Brighton, UK. NTL. Best DVD Recorder with HDD?

[papercup]

Hello

My aged parents are still using a VHS VCR. I wish to drag them into the new millennium with a nice DVDRW with a hard drive in it, as they are great.

I have the Pioneer 545 and have been getting on fine with it, but i use freeview. They can't get freeview due to their location, so they have NTL. What i'd like is a DVDRW/HDD that can 'talk' to the NTL box and record from it like i can using my Guide + -type thing.

Their set-top box is a Samsung SMT2100C. I looked at the new Pioneer 550 and it had a setup routine for using cable and then NTL, but only had options for two Pace boxes.

I guess i could live with plugging the NTL box into the SCART of the DVDRW and recording from EXT1 or whatever (which is what they do now with their VCR), but then you have to manually set the channel on the NTL box (meaning you can only tape one thing, and can't leave things to record over holidays...).

Can i move up? Can a DVDRW control the NTL box, and can i have a Guide Plus thing? I just want it to be easy for them...they are getting on a bit...

Can onyone help who had been in the same situation?

cheers

Andy

 

[DavidT]

If all they want to do is record from NTL (Virgin Media) and are not concerned with copying onto DVD then the V+ STB from Virgin is the way to go. You can record 2 channels whilst watcing a third which is more that you could do with a DVD recorder.

David