OK, so I'm one of those people who loved, and then butchered his DHD4000, adding a larger HDD and also an "IDE-out" cable so that I could connect it to the laptop and pull off recordings.

I loved the DHD4000 and it gave me many years of happy TV recording/watching. And so I too was gutted when they simply "lost" the EPG and so the hunt started for a replacement.

The main feature I wanted was USB so that I could pull off recordings still - and there are precious few that do that.

I looked at the various Humax and Topfield ones, but they just didn't float my boat at all.

Then I saw the FetchTV 8320HD and this ticked all my boxes, so that's what we now have.

I'll not say it's perfect, it's had its fair share of problems, but the people at FetchTV are very friendly and helpful and there's been a constant stream of updates that have steadily improved it.

It's small, simple, doesn't use very much power at all and most of all, it will export to USB pen drives etc.

Highly recommended....

Is it this £200 one from Tesco

http://www.fetchtv.co.uk/fetchtv-sma...duct-page.html

Yes it is the "Technika SmartBox 8320HD" available for £200 only from Tesco (although some "Brand New" ones have been sold on eBay for quite a bit less).

Yeah, as others have said it's the one from Tesco.

Some other nice features are:

- iPlayer
- wifi software updates
- 600x FWD/RWD (LOL)

And of course the FetchTV service which seems to be on-demand movier rentals, although I've never used, and am not interested in this...

It's a nice little box, quite cheap feeling, but it does seem pretty robust (in-use).

This is copied from my post to
http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/s....php?t=1291507

This is for those of you who want a cheap replacement for the Tommy and like me don't want to risk good money on an HD PVR until they are sorted and come down in price.

OK, so I grasped the nettle and bought the Bush 250GB Digital TV Recorder with Freeview from eBuyer, total £52 including carriage. This arrived within 7 days and so far (1week) has worked reliably. The reception is as good as our digital TV, with very infrequent stutters. The interface is fairly intuitive, and not too different from the Thomson. The reception is better than our Thomson with 2.5" HDD.

I miss being able easily to wind back a live programme (you can only pause it then restart from the pause). However, If you get into the habit of pausing a programme for a few seconds when you start watching it, it means that you can wind back as far as that point anytime during the programme. We find this handy when we miss a vital piece of dialogue in a whodunnit, or want our own action replay of a bit of sport. The other work around is that you can set the programme to record and then just watch it from the start while it records.

There is no facility to add a buffer at each end of a recording, but it does so far seem to record the actual time of the programme accurately. We won't know this for sure until some sporting event pushes a programme out of its time slot. There is no indication on the front of the machine that it is actually recording. I still don't understand the stand-by modes, but we seem to have achieved a usable setup by sheer luck. On one setting the aerial does not pass through to the TV, and since the machine takes an age to power up this can be frustrating when you are about to miss the beginning of a programme.

It is smaller and much quieter than either Thomson we have owned, and better ventilated. The response time to remote inputs is slower than the Thomson, but acceptable.

I agree broadly with MarkPax's assessment of the Hitachi version. The seven day EPG is fine, and no adverts. The series link so far seems to work well, spotting that the reruns of Due South (BBC 2 1.00pm, well worth a look) are not weekly and not daily, but on certain days only.

On balance I can recommend it as a reasonable alternative to the Thomson 4000. Unfortunately eBuyer are now sold out - sorry .

If any bugs show up I'll post them here or in the other thread in future.

Colin M.