Freeview - Twin tuner PVR/separate DVD recorder

After researching the latest crop of single tuner Freeview DVD Recorders
with hard drives (eg. Panasonic EX75) I've come to the conclusion that it's
still better to go for a twin tuner PVR, such as the Humax 9200, and then
get a separate basic DVD recorder.

If the PVR costs around 180.00 it seems feasible to get a DVD recorder for
around 100.00 and end up paying 280.00 as against 335.00 for an EX75, plus
the fact that you get much more flexibility with two separate units
(principally two tuners).

Have other people decided the same, and if so, can anyone recommend a good
DVD recorder at the 100 pound level, ideally with good playback too. I'm not
fussed about HDMI.

I've heard Liteon is a good, cost effective brand and that they also make
equipment for Sony, who just rebadge it.

Liteon Example:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B...onics&v=glance

Paul D wrote:
After researching the latest crop of single tuner Freeview DVD
Recorders with hard drives (eg. Panasonic EX75) I've come to the
conclusion that it's still better to go for a twin tuner PVR, such as
the Humax 9200, and then get a separate basic DVD recorder.

If the PVR costs around 180.00 it seems feasible to get a DVD
recorder for around 100.00 and end up paying 280.00 as against 335.00
for an EX75, plus the fact that you get much more flexibility with
two separate units (principally two tuners).

Have other people decided the same

I think your analysis is essentially correct. My reservation is about how
basic the DVD recorder ought to be. Ideally, I'd like it to have a small
hard drive and some reasonable editting capability so that I could trim
material before committing it to DVD. The trouble is, this takes you
straight into the more expensive territory which your analysis rejects. I
don't need the wretched thing to have *any* tuners. I don't need it to have
a big disk. And I would resent spending more on a DVD recorder I'd hardly
ever use than on the PVR which I use all the time...

In the end, I'd much rather have a PVR with an ethernet port. Maybe one
day...

Pyriform wrote:
Paul D wrote:
After researching the latest crop of single tuner Freeview DVD
Recorders with hard drives (eg. Panasonic EX75) I've come to the
conclusion that it's still better to go for a twin tuner PVR, such as
the Humax 9200, and then get a separate basic DVD recorder.

If the PVR costs around 180.00 it seems feasible to get a DVD
recorder for around 100.00 and end up paying 280.00 as against 335.00
for an EX75, plus the fact that you get much more flexibility with
two separate units (principally two tuners).

Have other people decided the same

I think your analysis is essentially correct. My reservation is about
how basic the DVD recorder ought to be. Ideally, I'd like it to have
a small hard drive and some reasonable editting capability so that I
could trim material before committing it to DVD.

The Humax allows you to trim programs , so a bog standard 50 quid cheapie
DVDR would be fine , though it'll probably break in a few months.

The trouble is, this
takes you straight into the more expensive territory which your
analysis rejects. I don't need the wretched thing to have *any*
tuners. I don't need it to have a big disk. And I would resent
spending more on a DVD recorder I'd hardly ever use than on the PVR
which I use all the time...
In the end, I'd much rather have a PVR with an ethernet port. Maybe
one day...

Me too. The USB one will do the job for now.
--
Alex

Piece by piece the penguins have taken my sanity
www.drzoidberg.co.uk www.ebayfaq.co.uk

Dr Zoidberg wrote:
The Humax allows you to trim programs , so a bog standard 50 quid
cheapie DVDR would be fine , though it'll probably break in a few
months.

Sadly, mine won't. Although it is wonderful in all other respects.

Of course, by 'trim', I did mean more than just topping and tailing.
Actually I meant 'edit'. Which is the word I should have used...

Are cheap DVD recorders really as unreliable as you imply?

"Pyriform" wrote in message
...
Paul D wrote:

In the end, I'd much rather have a PVR with an ethernet port. Maybe one
day...


A Topfield 5800 + NSLU2 just about achieves that although the data transfer rate
is limited by the speed of the USB port on the Toppy to which the NSLU2
attaches.


--

Michael Chare

In article ,
Paul D wrote:
After researching the latest crop of single tuner Freeview DVD Recorders
with hard drives (eg. Panasonic EX75) I've come to the conclusion that
it's still better to go for a twin tuner PVR, such as the Humax 9200,
and then get a separate basic DVD recorder.

If the PVR costs around 180.00 it seems feasible to get a DVD recorder
for around 100.00 and end up paying 280.00 as against 335.00 for an
EX75, plus the fact that you get much more flexibility with two
separate units (principally two tuners).

I wonder just how often you'll use a DVD (or VHS) *recorder* after getting
an HD one - unless you regularly archive stuff. Which isn't much needed
these days given the number of repeats. Since getting my Toppy I've not
used either to record.

--
*Nothing is foolproof to a sufficiently talented fool*

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

"Paul D" wrote in message
k...
After researching the latest crop of single tuner Freeview DVD Recorders
with hard drives (eg. Panasonic EX75) I've come to the conclusion that
it's still better to go for a twin tuner PVR, such as the Humax 9200, and
then get a separate basic DVD recorder.

This would be the best way to go if only the manufacturers would provide
equipment that is capable of streaming a compressed MPEG stream from a PVR
or a DTT tuner directly to a DVD recorder so that it does not have to be
decoded and re-encoded. This would also make the recorders cheaper since no
tuner or RGB input would be needed.


If the PVR costs around 180.00 it seems feasible to get a DVD recorder for
around 100.00 and end up paying 280.00 as against 335.00 for an EX75, plus
the fact that you get much more flexibility with two separate units
(principally two tuners).

Have other people decided the same, and if so, can anyone recommend a good
DVD recorder at the 100 pound level, ideally with good playback too. I'm
not fussed about HDMI.

Another thing, are there any DVD recorders in existence that will record in
DivX format. The advantage being that it uses less space and it compatible
with more players than DVD+/-VR. Further more to burn a DivX file to disc
you just burn it as data, whereas to burn a DVD-Video file to disc it takes
longer to format the file for recording that it does to burn it.


I've heard Liteon is a good, cost effective brand and that they also make
equipment for Sony, who just rebadge it.

Liteon Example:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B...onics&v=glance

"Paul D" wrote:

Have other people decided the same, and if so, can anyone recommend a good
DVD recorder at the 100 pound level, ideally with good playback too. I'm not
fussed about HDMI.

I have a PVR (Thomson DHD-4000) and a Freeview tuner in my PC.

So if there's anything I want to archive, I record it on the PC and
burn it there, but for 98% of my TV viewing I use the PVR.

An almost perfect solution (and cheap too, with the Thomson now
costing £100 and a DTT card £50)... "almost" perfect because there
will sometimes be an occasion when there's something on the PVR that
you didn't realise you wanted to save to DVD at the time it was
shown...