Good news, bad news

Good news! Panasonic PVR has died. I'll post the video of me burning it in due course.

Bad news! I have to choose a new one. Recommendations? Nothing by Panasonic or Samsung, please.

The Humax stuff looks OK, although I bought the Panny on online reviews, and look where that got me.

Reply to
Huge
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You can buy whatever you like. None of it will work properly. It has got a bloody computer in it with untested software and will not withstand bursts of mains or rf interference without going into buggered mode. Cynic, moi?

Reply to
Capitol

ha ha spot on that could be me saying that ....

Reply to
Jim GM4DHJ ...

I've just bought a Humax fvp-4000t and a Humax H3. I'm finding them pretty good, but my wife is taking a while to get used to them.

We've only had them a week, but they seem ok so far.

The fvp-4000t has three tuners and can record four programmes while watching a fifth. You can stream from it to a PC or tablet. Finally, the H3 (a streaming player) can play recorded programmes from the fvp400t or use one of the three tuners to watch live TV in another room.

There are areas of the interface that are irritating though - programme description doesn't appear until you've switched to that channel; deleting a number of recorded programmes requires movements back and forth between the selected programme and the side menu; the H3's remote is very basic and navigates in a different way to the fvp-4000t; and other minor niggles.

The multi-tuner, multi-room feature was the killer feature for us though.

SteveW

Reply to
Steve Walker

My Humax 9200 worked straight out of the box in 2006 and still works.

Ditto my Humax HD Fox T2 stb with extra usb hard drive for recording.

As far as I am concerned, they just go on and on and on.

However, many smart tv's have pvr functionality too if you plug a usb drive in. So maybe put the pvr budget towards a newer tv. And if you have a decent unlimited broadband line, then you might not need one.

Reply to
Andrew

The HDR Fox T2 (recorder) and HD Fox T2 (stb) had similar functionality. But the HD Fox T2 can only play WMA or MP3 music from a DLNA server which is a nuisance.

Does the H3 allow music in Flac format to be played ?.

Reply to
Andrew

In a thread asking much the same question in uk.tech.digital-tv in March, the Humax HDR FoxT-2 PVR seemed to be well thought of.

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and scroll up/down.

Reply to
Chris Hogg

I posted about this the other day, but on the end of a different thread.

I was in a similar position with an ageing topfield PVR hooked up to my network via a hacked linksys box. It worked, let you record stuff and also FTP it off the box to a computer for use elsewhere on the network.

I wanted a modern equal of it, with HD recording, and the ability to pay back recordings on any device - not have any form of DRM etc.

In the end I went for a roll my own solution using a HD Homerun Connect from Silicondust. Its a network connected twin tuner. No video output, no storage nothing - just a twin tuner that streams. Paired that with Plex and using their beta PVR capability it works well. Records to wherever you want (computer HD, NAS etc), and you can playback when you want. All driven from a program guide. There are a number of other software solutions that will work with it as well.

Reply to
John Rumm

Sony? Still have Sony HDD recorder / DVD burner. For a bit of consumer electroniss it has a half decent user interface. Trouble is time has marched on and there are no longer any signals it can receive.

And won't get any updates or new/enhanced features after 18 months. You want those dump the "old" telly and buy a new one, that will also be unsupported after 18 months...

Think I'd spend it on a Raspberry Pi and HDD and install Raspian and Kodi on it. Grabbing stuff off the 'net rather than off air. If the off-air is DTTV the quality is barely watchable so the 'net is better option.

Don't need speed for a PVR just let it get on with it. Doesn't matter if it takes longer to download than the running time of the programme, you aren't watching the stream. A decent amount of download data more important.

Reply to
Dave Liquorice

Nobody makes their own stuff any more sadly so good or bad is probably a bit of a lottery nowadays. Brian

Reply to
Brian Gaff

I have been told that some refurbished TVonics ones are well sought after at the moment. only the psu capacitors go, and one can fit a bigger hard drive I understand.

I wonder if perhaps there was a golden age of chipsets which has now past in favour of cheap and cheerful rubbish. Brian

Reply to
Brian Gaff

Add Sony to that list. They spy on you.

Reply to
Chris

Isn't the T2 (recorder) only dual tuner though? Reviews of the T2 (stb) seem to say that you can't pause and rewind either - or are those outdated and was new functionality added?

Unfortunately not. That doesn't bother me though, as we've got a Logitech Squeezebox for music wherever we put it in the house and a Cambridge Audio NP30 for music in the living room.

SteveW

Reply to
Steve Walker

There's the Mutant

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Reply to
PeterC

Didn't TVonics go bust before they even made a HD device.

TVonics wasn't the golden age - they probably used the same chip-sets as everyone else.

In most cases its not the hardware that's the problem but the software written to support it. Having owned 'open source' boxes or boxes where third party software could be installed it is evident to me that hobbyists can often produce a better product than the manufacturer can achieve.

Reply to
alan_m

Dual tuner. And you can pause and rewind. Whether that's a feature of the hacked firmware I installed - I'm not sure.

I got a couple of them for about £45 each.

Reply to
Bob Eager

We have a Tvonics amongst others. It is more even crap, with a quad failure rate on a good day. The pre 2010 units were IME more reliable, with only a few clapped out hard discs as failure points. Some call it progress!

Reply to
Capitol

TVonics did HD. The software explains why they went broke.

Reply to
Capitol
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Just bought a new TV. That's shit, too.

Reply to
Huge

The elderly Sony HDD recorder we also have is the best one we've owned, and it too is crap in it's own way. It has a habit of chopping off the last 2 or 3 minutes of recordings and when we first bought it, it crashed a *lot*. After wading through hundreds of postings on various forums, I discovered that if you switch off the "over the air" software updates (which are no longer available, anyway) it stops crashing. It also doesn't have an HDMI output, so we have a SCART -> HDMI converter, which the Samsung telly doesn't like, so you have to power the converter off and on every day to make it work. It does have a really good UI, though.

And this is all supposed to be consumer electronics, as reliable as a rock. Why do we put up with this shit?

Reply to
Huge

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