Will PVRs be any good?

[HighlandeR]

Just wanted peoples opinions on PVRS, if theres any bad things about them or any good things about them.

My VCR is dieing so im looking at the Thompson PVR coming out in August, its retailing at £400. Will have a cueing menu system and instant access to your digtal TV recordings. Alongside that it will come with a 30 gig inbuilt harddrive.

Surely the humble VCR or even the S-VHS is dead now ?

We finaly have digital PVRs with full recording capability, no forwarding or re-winding, just select the programme u just recording and it appears on screen !

Personally, that's what I'll be replacing my S-vhs decks with when they give up the ghost. But all depends whether they are stand-alone units, whether they will record both analogue & digital sources, and most def'netly NOT locked into sky.

[HighlandeR]

Well I did some checking around the net and found the main site for PVR over at
http://www.tivo.com/

Its very informative since its the main site, has the connections to FAQS to info on the systems and even the power supply.

Overall Im very impressed, you can finaly record and watch another channel but at the same time, instant playback of anything that you record on your 30 hour harddrive.

Lots of cool other features like the vivo smart record, allows u to record your favorite programmes each day or week, also u can tell the PVR what your into, and it will scan everything out there and record it....
So if you type in "Girls"..... well u get the idea

It even has an Mpeg II system so you basicaly record in DVD quality, which is DIGITAL quality recordings, that will be a first I belive for the affordable market.

It even says it will playback whatever you record, in the EXACT same quality that you watch it, no degradation at all.

Now theres just one big problem....... it doesnt have a VCR deck inbuilt from what ive seen, which is something I dont understand.
Surely it cant be just a black box with an Mpeg II card and a harddrive and some software? I hope its got a Video deck so I can put in my cassettes and play back from there and record and tranfer them over, since my VCRS dead.

It did say you can tranfer your digital recordings over to VCR however... but I hope it has a VCR deck at least, otherwise its somewhat pointless if you ask me !

[Mr.D]

>It did say you can tranfer your digital recordings over to VCR however... but I hope it has a VCR deck at least, otherwise its somewhat pointless if you ask me !


No way you are missing the whole point about a PVR. Its a tape killer not simply a better way to dump stuff on to vhs.

By all means dump stuff of it if you want to archive but if you want something with the functionality of a vcr GET a new vcr.

Let me guess you complained about dvd players not having RF outputs! : )

I agree with Pete they are a fantastic sensible idea but NOT if they lock you into a given service.

It'd be so easy to just take a MPEGII codec, a large HD, two tuners and some memory and a DVD player and create a killer digital recorder/DVD player.
With the two tuners you'd get picture-in-picture capabilities, with the memory; unlimited tv-text pages, with the software; smart recording capabilities, etc, etc.
It'd be cheap, and all it needs in hardware is already used in other devices, but noone has, as of yet, made a combo out of it.

I'm waiting for this machine before I buy a digital recorder, perhaps when they make it DVD-RW is affordable.

[HighlandeR]

Yeah but thats what I mean it should support the known standards for todays video viewing.

The PRV should be named a VCR addon otherwise.

humming said the right thing as well.
ive praticaly got a PVR on my PC anyhow !

a PVR is like a box with an mpeg II card and an harddrive and nothing else !

Looks like ill have to pick up a cheap VCR first... then ill wait for the 10 gig (10hour) PVRS to come out.....