Page 1 of advice on dvd recorder hdd system please

I have around £400 to spend and am looking for a dvd recorder/ hdd and cinema sound capabilities.
I have an Ipod connected to my stereo as a jukebox and would like to keep this option.
ideal world the system wouldn play divx and have some sort of epg.
i`ve looked at the panny saht1500 as a complete system
other thoughts are Philips hdrw 720 or Samsung hr720 combining these with a reciever
I have thought about sky + and a reciever but am a current sky subscriber on a basic no frills package and don`t really want to pay for the sport or film for a year.
Any suggestions greatly recieved
n

What sort of EPG do you mean, because as far as I know, none of them come with that, although a lot have tuners built in. Carry on using your digibox for that.

If you already have a sky box then you don`t have to sign up for a year - take my example - always broke. Have my box on for typically 6 months of the year, two of those will be December/January cos I am a big kid for the Christmas movies etc.

SKY do from time to time do specials - and right now if you sign up you can get sky movies world for 1/2 price for three months (and you dont have to continue on after). All you have to do is do a months notice - therefore if you fancy it on for all of September - ask the lady/guy after you have placed your order to go thru to accounts and give them your months notice.

I personally don`t have a HDD system on either sky or my dvdr (which is a LITEON 5005) but I get round this with using re-writeable discs, then copying what I fancy from the player to recorder after. It is a very cheap way round it - some people call it nasty:-) but it works for me.

I have installed a few HDD systems for friends and tested them and to be honest one is much the same as the other - they are all so new no-one knows how durable they are. So if you find one you like at the price you want to pay - take out an extended warranty with someone like D & G and get covered for all eventualities including drops, kids poking their crayons in the player drawer, etc etc., it`s all the same price so make sure you get an all eventualities warranty.

Ones I have set up are:-

LITEON 5045 - 160 gig HDD - simple to use, cheap for what you get, dvd drive is a bit noisey.
JVC DR-HM20EK - 80GB Hard Drive - again very simple to use, good value, picky with discs tho.
Ellion 950C - 120 gig HDD - simple to use, only uses + discs
JVC DR-MX1SEK - 160 gig with a vcr too. Nice but quite dear and complicated instructions, great for doing recording from your old video tapes. Only does - discs.

That`s the only ones I`ve seen in the flesh, so to speak. Lots of people have them on here tho so I am sure you will get plenty of recommendations.

Good luck,

Hilary