The Pioneer 530H is an excellent recorder, bringing both ease of use and professionalism to the user. Some minor omissions prevent this recorder from realising its truly epic potential.

Its image quality is stellar, and its dubbing superfast. Aside from a cramped remote, there's little to complain about with this Pioneer.

A wide range of supported formats, combined with stylish industrial design, makes the KiSS DP-558 a great hard disk recorder for the power user who doesn't mind recording in MPEG-2 and archiving footage regularly.

It's initially tricky to operate, but the RD-XS34 offers plenty of powerful features and is a gem once you've mastered it.

A basic HDD/DVD recorder that will appeal to those seeking a simplistic system

LG's LST-5403P is a top of the range hard disk recorder with plenty of storage space and an interface grandma could use. A great, albeit pricey, contender.

More manufacturers should be following Panasonic's example with the DMR-EX85. A truly outstanding product, the omission of a time shift buffer is the only feature preventing this unit from being a near-perfect purchase.

An absolutely fantastic device, with only a few slight problems and omissions. If the firmware updates go as planned, it has the power to become a truly revolutionary product.

The DMR-XW300 is a highly functional digital video recorder, with few downsides apart from imperfect DVD playback and a high price tag. If you’re looking for incredible flexibility in a single unit, you can’t go wrong here.

After all the hype and wait, the TiVo HD isn't the ground-breaking product it was touted as. It's got some nifty new features which we'd love to see widely accepted though and it's a worthwhile investment if you want a comprehensive electronic TV program guide.