Freeview hard-drive recorders...

[Lucy]

Can anyone recommend a good one? Until last week I'd have recommended the one I bought off Trademe, but now it's dead. It lasted 16months.

It was called a PVR. It could record two channels at once, and while doing that you could even watch a third. It would timeshift (so you could replay 'live' tv). It was like a poor mans 'tivo'. the epg was a bit Chinglish, which is probably why it broke, unfortunately the seller is not interested in helping or fixing it. It was the freeview receiver as well as the recorder.

I miss it.

But next time I'd buy one from a real shop with a real guarantee, so was wondering if any of you lot had one and would recommend it.

[bell]

Can anyone recommend a good one? Until last week I'd have recommended the one I bought off Trademe, but now it's dead. It lasted 16months.

It was called a PVR. It could record two channels at once, and while doing that you could even watch a third. It would timeshift (so you could replay 'live' tv). It was like a poor mans 'tivo'. the epg was a bit Chinglish, which is probably why it broke, unfortunately the seller is not interested in helping or fixing it. It was the freeview receiver as well as the recorder.

I miss it.

But next time I'd buy one from a real shop with a real guarantee, so was wondering if any of you lot had one and would recommend it.

I've got a Beyonwiz (http://www.beyonwiz.com.au/main.html) DP-P1. Unsure if you have a retailer in NZ. IIRC their site isn't firefox friendly. The broadcasting protocols may also vary between Aus and NZ.

* Look for a HDD that is user replaceable as these are often the first things that fail.
* HDD capacity of less than 200GB will fill up rather quickly if you use it to record a bit of stuff.
* If you want to be able to burn the programs you've recorded to a DVD you'll either be looking at significantly more $$$ or may have to go back to an SD tuner as opposed to a HD tuner, in order to get a unit that can do this.
* The ability to network your PVR is important to some. I use mine to stream videos from my PC (read: downloads obtained for "research" purposes) and also to transfer recordings to the PC to burn to a DVD. There are several around that have wireless networking capability too.
* Topfield (http://www.topfield-australia.com.au/)have a respected name in this game too. Oops, just found this (http://www.topfield-australia.com.au/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?t=12510&sid=fb9d93b5af55cb1e66d26d686ee27b5d). More research required there obviously.

A great forum for doing your research is www.dtvforum.info (http://www.dtvforum.info/)
I'd be surprised if you didn't find a few NZ specific threads over there that may assist with your decisions.

Best of luck Lucy!

[Lucy]

Thanks for that!