View 21 IPTV Freeview+HD DVR review
iOS telly addicts, look no further
The Freeview+ HD market has suddenly sparked into life. Having spent an age coasting on the coattails of Humax’s HDR-FOXT2, there are suddenly a slew of better-specified recorders hitting the streets. The View21 VW11FVRHD50 is one such newbie, mixing Freeview+ HD with IPTV connected services. While it doesn’t offer full-on Catch-Up like rival YouView, there is BBC iPlayer, YouTube, Flickr and Twitter onboard.
View21's VW11FVRHD50 Freeview+HD DVR with app control to boot
The View21 is a curiously designed DVR with a slightly bowl-like roof. If nothing else, it’s somewhere to put your bananas. Beneath the lid is a 500GB hard drive, enough room for around 312 hours of SD, or 125 hours of hi-def.
Connections include a Scart loop-through for legacy CRT owners, single HDMI and digital optical audio out, the aerial I/O, Ethernet and a USB 2.0 connection. The latter appears to be dormant, most likely for upgrade service use only. There is no HDMI switching or integrated Wi-Fi onboard.
Just about all you need round the back
To use the Scart output would, of course, be crime against clarity. Especially a shame here as the GUI is wondrously crisp; it’s this which gives the entire box hi-def sheen, even when navigating skanky low-bitrate fare in the Freeview backwaters.
The box’s TV guide offers a live channel window and some familiar Freeview+ HD niceties: select an SD channel, and if available, you’ll be offered a one-touch jump to an HD version if it’s accessible, while the i-plate gives presents the usual programme info. However, the D-Book 7 recommendation engine hasn’t been implemented – this offers the user a choice of a similar shows to watch or record.
Next page: Double vision
COMMENTS
I've said this before ...
DVD players, VCRs (remember them?), AV receives ... All rectangular boxes that can be stacked.
Set-top boxes, routers, etc ... all shaped like an alien's handbag collection.
Manufacturers, please get over your pretensions to creating objets d'art. You just don't have the design skills. Make nice, simple boxes we can stack under the TV with the rest of the gubbins
Re: Why would you buy this...
A fine advert. Not as good as some of your other ones, but nicely pitched.
Re: Why would you buy this...
And BTW, all "youview" and "yourview box" give you on Amazon is a short list headed by a Humax box, so I think you're a little premature with the £29.99 line.
USP
From several years' experience of various different PVRs, a USP to me would be reliability - that's to say, the certainty (barring mechanical failure) that a recording set will in fact record at the appointed time, and not instead be forgotten about because of some arbitrary system reset, re-scan or lock-up the unit decided to initiate just to be bloodyminded. Sadly that kind of knowledge only comes from extensive use, so never makes it into reviews, only retrospective support forums.
I rather have a Humax
At least you know what you are getting
