Sony RDR-HXD860 locking up and rebooting

[admin_exported]

I have one of Sony's RDR-HXD860 DVD recorders, which I bought because it was your Award-winner. Now it seems to have gone a bit haywire, occasionally locking up or rebooting itself seemingly at random, sometimes even when it's in the middle of a recording.

I feel very let down - did the one you tested show any such problems?

I contacted my dealer and was told there was a mux problem, whatever that is, and that i should avoid viewing a whole load of stations, including all the Channel Five services, British Eurosport, some shopping channels and UK TV Gold and Style. I can live without all the shopping channels, unless I'm looking for a new DVD recorder that is, but not being able to watch Five is more of an annoyance.

It's not good enough really, is it?

 

[Andrew Everard]

No, 'our one' worked perfectly, and the good news is that this seems to be a temporary glitch caused by circs entirely beyond Sony's control. Another reader contacted us with a similar problem earlier today, so we checked with Eric Kingdon, Sony's European Technical Marketing Manager and all-round font of AV wisdom, and here's his reply:

"There's a problem with Multiplex (or Mux) A, on which the stations your reader mentions are broadcast: it seems that changes were made to the data content without our knowledge and this causes the problem.

Normal practice would be that an over the air download would be issued in advance of any such changes, but
now that there is awareness of the issue, an OAD will be sent out on the July 23rd

Our Customer Information Centre is fully aware of the issue and the staff there are briefed to answer any questions people may have.

In effect the products are not faulty, as they have worked fine up until this point, and after the update they should operate correctly."

It seems the models affected are the one you have, the RDR-HXD1065 and some of the earlier models with a model number ending in -10, but it looks like the problem will be solved by next Tuesday morning by the automatic over-air download.

 

[Clare Newsome]

FYI, I've just heard from a reader with an affected Sony that the update mentioned above did take place and was a success.