AV Input HDD Recorders / DVRs - Features and opinions?

I've been looking around for a PVR / DVR / HDD Recorder that takes an input from an AV source and I've been lead to believe that all of the freeview PVRs currently out on the market have an AV input purely as a loop through for daisy chaining other devices.

The main solution offered so far has been to get a DVD Recorder with a hard disk as these have the AV to digital conversion hardware / software necessary, however I've found a couple of other bits of hardware that perform the same function without the DVD and even without the freeview tuners:

The Archos TV+ (and some other hardware in the range with less DVR specific specifications)

The Emprex ME1

I was looking for advice as to how good these products are based on company reputation, whether they can actually record from an AV input (ie whether I have understood what they do correctly) and any opinions or experience people have about / with the actual hardware.

I've seen a lot of comments about the lack of functionality with these products, especially with respect to use with an IDTV (for example only being able to record the channel your watching etc.) but I'm really grabbed by the network functionality for the viewing of movies I've taken off my digital video camera with my pc, and the TV recording functionality is more suited to a casual user like myself who only really wants to record a news broadcast when a headline catches my interest or recording the output from a games console (sad I know) for example.

Basically I've narrowed it down to the two listed above and I'm having trouble figuring out which one is the better as the reviews and product information I've found is vague (or maybe I don't understand it properly).

Any advice anyone has to offer on these or similar products would be appreciated.