2nd Freeview+ box has died in less than 2 years. 1st one was in warranty 2nd one well over a year old so need to get a new one.

Which ones out there are worth the money? Not bothered about huge storage space as normally delete programmes once watched. But we are bothered that we can pause and rewind the tv without having to record the programme first.

Have seen on a few reviews on the normal websites that refer to the remote and general appearance being different to older versions. Is this something that has happened or do certain manufacturers use different systems? Are newer versions more reliable with regards to not freezing mid use?

Have you considered BT Vision?

no, don’t you have to pay for that? Also, i dont want a million and one channels, i just want something that can record digitally.

I have a Sony one and a Phillips one, the Sony one is more intuitive.

Get a Humax PVR. Had my PVR-8000T for must be 4 years now and it’s still going strong. In hindsight, wish I’d got the model with twin receivers but not overly bothersome. I’d buy another Humax one in a shot if the current one died.

Ditto mefty’s comments on the Sony, my parents have a Sony for this reason, they get on well with it.

Yeh, £7.50 a month if you already have broadband with them, you get the box free though, and films On Demand, they’re not free obviously. I’ve been impressed so far.

I’m very happy with my topfield. It’s recently been moved to the bedroom after about 5 years of heavy use, still going strong. Its very easy to use. It’s only been moved as I’ve bought a Technika Freeview HD box which has great image quality but the UI is pretty poor, has some nice features, though

Both my humax have been excellent – current one has two tuners which is better

No issues they just work – I can barely watch normal tv now with all those adds

PC + Tuner Card + MythTV = most powerful HD PVR you can get.

Just need a geek to set it up.

(Mine is a dual tuner, but can record up to 8 programs at once if they are on the correct transport. Streams over the home network to any TV/PC/Laptop in the house.)

Oh, and ditto waderider (is what I run).

General synopsis used to be:
Topfield if you like to tinker with what you can possibly make it do
Humax if you want something that just works (and works intuitively)

Had both Humax and Sony
Prefer EPG layout on Humax

Seen Humax for £100 odd, I’ve had 2 x £80 cheap numbers, fewer features but did me fine, one had **** remote and poor interface.

DON’T buy a Samsung PVR, just don’t. Probably the worst piece of technology available. They must have tried really, really hard to make them quite so bad.

Humax all the way.

PC + tuner card, but I’m a wimp, I use Windows Media centre (I tried MythTV and it is very powerful, but you need to be a full time geek to set it up. I gave up when it took me about a day to get some sound out of it.) Windows MC is still pretty good, I can play stuff over the wireless network and copy stuff to DVD or convert them to Apple Touch format.

I think I still have one of these in its original box somewhere in the loft.
Where abouts are you? Is it worth me digging it out? Would you be interested?

I bought a Thomson one from Tesco. It’s a 160GB with twin tuners and was a refurb. Only cost £60.
It works great and is very easy to use. I subsequently bought my parents one and even they can use it!!

Only issue is the fan is quite noisy.

This one – 160GB: http://direct.tesco.com/q/R.207-8514.aspx

or this one – 250GB for £20 more: http://direct.tesco.com/q/R.208-3551.aspx

I have a panasonic for the last 3 years with freeview tuner

easy excellent to use, daddy has a sony just as good.

New models have freesat built in but cost an arm and a leg

sony all the way for me, excellent menu system and ours hasnt frozen or messed up once in 2 years

much nicer to use than my parents humax one

if mine broke id go and buy the same one tomorrow

Humax – seems to be well supported via the manufacturer and forums and it’s simple to use to the point of being parent-proof.

I bought a Thomson one from Tesco. It’s a 160GB with twin tuners and was a refurb. Only cost £60.
It works great and is very easy to use. I subsequently bought my parents one and even they can use it!!

Only issue is the fan is quite noisy.

This one – 160GB: http://direct.tesco.com/q/R.207-8514.aspx

or this one – 250GB for £20 more: http://direct.tesco.com/q/R.208-3551.aspx

Me too. Been perfect, and a decent UI. Best £60 I’ve ever spent on Christmas Eve too.

Had a Humax but it was an old single tuner job – it was awful, kept hanging, losing channels until hard rebooted, Humax themselves couldn’t find me a firmware update as over the air updates didn’t ever work.. but everyone else raves about them so they must have improved.

Topfield. Twin tuners. Works fine. Easily updatable firmware. Can pull content off onto PC with a USB cable. Lots of upgraded software available from toppy.org.
The standard interface is a bit retro but you can download/install newer ones.
Have usd it a lot over the last few years and it has been solid.

Tivo.

Old, but it just works.

Worth plumping for an HD one yet? – I’m thinking of parents Christmas presents…

Have had a Humax refurb for the past couple of years. Generally been very good although it does have the odd glitch. Very easy to use. Main downside is it is a bit noisy.

Alternative that I saw at the gadget show was the 3view player which looked very nice, is supposed to be dead quiet and is HD capable.
3view site

-1 for Humax i’m afraid. We have one, the EPG takes ages (like 5mins) to load, it crashes frequently, it HDMI output quality is worse than the SCART, and the user interface is poor.

In stark contrast to Stumpy01’s and Brassneck’s suggestion, I can only tell you:

DO NOT buy one of those Thomsons. Utterly hateful thing. Appalling in every way. No redeeming features whatsoever.

Biscuit powered? Why’s that?

We’ve had ours almost a yr and it’s been fine.

There are, I believe, three answer to this (four if you count HTPCs).

1) Humax
2) Topfield
3) Everything else.

go direct to humax

http://www.humaxdirect.co.uk/prodCat2.asp?cat=Factory

get the 9200t 160 or 320gb , do not bother with the hdmi model as mentioned
the picture is worse than scart output model.

with the latest firmware they work very well.

3view HD PVR website

It gets good reviews.

It also has internet functionality which will soon be on PVR buyers’ list of “must have” features.

Think I’ll be going for a Humax one then, only problem is deciding which one.

Help me choose:
PVR9150T or PVR9200TB

Both have 160Gb HDD, both have 2 tuners etc, i can’t see a difference. Is there one? Is one more stable than the other?

I have the 9200 , think it has the series link over the 9150

so to record a series of progs you just say yes when you get asked if you wish to record one or whole series – very useful when ordered to do it by the wife..

Yet another +1 for Humax. Got mine firect off their website as a refurb. Wasn’t expensive, does what it says on the box. Best electronics buy I ever did – even Mrs Fop likes it.

no series record on the 9150? Bugger, I’ve just ordered on after being told the 9200 is a bit slow to react to the remote and the 9150 is smoother.