Most of today’s home entertainment systems are made up of a number of electronic devices which will primarily include the LCD television as the centerpiece, a set of speakers, a video source such as a DVD player, a video recorder, digital video, a Blu-ray player, and even some videos. game consoles. And with all the new technology and designs being offered today, some may even opt for a unit that combines the features of two or three units. For heavy users, there may be a combination of a DVD player with a digital video recorder that uses a hard drive to record TV shows.
But for those who don’t need a hard drive, maybe because they don’t really watch much TV, or already have a personal video recorder, or just want a device that will allow them to record. DVD for family and friends, then the Toshiba DR18DT may be just what you’re looking for.
A scaled-down version of the Toshiba RD-98DT without the hard drive capability, the Toshiba DR18DT supports two rewritable DVD formats. The first and most useful is DVD-RW. This format supports video recording mode that allows post-editing of any recording. Also, there’s support for video mode which, while removing advanced editing later, allows it to be more accepted by other DVD players. The next format is the DVD+RW which has more fundamental editing features. Both formats support write-once formats. Unfortunately, though, the Toshiba DR18DT doesn’t support DVDs with dual-layer formats, so you basically only get eight hours of maximum recording time.
Design-wise, the Toshiba DR18DT has been given the standard all-black finish classically found on most of its products, with a silver stripe dividing the drive in two. The design is sleek and sexy and looks great paired with a glossy black LCD TV. The Toshiba DR18DT has a solid build and is very slim. It won’t take up too much area if space is a consideration for you.
The top half is where most of the Toshiba DR18DT’s distinguishing features are found. Almost in the middle of the top half is an LED display panel that displays much of the information relevant to its ongoing operation. The screen can make use of a larger dimension as it is hard to make out from a fairly normal distance. A modest array of controls can be found on the silver strip and most options are designated for the remote.
The Toshiba DR18DT already comes with a built-in Freeview tuner, so if your LCD doesn’t have this option, you’re in luck. The unit even has full support for series and split recordings which are Freeview playback features. With this feature, you don’t need to set the timer every time to record your favorite TV program, it is done automatically and it can even recognize if a program has been split into parts.
Overall, the Toshiba DR18DT is a very solid drive that offers a comprehensive feature set. It is very affordable, easy to use, and does an excellent job of not only decoding DVD videos, but also encoding them.
