Agentless Backup is Not a Myth
Panasonic DMR-HW100
This is Panasonic’s first standalone Freeview HD recorder, as others have included a Blu-ray drive. Essentials such as picture and sound quality are superb; HE-AAC 5.1 sound is converted into Dolby Digital, and it’s even 3D ready.
There’s exhaustive media file compatibility but only from directly connected USB storage. Similarly, it offers network streaming as a client or server but has various limitations. The hard disk is a relatively meagre 320GB and there’s no Scart for copying onto DVD recorders. At launch it also lacks iPlayer, but this is anticipated in a future upgrade. If and when this happens, it may be worth a slightly higher rating.
Reg Rating 75%
Price £300
More info Panasonic
Sagemcom RT190-320 T2 HD
At the affordable end of the scale is this slimline no-frills recorder that at least covers all the main Freeview features effectively and delivers a decent AV performance throughout. The handset and user interface are functional rather than eye-catching and the front panel display borders on the garish.
There’s a USB port used merely for opening MP3s and JPEGs. Its Ethernet connection has so far remained inactive, though an announcement was imminent from Sagemcom as of October 2011. Following an earlier upgrade, HE-AAC audio is now transcoded into DTS 5.1; and if the 320GB disk seems paltry, a 500GB version is available.
Reg Rating 65%
Price £200
More info Sagemcom
Next page: Samsung BD-DT7800
COMMENTS
What the hell are you all on about?
I bought the Humax box about 6 months ago. It's great. Absolutely fantastic. I'd go so far as to say it's my favourite bit of consumer electronics I've bought in years. It was slightly iffy before the last firmware update, but since then, it's been rock solid, records two programmes simultaneously, doesn't miss things, does Series Link rather nicely, and in general has stopped us watching any live TV at all (and I've had a PVR for years).
I'd give it 90%, personally. If you want to witter on about the problems with Freeview, go for it, but frankly, I get lots of channels, some decent-enough quality HD channels, and this box records them all with no fuss or problems. What more can you ask for?
PC + MythTV beats them all and has done for years
I've been running MythTV on my PC for about 5 years now. I think it's crashed twice, and it offers:
- Multiple tuners (I can record up to six programs at once depending on what multiplex they're on)
- Multiroom by default (all you need is another laptop or PC and it's one click to install the client software, which works on Windows, Mac and Linux)
- also plays DVDs, and any videos it can find on your hard drive
- remote access. If someone's chatting about a show at work, I can log in to the web interface from my desk and set series record instantly. If you've got good upload on your broadband, you can even stream stuff you've already recorded onto your remote machine.
- all the usual programme guide, series record, search for programs stuff. You can choose from a number of nice themes, create your own or enhance an existing one.
- you can make it work with iPlayer, youtube and so on with a bit of effort. Or just fire them up in the browser instead.
- don't need expensive hardware. I'm using a 10-year-old 2Ghz single-core Pentium 4 with an ancient NVidia graphics card. Admittedly it won't play HD but that's only an upgrade away.
- extendable with various silly widgets which will show you the weather and so on.
Cost?
Dual TV tuners (Freeview/DVB-T) : £30. Came with remote control.
PC: £50 second hand
Graphics card: £20 second hand
Large-ish HDD (320GB): £20 second hand. Gets you hundreds of hours of recording time.
Nice shiny case and quiet power supply: £50. Fits under the telly where the DVD player used to be.
MythTV software and Ubuntu operating system - £0, it's all open-source.
A few hours of my time (across 5 years) to set up and tweak to my liking.
Total cost £170 - less than most decent DVRs.
It's a PC, so you can run VLC or something similar and play pretty much any video you put on it. You can probably integrate vlc into mythtv. You can browse the web, etc etc if you connect a wireless keyboard & mouse.
Because I'm a geek, the same PC also functions as a file server, print server, web server and so on, just adding to the value for money.
It'll need an upgrade to get HD channels - a dual core mobo with integrated graphics would probably be sufficient, and obviously a new tuner. Probably another £150 or so, but in total it's still no more expensive than several of the models here, which don't have half the features.
Yes it's a custom solution and not everything works out-of-the-box, but if you use a pre-built distribution like MythBuntu and follow an online guide then it's actually fairly simple to set up these days, and not time-consuming. Anyone who is even slightly more than a mindless consumer drone should consider doing it, or getting a geeky friend to do it.
I guess you can do something similar with Windows Media Centre but you probably need better hardware.
Stop the whinging
Stop the whinging and get the Humax HDR Fox T2, they've done a superb job on it, and it richly deserves the editors choice.
It does everything asked of it, with superb 5.1 sound through any surround sound amp, and has a gorgeous looking easy to use interface. It's an order magnitude better than the old 9300, solving all the problems such as forgetting series record half way though and jumping out of catch up play if you are recording that program. The only negative point I can hold against it is the volume level differences between SD, HD and HD with 5.1 sound.
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