DVD players

Toshiba D-R160

Perfectly good if you only want to play pre-recorded DVDs

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Last reviewed: November 30th 2006

It certainly does the job, as long as you don't ask too much of it

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If you want a digital recorder that keeps things simple, then Toshiba's keenly priced D-R160 could be for you. It's a standalone DVD recorder without a hard disk, and on paper it seems ideal for on-the-fly TV timeshifting and archiving from a PVR. But how is it in practice?

The D-R160 is a very tasty looking machine. The sloping fascia and black/silver styling are nice touches, setting it apart from similarly priced rivals and supermarket cheapies. Build quality is also solid as a rock.

All the key playback and recording buttons are situated on the front, above a flap that houses S-video, composite video and stereo audio inputs. There's no DV-in, which could be a turn-off for digital camcorder users.

The rear panel sports two Scarts, one of which is an output that delivers RGB signals to your TV. The other is an input that, sadly, only accepts composite signals and not best-quality RGB.

Using this low-quality connection to record from an external source has serious implications for picture quality - and not in a good way. On the plus side, the D-R160 does sport progressive scan capable component video outputs, which is welcome news for movie fans with compatible progressive displays.

The unit will only record on to DVD-RW and DVD-R discs. With several rivals offering multi-format recording, this puts the Toshiba at a big disadvantage.

That said, the inclusion of DVD-RW means that you can edit recordings, provided the disc is formatted in Video Recording (VR) mode first. If you don't want to edit, or want to make sure it will play on a mate's DVD player, then format it in Video mode.

There are six recording modes (XP, SP, LP, EP, SLP and SEP) offering between 1hr and 10hr on a disc. It lacks the manual bit-rate selection found on other Toshiba machines, but six presets are more than most recorders offer.

Flexible friend

The use of DVD-RW discs makes this a much more flexible recorder than RW-based rivals, with generous editing options. When formatted in VR mode, you can delete a section, divide and combine titles, add or delete chapter points, change the menu thumbnail image, change the name or delete the whole recording.

But if you fancy something a little bit more advanced, you can use the playlist feature to arrange original recordings into a new sequence, adding or removing titles at will.