Hi all my first post and would value your opinions,i just won an ebay auction for an advertised dtr80 pvr bnib with an photo straight out of the argos catalogue,this was just what i was going to spend £85 on so i thought i'd chance it,won it for £56,today it arrived an the cheeky b##tard's only gone and sent me a pvr180 dated around 09/06,it's a t810 with v4.4 soft.
what i'd like to know is if i can't get him to take it back what kind of m/c have i got i.e functionality and what glitches am i likely to have with it,whats it worth,should i keep it and negotate a bit of a refund?,that's if it works i hav'nt had chance to power it up yet. much obliged.

The T810 is more stable than the T816 and T825 successors. However, it is only single record and does not have any Freeview Playback features. There is an un-official software update which converts it to dual record but this introduces performance issues. See the many threads on the T810 mainly under the Digihome brand name for full details. The going price on eBay for a 80GB T810 seems to be around £30-£40 although I don't know how much the prices are influenced by the images which show different models from the ones being sold.

Colin

I should add that the two T810s that I had did not keep a very usable EPG. After a while I was lucky to get a 3 day EPG, instead of the 8 day one, and even then EPG data for certain channels kept disappearing. As you can imagine, this makes it difficult to schedule recordings via the EPG. This is with the single record software (the twin record software being even worse in this respect). Another problem is that the display height is not as high as it should be, which means on some TVs (depends on their overscan setup) you'll get a black/blank line at the bottom of the display, since the output has been chopped off at the bottom. Ultimately, it was the non-fixing of these issues that led to me returning both T810s to Argos. The T816 doesn't suffer from these two problems.

If the auction was for a DTR80 and he's sent you a PVR80, then tell him it's not as described, and you want to return it for a refund.

If he doesn't want to play ball, and you paid with paypal, the only other option is to file a 'not as described' claim with paypal. However, you will have to return the item by a online trackable method at your expense...

Additionally, if he's a business trading on eBay, then the Distance Selling Regulations come into play - you will have at least 7 days to return the item for any reason. If the item is faulty or misrepresented (incorrect description), then the supplier must collect the item or pay carriage costs for its return.

There are some good dealers that trade on Ebay, unfortunately a few seller spoil the system for a lot of people who would buy but shy away from doing a purchase on Ebay.

We have just bought a Digihome DTR160 from Argos simple because if it goes wrong within the warrantee period we return it for a full refund or replacement...I believe Tesco does the same.

I bow to your superior knowledge futaura . I recall you posted that info previously but I had forgotten it. I have never owned a T810 so my opinions were based solely on what I had read on this and other forums. So despite some slightly irritating bugs the T816 without the Series Link problems of the T825 is probably the most reliable of the Vestel PVRs to date.

Colin

I guess so. It's a case of swings and roundabouts mostly. In many ways the T810 was the best machine, but it of course lacked the extended features that the T816 and T825 provide. Forgetting the two problems I mentioned, everything else was much closer to perfection than the T816 or T825. In particular, I was very impressed with the way it handled start/end buffering. It was perfect in that respect and worked intelligently, and the complete opposite to the Sagem 6240T that I had beforehand. Of course, things are different now with Freeview Playback's accurate recording, although it was probably the first sign of things to come when I was testing the early T816 software versions which did not have accurate recording support and instead had the old style start/end early/late timers of the T810, but instead it was implemented in a similar brain dead manner as the Sagem did and not the intelligent manner of the T810 software .

You'd expect me to chip in, and here I am

I have written to an eBay seller pointing out that their illustration does not match the model they're selling - no response, of course.

PeeJay, did you buy it from Allsorts? I see that they have routinely made bidders' IDs 'private' since Jan 2008, I would not buy from them unless severely pushed! However, that does mean that you can publish the item number here without blowing your cover Then the listing can be examined, but if it is them then the photo is definitely for a Freeview Playback model, but the description is sketchy and they say:

RECORD WHILE WATCHING A PRE-RECORDED PROGRAMME

but that does not mean that it cannot record 2 at once as per the model illustrated, so it does not give them a get-out. They also say "THIS ALSO HAS PLAYBACK", whatever that may mean.

Regarding your current situation, (1) They are not registered as a Business Seller (yet they've got a shop ), and (2) you won it via Auction as opposed to Buy It Now, so distance selling rules don't apply.

If you don't get satisfaction from your initial, polite "complaint" to the seller, a SNAD (Significantly Not As Described) report to PayPal is the way to go.

parthena

parthea. you are correct in your assumption and after a second email today,saying i would contact the dispute centre i had a reply stating "if you got the wrong model someone else has got your item,please bear with us",i'll give them a chance and wait awhile.
Meanwhile have any other members had experiences withthis seller?.

Did you say who the seller is? I don't recall seeing you post the onfo?

Colin

The info is 'gleanable' from OP's post. I'm not sure what the form is here re naming and shaming.

parthena

Ah yes, found it thanks. Regarding naming and shaming I think that up to the OP.

Colin

The odd thing is that the seller hasn't listed anything remotely resembling the PVR180. Plenty of DTR80 units though. I'd give him a few days and then start the SNAD

He has also recently sold what he claims to be a Wharfedale LP250DTRHDMI which AFAIK has not been in stock in Argos yet? I wonder what that actually was?

Colin

It's on the Argos site at £149.99

Yes, it has been since last month, but try buying one . AFAIK they've yet to receive any stock, much like the Wharfedale DTR HDMI units from the last catalogue which were supposed to be available from last August, but no stock arrived until December.

I see what you're saying

No stock near me or near my works. What a crock 'cos now I want one really bad

That said, they might never show up as being available for mail order or for reserving in store via the website. I bought something completely unrelated from Argos today, after it was showing as unavailable according to the website - after keying the number in in-store, I was surprised to find they had plenty of stock, contrary to the website saying otherwise. IIRC, this happened with the Wharfedale T825 HDMI models too. So it may be worth checking in-store every so often to see if they have some stock.