Freeview Box

[Tin Shed]

Our Freeview box had just died and I am looking at getting another, but am wondering whether to splash out and get a digital tv recorder instead. More expensive but apparently I will be able to record programmes instead of using the video.
Advice needed as OH will have no idea at all :D

[Tin Shed]

[valmarg]

I think you'd be better asking (in my case 11 year old niece). ;D ;D ;D

valmarg

[nilly71]

If it has a duel tuner then you can record one side and watch another.

Hard drive recorders are much better as you can instantly playback stuff you have recorded without rewinding tapes, edit, rename and delete very easily.

Try to get as big a hard drive as you can afford, our sky+ is 40gb and we keep running out of space (i save all the "what to eat now" as well as river cottage Autumn).

Neil

[betula]

Our sky recorder is great.So easy to use,like you say,we often have heated debates about what to keep as we run out of space. :)

[Borlotti]

Told my hairdresser had to get a new TV as the digi box was broken, he said turn it off and restart. Is it really dead, try turning everything off, and re-starting.  Thought we would have to buy a new TV and freeview (digi box) but it is still going strong and the digi box, although it some times get confused.  Switch it off and turn on, you have nothing to lose.  Also I have to try that sometimes with the computer.

[ACE]

Get the digital recorder, but make sure you can record on one chanel whilst watching another. Some of the cheaper ones don't give you that option.

My wife has one in her 'tele room' called a humax duovisio pvr920t If it is good enough and simple enough for her, it is good enough and simple enough  for anybody.

Google it and see if there is an alternative make that does the same that could be cheaper. I think she can even record one programme while she pauses another for a while.

[Tin Shed]

Thanks everyone. The freeview box still has a green light on so I presume it may still be working.but it does not respond to the remote - and yes, before you all shriek at me - I have changed the batteries and put them in the right way ;D ;D
Then got one of those all in one handsets - couldn't programme it in, even to get the TV to work, so will take that back! Then got a new remote for the specific freeview make and that doesn't work.......and still the box sits there with its little green light on!
Have unplugged/plugged it all with still no result - hence the idea of getting a new one.
Ace, the Humex one gets a good write up on the freeview site for value and ease of use so I may tell the OH that might be the one to get!

[hippydave]

Buy the humax i have had the  9200 for 3 yrs now and its the best piece of kit i own, they are customisable, can store mp3s have series link so you can record a whole series just by selecting it once, they  have 160gb hdd ,twin tuners, and the menus are so easy to use, they even have inbuilt games. Could not recomed the hummy highly enough ;D

[Tin Shed]

OH says that it is up to me ...so will look seriously at the humax. Is it easy to connect - the TV has only one scart socket and I want to keep the video and the dvd. At the moment we are using some silver box thingy that allows everything to be all connected!

[hippydave]

yer its childs play its auto setup has 2 scarts so you can daisy chain it with other scart products or use an auto switcher that it sounds like you have already, it auto updates the channels as it finds new 1s and as new firmware is issued it can be obtain via free to air updates.

[Tin Shed]

I had made my mind up - thanks to you lot - then the Comet site [the cheapest I can find] won't let me on!!!!!
I am also now feeling very old as I thought 'daisy chain ' was to do with flowers ;D ;D ;D

[kt.]

Enquire about related and current products to do with the freeview range because some current digital boxes are about to be replaced with the next generation of them.  Also ensure you ask the salesperson if it will still work when the Big Switchover happens because apparently not all digi boxes will........... ::) ::)

[froglets]

Hi,

I'll reinforce what KTLawson says & be wary of investing too much cash ahead of your big switchover.  The Scotland East one happened last Thursday & lots of people "lost" BBC 1 & 2, as they now broadcast it on a frequency old ( ie 3 years) digiboxes don't pick up.  Had to take my mum shopping to buy a new one so she could get Countryfile on Sunday.

Seems a lot of people with somepretty expensive integrated systems have had to go & buy a set top box to pick up the moved channels.

Of course mum's told OH he has to come up next visit and install it properly <sigh>  I may have a degree in engineering, but at the end of the day, I'm still a girl.

[Tin Shed]

Well...been and gone and bought it and it has a digital tick, so OK for the change over.......and it is up and running.
Only difficult bit will be getting the OH to learn to use the remote :D

[hippydave]

now you will be recording everything and not have time to watch them all :P, i recommend the series link so that you never miss an episode of your favourite progs. ;D ;) :D

[Tin Shed]

Haven't got to that page of the instruction booklet yet, but when I do................

[Pesky Wabbit]

About 8 years ago I bought a TiVo box. In its time it was the pioneer of the digital video recorder ( DVR). It was/still is the best investment ever.
It was way ahead of its time and still outclasses some of the modern HD recorders.

From the factory it came with a 40Gb disk and would record 40hrs , but not so long ago, I Installed a pair of 500Gb disks which gives me just under 1,000 hours of recording.

The biggst drawback is that it only came with one tuner. Fir those who wanted two, they bought two TiVo's - simple. Also due to its age, its analogue, not digital, and so can record stuff from aerial, cable, or sat (or all three). There's no problem with it controlling any of the  modern gadgets.

Two years ago I bought my mother a Topfied box. I'd checked out the market and the best two at the time were the Toppy TF5800PVR and the Humax PVR 9200T..

To  the biggist issue I had with the Humax was that once a recording had started, you couldn't rewind it and watch from the start, until the recording finished - not so with either the TiVo or the Toppy. Also, the Toppy allows additional software to be loaded to control how it looks & works; and even at that tie there were bucket loads of FREE User written Toppy Application Programs (TAPs) and hence the Toppys EPG and searching is leagues ahead of the Humax offering.

There were a few other issues like with the Toppy, you could record on two channels, and watch a third, but only if the third was on the same Mux as one of the channels being recorded; On the Humax, you were stuck with the two channels. Usefully, the Toppy also allows you to record sections of time shifted programmes to save them to the hard disk - a feature not supported by the Humax PVR 9200T.


One advantage of the Humax was its simpler menu driven system. With the Toppy, you have to remember which button on the Remote does what - which can be a little challenging when the TAPs can reprogram them.

Both the Toppy and the Humax will only record Freeview digital TV broadcasts (DVB-T), they cannot be used to record Sky TV programmes via the Scart socket. To record subscription Sky TV channels then you'll need a Sky+ box.



Despite having checked out the Toppy and the Humax, I still ONLY use my TiVo. I swear by it. I never watch anythng 'Live', I always record it - that way I can skip the adverts/boring bits. (The Toppy has a fast forward of 3x, 10x and 60x, the Toppy has FF of 2x, 4x and 6x and rewind of 1x, 2x and 3x - which I find frustratingly slow).

However, Today we are in the era of High Definition TV. I think there are a few 1080P hard disk (or HD HD) recorders. But they are very expensive, and dont store many programs due to the amount of data required.

For anyone interested in the techy side of things or just a  uptodate report of the latest PVRs should have a look at the Digital Spy Forum http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=90