Best PVR !

[judethedude]

Can anybody please recommend the best PVR currently available as I'm looking to buy one !

Thankyou.

[rhubarbe]

Of course we can. But we'll all recommend a different one.

Me first: Topfield TF5800PVR.

www.toppy.org.uik

[Gadget Daddy]

Ive got a Humax 9200 and I give it the

Pete

[rhubarbe]

Getting the picture yet, jude? :D

Trader rating 74, Pete??? Maybe you'd better change your nick to Delboy.

[Figment]

Topfield TF5800

[Cyril]

Sky HD or TV Drive controlled by TiVo if you have a high budget.
The TiVo picture quality from BBC HD actually surpasses any Freeview DVR IMHO!

Windows MCE if your budget is around a grand.

Toppy for sub 300 quid.

[Paul Shirley]

I've got a 9200, I recommend the Toppy.

It has more mature/stable firmware, a working USB port and you won't be relying on the manufacturer for all improvements or fixes, something Humax are glacially slow at delivering and have got wrong every time so far.

[ROYOLD]

Probably the Topfield TF5800 altho' its maximum FF speed of x6 annoys me.
Depends how much you want to pay.
I also have the Aldi Technosonic PVR101, Digifusion 145 and 150 and the Humax 9200T and they all work pretty well. None of mine have ever lost the library contents, completely frozen or broken down although other people have apparently had many problems with various pvrs. The Digifusions are the ONLY pvr's of mine which have never failed to record a set recording.

Guess you pay your money and hope for the best. Nothing is ever 100% perfect.

[Drd]

I have been 'thinking about buying' a PVR for over 18 months but was not happy with the various reports and feedback on any of the models.The trouble is it's unlikely we'll see a perfect PVR for quite a while.Two months ago I took the plunge when I discovered the Digifusion FVRT 200 for £143 here.

So far it's been perfect.It's got the uprated psu and seems very stable despite the adverse reports.It lives in a cabinet but so far hasn't overheated and all the family can use it with ease (I had it up and running/recording without even reading the manual..... more than I can say for my Denon receiver/DVD player).At this price I will be very happy if I get 12 months out of it while I wait for the perfect PVR.

[ash]

Tough one, the main contenders are for best PVR:

Topfield TF5800PVR
Humax 9200

And as for TiVo you will need two freeview boxes to have a twin tuner set up in a sense, so maybe a lot of clatter.

[judethedude]

Thankyou for the posts.

I know that nothing can be perfect (unfortunately) but I had assumed that PVR technology was sorted and that there weren't still so many gliches !

The price of the Digifusion is tempting but it seems that most people favour either the TF5800 or the Humax 9200.

Out of the three, which one is most user friendly ?

Thanks again.

[richwill]

Originally Posted by judethedude

Thankyou for the posts.

I know that nothing can be perfect (unfortunately) but I had assumed that PVR technology was sorted and that there weren't still so many gliches !

The price of the Digifusion is tempting but it seems that most people favour either the TF5800 or the Humax 9200.

Out of the three, which one is most user friendly ?

Thanks again.

You will get so many different answers. Do your research and then go with the features you want most. Personally? i had a sagem (which sounded as noisey as a family of mice living in the corner, so that went back sharpish) I then waited for the Humax 9200. I never considered a topfield as the humax did everything i wanted and i only paid 160.00 for it (from currys). Don't wait though, jump into the pool and play with the technology. It'll be continually changing, even more so when HD is the rule and not the exception.

best of luck to ya

[ianh64]

Originally Posted by judethedude

The price of the Digifusion is tempting but it seems that most people favour either the TF5800 or the Humax 9200.

I can't speak for the TF or Humax, but the UI of the Digifusion is truely awful. It has tiny coloured icons telling you what button to hit next hidden amongst a mottled coloured background. Other faults:

As far as I can see, you can't tag a group of recordings and delete them all at once, you need to do them individually.

Everytime you make a recording it askes to if you want to generate scenes - if you don't then it will ask you the same question next time you go into the library.

If you are recording a programme it doesn't go into the library straight away. You need to find it in the programme guide.

Unless you are watching on a big screen the UI is awful. Forget it on a 20" CRT.

You can only skip forward/back in 5 minute increments. Adverts are normally 3 or 4 minutes long.

The UI is hard to read - it needs a high contrast setting.

Its got an audible fan

There are two programme guides, one for todays programme, and one for all the others.

The UI is inconsistent. You need to think about what you are doing and following the on screen red/green/blue/yellow dots on the screen to tell you what button to press. Even that doesn't help as it sometimes puts a small box over the screen with more instructions but this doesn;t stand out due to the lack of contrast/mottled background and you follow instructions for the occluded screen as the previous dots still show.

Did I mention that the UI was awful?


BTW. I have 20/20 vision. Thankfully its my mothers but unfortunately she's 80 - so she doesn't use the PVR functionality at all. I guess I have been spoiled by the UI on the Pace Twin which even my mother can use.

[ROYOLD]

I guess you have been spoiled. The Digifusions do everything asked of them. They have few faults (which is why I have two of them - this in addition to the Topfield 5800 and Humax 9200T). Oh - and in addition the Digifusions do not fail to record when a recording is set. Unlike some of the others.

Sure the background is a bit garish but it can be changed if you wish. Ways to do this are given on Digital Spy and these forums.

The epg is a 14 day guide and is always populated. It doesn't take ages to load the epg unlike others.

So "truly awful" - I think not. For the price they are excellent machines. One of mine has been in use for well over a year. None of them ever has problems and all in all they are the most reliable of all my pvr's.

I purchased the Digifusion FVRT200 for relatives as a gift last Christmas. They use it daily with no problems. In their seventies so elderly people can use these machines with ease.

[balders]

Despite Ianh64's apparent big downer on the Digifusion, it get's my vote. Most of Ian's comments are valid, but, in my view, minor. Personally, I don't have a problem with the UI and find it quite straightforward.

I disagree that it's hard to read on a reasonable sized screen (smallest I've seen is 28", which I don't count as "big"). Yes, there are a couple of things I wish they'd implemented differently, but none restrict my use at all. Truly awful - no, maybe just different to the Twin.

The Digifusion is very easy to use though. As an illustration, my grandparents, who are pushing 90, swapped from a VCR to a Digifusion a few months ago, and love it. They use it all the time and regularly schedule mutliple records, record while watching something else, etc. Apart from the initial setup, quick lession and the occasional question, I haven't had to help them with it very much at all. They've stopped borrowing DVDs from me now because they record so much from freeview.

So for ease of use, Digifusion

Balders.