HD Beat First Look: Sony's ATSC recorder

Just a little heads up. We just received Sony's new ATSC recorder (DHG-HDD250) for review and I am excited to see this thing up and running. We will be posting a review after living with this thing for a few days, but I wanted to give you my first thoughts.

1. It has a QAM tuner paired with a cable card.
2. Got to love HDMI.
3. The remote is kind of funny looking.
4. The interface sucks
5. This thing costs HOW MUCH? $799 - Holy crap.

That sums up my first reactions on this recorder. I am not that excited about this thing anymore, but who knows. It might turn out to be a nice unit.

NOTE: Sony does not have this product on their website for some odd reason.

 

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 5th 2005 10:51AM]

looks like they discountinued it.
Best Buy is getting rid of them for $499.99
was thinking about getting it, but if they are discontinuing...

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 5th 2005 10:41AM]

The reason it's not on Sony's site is because it's been discontinued. "First Look" may be a little misleading for a unit released almost 12 months ago.

I looked pretty hard at this model as it's really the only HDTV "Tivo" option short of doing business with cable/satellite or constructing a home media center. Unfortunately, there are are WAY too many negative comments spread across the web for an item that I couldn't find for less than $500...Google has very little good to say about this model.

As a Mac user, EyeTV 500 + Linkplayer 2 offer me a much more stable HDTV recording and playback options.

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 5th 2005 10:54AM]

Sony's website lists the product as "no longer available", but here is a Google cache of the original product page:

http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:sJNSRUFPpA4J:www.sonystyle.com/is-bin/INTERSHOP.enfinity/eCS/Store/en/-/USD/SY_DisplayProductInformation-Start%3FCategoryName%3Dtvhav_HDDVRs%26ProductSKU%3DDHGHDD250%26TabName%3Dfeature%26var2%3D+DHG-HDD250+site:http://www.sonystyle.com&hl=en&client=safari

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 11th 2005 6:13PM]

Lets try this again..
From over a year ago on Engadget http://www.engadget.com/entry/7662347367845446/

Can't you folks do a "search the other weblogsinc sites"? ;-)

I just picked one up at Bestbuy for the aformentioned $499, now I have to decide if I want to keep it vs waiting for a cablecard HDTivo