Toshiba SD-34VB

I purchased a Toshiba SD-34VB DVD/VCR Combi in September 2005 for £70 from eBuyer.com, which makes it a very economical way of attaching a video recorder and DVD player to one SCART on the TV, leaving any 2nd SCART socket for a digibox or whatever.

VHS - Picture quality is not top notch, but acceptable. Index Search is a function I use a lot, and I was mortified to find that this machine doesn't have it. I've had no mechanical problems, despite quite heavy use over the last 9 months or so, but the Pause is not steady, which it still is on my very old Matsui's (2 of them still going strong after years and years). I don't see the point of the 'Return to 0' function, not the way I use the machine, but others might find it useful. On Screen Display is vital, given the lack of Index Search, and this one is clear and accurate.

DVD - I only use it to watch movies and TV programmes, mainly downloaded in the form of DivX. Some problems with jerkiness and pic/sound out-of-sync may be due to this machine's inability to cope with XviD ("not official so we don't cater for it", say Toshiba) or DVD-RW (it only plays -R, say Toshiba). My brother's cheap Yamada DVX-6700 has no such problems, AND it gets firmware upgrades.

However, the Toshiba is mostly adequate and good value for money at £70 or less, and it solves the too-few-SCART-sockets problem that many of us face nowadays.