Have to agree with what has been said before about the Panasonic DMR-E55 I got one from Richer Sounds (always undercuts high street and the guys who work there know their stuff)
Amusingly I got this after a colleague from work who had bought one and then told us that she had this new fangled machine that could record TV and watch things whilst it was only half way through, then preceded to tell us that she could record things that were on when she was out but had forgotten to set machine. At this point we inundated her with requests for programs that had been on the night before, in fact we still do...