Freesat and PVR's

[topcat57uk]

I've just had freesat installed with dish and was wondering on the best way to be able to record and watch different channels at the same time?
Could I buy A DVD Recorder with HD and use the Labgear Phantom (the handy little device turns your existing video recorder into a PVR (Personal Video Recorder) just like Sky +) device in line? Would this do the job?Does anybody have any experience of this?
Is it possible to do this another way? Can anybody give me details please?

Get a TiVo

[LV426]

If you want to watch OR record more than one satellite channel at the same time then you need more than one satellite receiver (and something to record it on). It's as simple as that. If you only have one box, then it can only "produce" one channel at a time - which you can use for recording and/or watching (or both - the same channel).

So, for Freesat:

1 box to receive and watch.
1 recorder (eg a HDD-DVD) PLUS one box to receive for the recorder.

If you only have one Sky box, then even the "mighty" TiVo won't help you to receive more than one channel at a time.

A Sky plus box will do what you want - but you either have to subscribe to some channels, or pay a lesser subscription for the recording features of the box only before it will work. It's useless without a monthly outgoing.

[denbighG]

Originally Posted by blindlemon

Get a TiVo

Sorry, what is a TiVo. I have looked around and found that there is a TiVo subscription service, and what seem to be PVR boxes.

Suppose I just want a PVR box ?

[MarkE19]

TiVo was the first UK PVR available amd is still IMO the best. It can do most of what Sky+ does except it can only record/display a single channel at a time and records an analogue signal.
TiVo requires either a £10 per month or £200 lifetime (of the box) subscription to get the full functionallity. Without the sub you can still use it as a dumb digital recorder, but loose most of the PVR type functions.

The official UK TiVo web site is Here but you will get far more info from the TiVo Community, just go to the UK section.

Mark.

[denbighG]

Mark..

The TiVo references assume one knows all about TiVo and are very geeky.

Can we take it a little further. What do you lose if you only have the box? Surely the functionality of the box (record one channel & watch a recording... time-shifted viewing of currently recorded channel...etc) is functionality of the box, not the signal source?

I have a Pioneer DVD recorder with HD, but would like another recorder with HD but not able to record to DVD. Is the TiVo the answer, as you previously implied it is?

I suspect I am not alone in not knowing about these things? Maybe someone can suggest other alternatives which give superior performance for the tasks I want??

(PS for LV246, I do happen to have two sky boxes, so, for me, it is just a question about recording)

[MarkE19]

Sorry, I thought you had a fair idea as to what a PVR was

TiVo without a sub is set to record just like a VCR, ie set start & stop times and select channel. You can still do chase play (start watching before recording has finished) or watch a previous recording while recording another program. It does not however give you the EPG (Electronic Program Guide - TV listings to you & me ).
With the sub you get the EPG that gives all the info needed to use the season pass (record all episodes of a program), set wish lists to record everything by a set 'actor', 'director' or 'key word'. It can also auto record programs similar to those you have set to record, and you can give programs up to 3 thumbs up or down to rate them to give TiVo a helping hand on what sort of things you like. Auto record a repeat of a program if it was unable to record the origional showing due to recording something else at the time.
Oh there are so many things TiVo does that I just take for granted and always forget to mention when asked, and thats without the upgrades and hacks available. I'm sure Cyril or Blindlemon etc will add to the list at some point.

Mark.

[Cyril]

TiVo is capable of far more than other DVR in the UK due to the excellence of its software design. This means it is in many ways superior than any current UK DVR and will probably remain so until 2011, despite not having any significant software updates since 2001!

In addition there are thousands of hacks available to further extend its functionality. There are quite a few books on the subject and literally 10,000+ programmers and hobbyists who regularly hack TiVo and millions of web pages devoted to it.
I think there are 4 or 5 million+ TiVo users worldwide compare to 1 million Sky+ users.
There are just 2 hacks for Sky+ AFAIK, versus thousands for TiVo.

The UK TiVo hardware is over 5 years old and 'obsolete', yet I will probably be still using TiVo in 2011 (albeit with a few terabytes of disk space)!

If you want better picture quality, get HiDef Sky. If you want a cheaper DVR get a Freeview DVR with twin tuners or a DVD HD recorder. If you have a hefty Sky sub, get Sky+.

If you want the best PVR experience IMHO, get two or more TiVos, with one STB feeding each one.

[denbighG]

Cyril and Mark - with your responses, I am now a bit better informed. No, I didnt know much about PVR. Are there other alternatives to PiVo?

I dont have a Sky subscription, just a card which lets me get the FTA channels. Being as I live in France (shhhh), I would quite like to record two channels, and by circumstance have 2 Sky boxes (one aerial), so a PVR is pretty handy.

Would the PiVo EPG work with signals from Sky? Sky box plus PiVo are complementary, surely?

Tx

[MarkE19]

With Sky your only other option for a PVR is Sky+ and you would need to pat their £10 per month charge for the ability to record etc. Other than that you are able to use dumb recorders such as a DVD recorder etc.

The TiVo EPG will give listings for all the Sky channels. You just set TiVo up and tell it which of the channels you actually receive.
Being in France you would need to get onto the TiVo Community forum and find out how to get TiVo to dial the UK for the EPG updates each night. It normally dials a local rate 0845 number, but this obviously wont work from abroad.

Mark.

[Cyril]

Another option for Sky is the Dreambox, another Linux based DVR.

If you are in France you should get a network card and use the internet instead of dialing as it will save you money in the long run.