I have now tried, and returned, two Sony slv n900's. Both machines sort of started out fine--except for the crumby remotes. The remote controlled my cable box. However, neither machine carried out timed recordings (using set up that controls cable box) reliably. Occasionally, they recorded. Mostly, they just did not. And sometimes, they recorded the wrong channel. The first machine recorded without audio, switched into black and white. On both, the remote controlled my Sony TV volume on day 1, but not thereafter. When I called Sony about the second machine they seemed very unconcerned and told me the machine was not compatible with my Jerrold cablebox (despite the fact that the Jerrold is listed in manual and is about as common as any box I have seen).
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