The analogue EPG isn't brilliant but the Freeview EPG is a different animal altogether. It has a search feature that is better than SKY+ and is very user friendly. The only snag is that unlike SKY+ you cannot adjust program start and end unless you set it manually which would be a pain for everything you wanted to record. I recorded a program recently using Freeview EPG and it didn't start recoding until after the opening credits so I lost the geninning of the film.
You forgot to mention the execellent editing features of the Sony RDR HXD870 which I presume are the same as the 250GB 970 that I have. Having frame by frame editing enables you to edit all unwanted frames without transporting the title to a PC. The only drawback is that you have to dub at normal speed but you can dub at high speed if you select Video Mode compatible editing. The only snag with this is that it is only accurate to +/- 12 frames.
I have not owned any other HDD/DVD Recorder so cannot compare but for me this machine gets full marks. Maybe I should have bought the 500GB model as one soon stores upto 50 titles in HQ. Perhaps the only negative feature is that it records in the mode you set not the mode that corresponds to the source.
