HI All

so whats the latest feeling on the best freeview pvr at the moment? My Digifusion fvrt 100 seems to have bitten the dust...and I'm looking around the forums on what I should replace it with.

My needs are reasonably basic - dual tuner, chase play, preferably not noisy (!). Am not interested in copying stuff off to pc or dvd...some mentions ound here of a Sharp machine, tho it doesnt get mentioned on the comparison chart or have its own forum?

cheers for any opinions...

thanks

mike

The Sharps are/where Vestel clones. Basically same as Digihome/Goodmans/ etc but with a Sharp price tag.

The Sharp is not twin record (out of the box) so does not make the chart.
Would suggest look at Humax 9200 or Topfield.

Whats the cheapest freeview pvr with top up tv at the moment. I looking around at the moment but I only want a HDD of 40gb.

TUTV have changed their service some time ago so that you have to buy their Thomson box with the subscription package.

so i take it from your table that the best pvr out at the moment is the humax pvr9000t,as i am looking to buy a box soon

Give it a try its one of the very popular ones here.

Look at the Topfield too. You can easily add a wealth of new features to it, simply by copying over a few files accessible freely over the web.

microdirect are also still selling a refurbished fvrt100 with a 12 month warranty for 40 quid(ish).

And you DEFINITELY won't get cheaper than that.

glen.

I have three Tevion/Technotrend PVRs (yes I know!!!!) and an Asda Onn T816 160GB clone (very good) but might wish to buy a PVR that makes it easy to transfer radio recordings to my PC via a USB port as MP3 files. Looking at the comparison table, it seems that only the Humax and the Topfield will do that at present. Is that correct? - i.e. no other PVRs at present offer that fuctionality other than those two?

Anybody know any others that will do that?

yes if your goal is to use USB. Some of the PVRs have "disk data extraction" utilities written by 3rd parties available but these will all involve removing the IDE drive from the PVR and connecting it to a PC every now and again when you have built a collection of items to be extracted. But the "easy" solution of a (admittedly not that fast) USB link is only available from 9200 and 5800

Note also that radio won't be in mp3 form. It'll be an mpeg2 transport stream, so you'll probably need to at least demultiplex it to mp2 to listen to it in WMP or Winamp. To listen on an iPod or walkman, it'll need reencoding. Demultiplexing is quick, reencoding is slow.

Thanks to both of you for your responses. Simon I need to read up on this more - Do you know what packages (say from Downloads.com) I could use to do the mpeg2 to mp2 transformation? Also, where can I read more about mpeg2 transport streams, demultiplexing (whatever that is) and mp2 (I've obviously heard of mp3 but not mp2)

There is a discussion thread on digitalspy about converting a transport stream to mp2 or mp3 on this link http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/s...d.php?t=297854

There is a little bit more general information about what you can do with a MPEG2 Transport Streams in the PVR context with some of the tools/downloads available on this link http://www.hummy.org.uk/invison/index.php?showtopic=471

The Humax is mentioned on these but apply to MPEG2 ts files transfered off freeview PVRs to your PC. Topfield PVRs have the ts converted to a rec file so when it is transfered to a PC the file is in this format xyz.rec rather than xyz.ts. Its just a wrapper that still contains the MPEG2 data but with additional information captured by the PVR about the recording, and this can be stripped away with certain tools, some built in to well know apps.

Would there be much loss of quality if you connected the PVR audio output to the sound card of a PC? Are there any other problems with this?

I notice the info for the Thomson DTI6300-16 is now out of date due to updates.
[LIST][*]Price for both HS & OL is at most £99.99 now
[*]Subtitles can be recorded
[*]Subtitles are available
[*]Repeat recordings can be take place by use of Series Link[/LIST]


That's enough to be going on with, but am sure the next update will require some amendments to be made too

Still out of date....new OAD today added the facility to search the EPG by Channel, keyword in Prog Title, Date and/or Time

Thanks for all the info. I'll make some updates.

I have not done this before so I have probably posted this in the wrong place & if I have I apologise.

