Funai HDR-B2735 DVD Recorder VCR Combi with 160GB HDD

The Funai HD-B2735 has proven to be a real find. Even on the 'SP' setting, the picture quality on my HDD and DVD-RW recordings has been excellent.If you don't want to spend too much money, and you don't mind having something that looks like a top-loading vcr (circa 1985) sitting under your tv, I'd really recommend it.

Prompt deliveryGood value for money.Instruction book can be a little confusing.Thr fan at the back of the unit is on constantly when the machine is on and can be a little irritating.Still have not gor the hang of which channel to go to on the TV to get the HDD without putting the unit off and then on again.Every time you turn the unit on it has to load up.All things considered for the price it has everything that I want and would recommend it.

Ive had one of these for some years, but really only used it as a video player. I tried to use the VHS to hdd and that worked great, however trying to get the recording is another problem.I put in a DVD-r and it just keeps saying Recording error. Ive got the correct media in the DVDplayer/recorder and the recording should go on with no copyright errors. As the recording is home made stuff births weddings etc.I even took the HDD out the machine and put it into a HDD caddy and the HDD reader couldnt read it at all. So i am presently looking into paying to get the recordings put in digital format. In other words ive given up with this machine.Sorry but over complicated and its hardly been used.

This machine is a great idea, but several niggles keep it from being what it should be. The set-up is automatic, but then leaves you to sort out the ordering of channels manually with the remote. I bought this to transfer ageing tapes to DVD and this is where the real problems come in. It won't accept many DVD-RWs (probably about half are rejected for no apparent reason, and I have been using the recommended Maxell ones). And then there is the Macromedia "function". If the machine detects a Macromedia copy-protect signal on a tape, it simply switches off the recording session, whether to HDD or to DVD. I suppose the implicit meaning is that I should buy a DVD of a videotape I already own.Recording from Freeview is much more fiddly than it should be, as the unit itself is a purely analogue one, rather than a digital one: it has to treat the Freeview box as a satellite box. I suspect I should have bought a DVD recorder on its own and linked it to my older video, rather than going for this all-in-one unit. It certainly would have been cheaper, and probably wouldn't be so fussy about the DVDs it will deign to record. My wife's Humax PVR runs rings around it for ease of use and for functions.

Briefly, this product has great specs and was exactly what I wanted!However, it's worked fine for only about 7 months after which any attempts to set the Timer to record a program to the HDD ends in failure, with an error message informing me that there is no space on the disk even if I deleted almost all recordings from the HDD!As I didn't start using this product soon after I bought it, its 1-year warranty has passed by and the only thing left for me now is to contact Funai hoping that they would provide me with a solution for this problem.I've found Funai's website and the technical support's online form, so I explained the situation to them almost a month ago...I have never received any replies from them, so I contacted them again today.However, when I did this, I noticed that when you press the Send button on the online form there is no message generated on screen to acknowledge they received your query as any other support websites do. Then, there is no visible "transition time" when you submit this form, which makes me suspect that their online support functionality simply doesn't work! Unfortunately there is no other way of contacting them!!!Under the contact form on the same online page on Funai's website there is also functionality to download your product's manual... Well, no matter what manual I selected I'm always getting the "File not found" message when attempting to download it.You can make your own conclusion about Funai and their products now without me spelling it out...

I've had the 250 GB version for about 2 years now. It does exactly what it says. Excellent quality. It also has a skip button - which I've set to a minute. This means I just skip through the adverts by pressing the button 5 times !You can get circa 4.5 hours on a DVD or circa 400+ hours on the 250B disc.There's 4 PAGES of timer record (8 per page) so pretty good.I recently bought a new Panasonic for another room (cost circa £ 300) but apart from intergrated freeview I couldn't say it was any better.You can watch while recording, which in my family is a real MUSTIt does insist on decent quality blank dvds (if you want to keep the programs for all time) but I'd rather that than have them fail later.The machine recently broke down due to a hard disc fault (to much use)? But I simply bought another hard disc and plugged it in. - You do need to know how to get into the setup ("variable skip" on the remote and then numbers 3, 6 & 9 within 3 seconds) but it took five minutes with a screwdriver and the disc cost circa £ 40 !Overall a very good product at a prety decent price. If you're still using a VCR this is what you're looking for.