuner rather than the one making the recording-i.e. if when you switch back to viewing t.v. from library and you are on a different prog. then it should be ok.- also re the noise-I have had to cushion the machine with a cloth beneath it as it causes the glass shelf to vibrate!

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Rating: - The worst product and service ever
I bought this piece of garbage last year:it never worked properly,the hard drive continually initializing,switching channels on its own,the case buzzing like a wasps nest and so on.Daewoo's contracted service
people took it away for a second time in April of this year with the same faults it had on their first attempt to repair it and luckily I haven't seen it since!!!No contact from either Daewoo or their service guys in all this time. On top of that Amazon aren't interested in my problem,after all they only sold it to me!So no stars at all.

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Rating: - Daewoo DSD9503T with the latest Firmware version ' 3.2 '
You may be puzzled why some people in the review area ' love it ' while others ' hate it '

I am a retired University Lecturer in Computer Science and I repair all my friends Computers so I know exactly how these machines work.

Its all down to the Firmware and many people who hate it I suspect have the older Firmware .

I bought a Daewoo DSD9503T and it has the latest version which is ' 3.2 '

I live in London and have a strong signal from Crystal Palace.

Its a far thinner unit than I was expecting - which allows me to give it enough airspace without having to rearrange all my other machines.

Note a lot of problems can be traced back to units not having enough airspace - the DSD9503T does not have a Fan on the Hard Drive and with the correct airspace it does not need it and it runs cool and very very quiet.

The picture quality is ' Outstanding ' and it was so easy to use that I bought a second one.

Believe me you cant tell if its a recording or a direct Broadcast { its that Good }

The biggest advantage is being able to record a whole Channel { or two } and then delete what you don't want. While playing its possible to speed it up to * 24 times so you can whiz though a lot in a short period of time.


Pro's and Con's

It does have a few quirks -

{ quirk 1 } the remote control is very cramped so its not a R/C that you can use in the dark .

{ quirk 2 } With PIP on it cant handle widescreen Auto but switching to nonauto widescreen sorts it out.

{ quirk 3 } if you are recording One Freeview source PIP does not work when in fact there is no reason for PIP not to work.

Good Points

{ 1 } So far the Hard disk is silent { and running very Cool } - it does not spin up until I record or play back something { and even then you cant hear it } and the Recording quality is excellent.{ you could never tell it was a Recording { its equivalent to 15 MB's to 20 MB's per second so very high quality }

To give you a Comparison if you buy a DVD lets say the new WALL-E DVD the average will be around 7 MB's { it may vary between 5 and 10 MB's } so the Daewoo is double the quality of a DVD - no wonder they have such a great picture.

{ 2 } now as far as I am aware only the BBC and Channel Four has this function - its a digital PDC { Programme Delivery Control } so lets say something should start at 8 pm it can detect if the program is running late or early so you never miss anything - also it has a ' offset ' so on the other channels it will start early and end late by a few minuets { unless two program times clash of course }

{ 3 } its possible to move the PIP area ' left-right-top-bottom '

{ 4 } The front panel displays the Channel number its tuned to - very handy when you have as many Freeview sources as I do .

{ 5 } Timer and Record very easy to set - its all just clicking on the EPG so there is no actual times being typed in.

{ 6 } When playing a Recording PIP still works { not all units allow this }

{ 7 } when you are recording two Freeview Channels its possible to play a past recording ' at the same time '

{ 8 } It uses ' Chase play ' - lets say you have set newsnight to be recorded but you arrive back before it ends - While its still being record you can press play and watch the start { but it will still keep on recording the whole program }

{ 9 } A very big Plus point - the Recording store lists recordings by Program name { and time/date } and they are easy to play or delete + it stores the EPG info as well so even if its something you recorded a year ago - there is still the EPG entry to view.

{ 10 } it does appear that it can accept a larger Hard Drive as it has the software on a chip so bang in a bigger drive and it will format correctly { note only consider doing this ' if you know exactly what you are doing ' + you will invalidate your guarantee so don't try if you are not 100 % confident }

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Rating: - Unreliable at best.
I bought this Freeview recorder for my boyfriend's birthday but was quickly embarrassed at how many faults it has.

Within half an hour it was emitting a high-pitched tone that only stopped when we switched the unit off and on again. This has happened intermittently since.

Next problem was the remote control. For no apparent reason it stopped responding and again it could only be fixed by turning the unit off and on.

The third issue is that it always jams on recorded programs and again you have to turn the unit off to rectify.

This is turn means that if you're recording anything at the time you will inevitably miss a chunk of it as the Freeview box has been out of action.

The problems seem to occur less over time but I can't say I'm very impressed with this product at all.