PVRs are not an area that I have much knowledge of and I am looking for some unbiased advice. I currently have Virgin (was Telewest) cable TV but have nothing to record programs on. I was considering the Virgin + box but was not keen on the £150 installation plus £5 per month rental (although I would reluctantly pay that if it is the right bit of kit). I have then considered the Humax 9200, my brother has one and is v. pleased with it.

Can anyone tell me what route I should be taking, I want to record programs through the cable automatically, I'd like 2 tuners so on the odd occasion when there is more than one decent program on I can either record both or watch one and record another. Is the Humax compatible with Virgin media? Is the Virgin + box the only/best option?

Can anyone help me please.

For cable the V+ box is your only option.

All conventional PVRs such as the Humax 9200 are only capable of recording signals from their own internal Freeview Tuners so can't be used to record Cable TV signals. If you want to continue to use Cable TV then your best option, ignoring the cost is Virgin+. Otherwise you could use a DVD Recorder preferably one with a Hard Drive to record from the Cable STB via its SCART lead. An alternative to Cable is Sky+ if you want to retain the range of programmes that Cable provides but again at greater overall cost than Freeview.

If you are content with the range of channels available on Freeview then there are a range of PVRs as shown on the comparison charts. They come in a range of prices with different detailed facilities. You are very wise to include 2 tuner in you basic requirements.

Colin

Oops! How did you know I was busy typing Nigel? Beaten by 2 mins!

Maybe this might help?

http://www.hotukdeals.com/item/11771...o/all/all/hot/

Thanks to you for your help and advice.

Bearing in mind that I don't have an aerial on the roof of my house, it would seem that the best option would be to get the Virgin + box and bear the cost.

I only found this website this am but it has been really useful. Cheers

Hi all!

In summary, I need some advice on purchasing an all in one PVR, with a multiregion DVD player/recorder and HDD, EPG etc to record from Sky/Freeview.

I've read this thread, and others, with great interest and the feedback on certain models to purchase have been exceptional. I need your advice, for an all-in-one system that has PVR, DVD playback/record and a HDD capabilities. Here is the twist: The system will be for my mother and mother-in-law, who are both in there 60's, but still 'sharp' as ever! They both live separately (thankfully! ) and watch the TV streamed from both terrestrial (BBC1, ITV etc) and Sky (receive BBC, ITV etc, but also get cultural channels from around the world). Will be buying two similar units. They don't have Sky+ but do have the old Sky units, if that makes any sense.

The system should enable them to:
> Record onto HDD from a Sky channel but enable them to watch other channels, be that on Sky or terrestrial
> Record through manual intervention or (recommended) through EPG (7days at least) onto the HDD (not sure how this would work for Sky, as someone on this thread mentioned that you had to set up Sky timer and sync the timer on the PVR - advice?)
> Playback from the HDD of all recordings
> Multiregion DVD with record capabilities, if possible.
> Capable to watch another channel whilst recording from another (not sure how this would work if they use Sky as the main channel selector :S Maybe limit them to freeview channels if they are recording from Sky, say, so possibly need a tuner(s))
> Simple (I know, I know) to use for aging women who have more time on there hands, but need something to talk about
> Cost, well, don't want to rob them of their pensions (I'll have to dig deep!), so anything less than £200 considered

Your wisdom on recommendations and suggestions would be most appreciated. Cheers!

I don't think you'll find one....yet, though things keep getting better month by month.
I was looking for a twin tuner PVR with decent size HDD and DVD recording capabilities. I thought I'd found it in a Sony (can't remember the model, but was around £250). It was described as having dual digital and analogue tuners with HDD and DVD record. Aha, I thought! At last!............ but reading the small print determined it to truly have dual tuners - one of each digital and analogue; not what I wanted. So the moral of the story is, read and check read again. I'm sure a twin DIGITAL tuner version will eventually make it out there. Just keep watching.

Mike

We currently have Sky+ but trying to save cash as we only watch channels available on freeview. I'm trying to presuade my wife to allow me to buy a Freeview PVR that does everything our Sky+ does (as is as easy to use..... my wife has emphasised that if I buy some 'geeky' box that she can't use she'll kill me. I believe her.

I'm thinking I might need £150 - £200 to get what we want? - are there any cheaper PVR options out there (easy to use, twin tuner freeview PVRs?)