DVDR and HDD with or without Freeview

[darrenthomas]

Hi all,

A quick question I was hoping I could get some clarification on.

I'm looking to buy a Freeview, DVDR and HDD combo and was thinking about the Panasonic DMREH60D as it is a neat all-in-one package. It's a bit pricey, so wonder whether it would be better to get a system without the in-built Freeview (like the Sony HX510 or Panasonic EH50) and then just link it up to a seperate Freeview box.

What functionality will I be losing doing this? For instance, will I still be able to record easily from the freeview box onto the HDD (i.e direct from the EPG?) I want to make it as easy as possible to pause live TV and skip ad breaks etc!

Cheers for any advice.

Darren

[darrenthomas]

Or would I be better getting a PVR (like the Humax) and then a seperate DVD recorder? As you can see I'm struggling!

[eddyad]

Originally Posted by darrenthomas

Hi all,

A quick question I was hoping I could get some clarification on.

I'm looking to buy a Freeview, DVDR and HDD combo and was thinking about the Panasonic DMREH60D as it is a neat all-in-one package. It's a bit pricey, so wonder whether it would be better to get a system without the in-built Freeview (like the Sony HX510 or Panasonic EH50) and then just link it up to a seperate Freeview box.

What functionality will I be losing doing this? For instance, will I still be able to record easily from the freeview box onto the HDD (i.e direct from the EPG?) I want to make it as easy as possible to pause live TV and skip ad breaks etc!

Cheers for any advice.

Darren

Avoid two boxes if you can. I don't know how the H60D can be set to record from an external STB automatically. Previous non-Freeview Pannys had 'External Link' which let the Panny turn on with a signal from the STB. But there are huge (In my view) disadvantages. For example:
* If the Panny is set to Ext Link mode and you turn on the STB manually (e.g. to add another program to the timer schedule) then the recorder will start - simply because the STB has sent output.
* You will not get RGB recording because the STB recorder-out scart won't have it, and the TV-out of the STB won't turn on when the STB is under timer control.
There are more
Non-Freeview Sonys may be similar.

The Pioneer 530/630 have an IR device which will set the timer to turn on the STB from a downloaded program guide (GuidePlus). This is quite a nice solution but you still have two boxes.

The alternative is to set timers on both machines for programs you want to record.

So on balance I'd go for the recorder with the inbuilt tuner. Hang on a bit and there will be more.

If DVD in the same box is not essential look at the Freeview PVRs, some of which have two tuners so you can watch one channel and record another. These will allow you to timeshift programs and fast forward commercials and some have a pause live TV..
The only drawback I can see with limited PVR investigation is that a recording on a PVR can't be edited (e.g. to remove commercials) before transfer to a DVD recorder if you have one.

[darrenthomas]

Thanks very much. I think I'm going to stick with a single box then and wait for more to hit the market. Appreciate the advice.

Cheers

[ROYOLD]

Originally Posted by eddyad

The only drawback I can see with limited PVR investigation is that a recording on a PVR can't be edited (e.g. to remove commercials) before transfer to a DVD recorder if you have one.

This is correct - it cannot. But you can remove the commercials from a DVDR if recording in real time. Just edit them out by the pause button on the DVD recorder.

[gavan]

Originally Posted by eddyad

Avoid two boxes if you can. I don't know how the H60D can be set to record from an external STB automatically. Previous non-Freeview Pannys had 'External Link' which let the Panny turn on with a signal from the STB. But there are huge (In my view) disadvantages. For example:
* If the Panny is set to Ext Link mode and you turn on the STB manually (e.g. to add another program to the timer schedule) then the recorder will start - simply because the STB has sent output.
* You will not get RGB recording because the STB recorder-out scart won't have it, and the TV-out of the STB won't turn on when the STB is under timer control.

Amen - I mentioned in another thread the niggles I had using a DMR-EH50 and a Sky box. Another annoying thing was that once in the Ext Link mode that triggers on a video signal, a signal from the TV side of things (AV1) would also trigger the recording - not just a video signal from the Sat box (on AV2). This meant that just watching a TV programme kicked off the DMR as the TV tuner outputted the signal on the SCART by default.


Gav