Hard disk media players

Has anybody got one, & are they any good?

ColinM

Try these sites:

http://www.pvrjunction.co.uk/compare/

http://www.pvruk.co.uk/products.cfm

I was looking into it myself, being unable to afford Sky+ any longer.
(Until I find the £££ and decide what I want to do - and aleady having a
dish and needing a digital ariel anyway, so more £££, I'm going for the
£10/month Sky+ and freesat option....)

Good luck

Barb



"SteveT" wrote in message
...
Has anybody got one, & are they any good?

ColinM

SteveT wrote:
Has anybody got one, & are they any good?

ColinM

Do you mean something like this:

http://www.maplin.co.uk/SEODynamicPa...sp?ModNo=99078

If so, I had a Freecom equivalent for a while. It had component video
and digital audio and picture quality was good to a 32" HD TV. I sold it
(at no loss) because the software was poor (particularly for audio
playback), remote hit and miss, and it made a right racket - a tiny fan
buzzing away. It also needed a special cable to connect to the TV, but
Freecom sent me one FOC.

90UKP seems reasonable for 160GB if they've got the problems I found
sorted out, but bear in mind it might have an IDE HD (the Freecom does),
so upgrading can be difficult.

Rob

Go for a Humax 9200T.

Excellent value.

Mel.

"Rob" wrote in message
...
SteveT wrote:
Has anybody got one, & are they any good?

ColinM

Do you mean something like this:

http://www.maplin.co.uk/SEODynamicPa...sp?ModNo=99078

If so, I had a Freecom equivalent for a while. It had component video and
digital audio and picture quality was good to a 32" HD TV. I sold it (at
no loss) because the software was poor (particularly for audio playback),
remote hit and miss, and it made a right racket - a tiny fan buzzing away.
It also needed a special cable to connect to the TV, but Freecom sent me
one FOC.

90UKP seems reasonable for 160GB if they've got the problems I found
sorted out, but bear in mind it might have an IDE HD (the Freecom does),
so upgrading can be difficult.

Rob

"Mel" wrote in message

"Rob" wrote in message
...
SteveT wrote:
Has anybody got one, & are they any good?

Do you mean something like this:

http://www.maplin.co.uk/SEODynamicPa...sp?ModNo=99078

If so, I had a Freecom equivalent for a while. It had component
video and digital audio and picture quality was good to a 32" HD TV.
I sold it (at no loss) because the software was poor (particularly
for audio playback), remote hit and miss, and it made a right racket
- a tiny fan buzzing away. It also needed a special cable to connect
to the TV, but Freecom sent me one FOC.

90UKP seems reasonable for 160GB if they've got the problems I found
sorted out, but bear in mind it might have an IDE HD (the Freecom
does), so upgrading can be difficult.

Can those digitise anything they receive through a SCART (i.e. RGB, CVBS,
S-Video), or does everything have to be transferred from a PC?

Go for a Humax 9200T.

Excellent value.

That will only store video recorded from DTT (i.e. Freeview), plus very
limited MP3 and JPEGS transferred from a PC, so I'm not clear it counts as a
media player.

--
Max Demian

Max Demian wrote:
"Mel" wrote in message

"Rob" wrote in message
...
SteveT wrote:
Has anybody got one, & are they any good?

Do you mean something like this:

http://www.maplin.co.uk/SEODynamicPa...sp?ModNo=99078

If so, I had a Freecom equivalent for a while. It had component
video and digital audio and picture quality was good to a 32" HD TV.
I sold it (at no loss) because the software was poor (particularly
for audio playback), remote hit and miss, and it made a right racket
- a tiny fan buzzing away. It also needed a special cable to connect
to the TV, but Freecom sent me one FOC.

90UKP seems reasonable for 160GB if they've got the problems I found
sorted out, but bear in mind it might have an IDE HD (the Freecom
does), so upgrading can be difficult.

Can those digitise anything they receive through a SCART (i.e. RGB, CVBS,
S-Video), or does everything have to be transferred from a PC?


No, they're media players only so everything has to transferred.

Rob

Can those digitise anything they receive through a SCART (i.e. RGB, CVBS,
S-Video), or does everything have to be transferred from a PC?


No, they're media players only so everything has to transferred.

I'm looking at these things as an alternative to "roll your own" DVDs.
Granted there is some inconvenience in plugging the thing into a PC
to add new stuff, but apart from that it seems a lot easier to have
one small box with everything on it. (I also find DVDs to be very
unreliable, although I've got a Sony writer that was highly rated a
couple of years ago.) I just wondered if they really do work is all.

ColinM

"SteveT" wrote in message

Can those digitise anything they receive through a SCART (i.e. RGB,
CVBS, S-Video), or does everything have to be transferred from a PC?


No, they're media players only so everything has to transferred.

I'm looking at these things as an alternative to "roll your own" DVDs.
Granted there is some inconvenience in plugging the thing into a PC
to add new stuff, but apart from that it seems a lot easier to have
one small box with everything on it. (I also find DVDs to be very
unreliable, although I've got a Sony writer that was highly rated a
couple of years ago.) I just wondered if they really do work is all.

If you've got to connect a PC to the device to transfer stuff, why not get a
media streamer for about £30 and keep the stuff on the PC? Even if you have
to add an extra HD drive to your PC I would have thought it would still be
cheaper.

--
Max Demian

Max Demian wrote:
"SteveT" wrote in message

Can those digitise anything they receive through a SCART (i.e. RGB,
CVBS, S-Video), or does everything have to be transferred from a PC?

No, they're media players only so everything has to transferred.
I'm looking at these things as an alternative to "roll your own" DVDs.
Granted there is some inconvenience in plugging the thing into a PC
to add new stuff, but apart from that it seems a lot easier to have
one small box with everything on it. (I also find DVDs to be very
unreliable, although I've got a Sony writer that was highly rated a
couple of years ago.) I just wondered if they really do work is all.

If you've got to connect a PC to the device to transfer stuff, why not get a
media streamer for about £30 and keep the stuff on the PC? Even if you have
to add an extra HD drive to your PC I would have thought it would still be
cheaper.


Been there ;-)

The problems with PC/streaming include:

PC needs to be on (waste of electricity etc);
If you want wireless (I did) it can drop and wasn't fast enough for video;
Need a decent software interface to access files.

In the end I bought my way out with a Mac Mini, which also replaced a CD
recorder.

Rob

"SteveT" wrote in message
...
Has anybody got one, & are they any good?


I'm very happy with my Freecom MediaPlayer-35. Wanted one that was
networked and HDD. Chose a cheapy as these things will only get better very
quickly. The player can be hacked so has a geek following. Other pluses
are regularly firmware updates, HD capability with component out, plays most
of the video compressions (divx etc), its small enough to be portable if I
wanted to take it to a mates house and the device can act as network storage
using NDAS. Got it for about £90 last year.

http://www.freecom.com/productsubs.a...tID=80602&s=ja