Aldi - Technosonic PVR £99.99 - Freeview

andybiochem

Goatie wrote:

Not sure if the formatting on the HD would be read correctly if you just fitted it directly into a PC ...

Easiest way to burn a DVD is to connect a DVD Recorder via Scart to VCR Scart connector, play on the PVR and record on the DVD. Slow, but you can just leave it running.

Think if i was to do any burning, it'd be done by attaching the scart output to my computer capture card, capture in huffy, and compress in DivX. I'll not be wasting DVDs on crappy TV progs!

(nice of my quote not to work)

Searcher2

diygardener wrote:

Correction to last post. The "no signal" problem started again an hour after switching on. It might be that it doesn't happen while recording though.

That's what I had last night when I was testing. Whilst viewing I was getting loads of NO SIGNAL messages - though the recording it was doing at the time was fine. Similarly I pressed 'Record' whilst tuned in to ITV1 with no sound.... the resultant recording had sound!

I have had no NO SIGNAL errors on the replacement machine.... but I have no hard disk recognised on this one so it is irrelevant!

andybiochem

What are the chances of that? Buying a PVR that's a bit dodgy, and getting a replacement that's totally buggered!?!?!?!

That's some bad luck, searcher2!

Goin home in 1.5 hours, so can give mine a good kickin.

gromituk

dr_nick_uk wrote:

And I thought Microsoft operating systems were buggy!

Don't blame Linux (which isn't in capitals, by the way) - it's the flaky stuff they have written themselves to go on top which will be the problem. I run Linux on my laptop and can do all these PVR functions with a Hauppuage USB digital TV tuner, without any of these problems.

If it ran Windows it would cost £50 more for the licence, and would no doubt be just as flaky!

dr_nick_uk wrote:

While it is a standard IDE drive (WD80) it isn't using any type of windows recognisable FAT as I hooked mine up and the drive showed up as being un-partitioned, but i'd guess you should be able to fit a larger drive though (haven't tried yet)

Windows won't support Linux partitions (unlike vice versa) because it's against Microsoft's religion. You can apparently get free third party drivers that do, however, so you might want to look for those.

gromituk

dfarry wrote:

I was under the impression that it would record separate channels that use the same MUX....

In otherwords, BBC1 may share the same stream with say BBC News 24... if the whole stream is recorded then you can in effect select either BBC1 or News 24 to playback after recording.

This would be supported by the fact there are two tuners... one to view, one to record.

It doesn't record the whole multiplex because that is far too much data and you would soon run out of hard disk space.

Two tuners allow you to receive any two channels. They also allow you to receive any number of channels in two multiplexes, but that depends on the software and the processing power.

gromituk

haymishpupkin2 wrote:

I've owned a philips box, complete with bugs, for several years and there has never been an update for that.

That's unfortunate. My little Grundig box has had a couple of updates, one of which even equipped it with the 7-day EPG. I was rather surprised as it was one of the earlier receivers to rise out of the ashes of OnDigital.

gromituk

Goatie wrote:

Easiest way to burn a DVD is to connect a DVD Recorder via Scart to VCR Scart connector, play on the PVR and record on the DVD. Slow, but you can just leave it running.

And you also suffer picture and sound quality loss due to the coding and converting generation, and lose any extra features such as subtitles. All in all a better idea to do it digitally, but not really possible with this PVR.

andybiochem

regarding...

http://www.dtg.org.uk/retailer/download_schedule.pl

If you don't download within the 'broadcast time' do you miss your update, never for it to be attainable again?

I turned the auto-update off on mine, cos it won't be turned on at bloddy 3am anyway.

gromituk

Goatie wrote:

I thought they broadcast any upgrades at 3:00am, then when you next turn on you have the choice to install it.

No, they are broadcast from a "carousel" continuously during the periods advertised, a bit like teletext pages. So if you turn on the box at any point during the relevant period, it will eventually detect the upgrade and ask if you want to install it. Only then will it download the upgrade.

But as others have said, it's extremely unlikely you'll get an upgrade for ages, unless they have known for a while how flaky these boxes are and so are already working on fixes. If that is the case, they shouldn't have been selling them. It sounds like they are not of merchantable quality as they stand.

Andy: the DTG website shows most of the updates marked as "repeat", which implies to me that they are broadcast for more than one period.

pazzazz

Any one want a hard disk recorder with no hard disk ? :mad:

Same problem as searcher - mine doesn't even record 1 channel let alone the 2 that were initially advertised.

restarted it, tried to format (does nothing on my box), looked for software update (there isn't one) - nothing helped. For timed recording - pvr says no (no space) and pressing the record button amusingly changes channels but without actually recording anything.

Ho hum back to Aldi then