Aldi - Technosonic PVR £99.99 - Freeview

bobert

Silent_Bob wrote:

So far another happy customer here. Got one on my way home last night about 6.10pm. Installed it within 10 minutes of getting home, initially had picture but no sound. A quick firm push to make sure the scart lead was seated properly and I had sound. Sounds like Boberts problem too - although after checking this, check you haven't hit the "mute" button and that the players volume is up.

Recording via the EPG timer was fine.

Recording via setting the time was fine.

Pausing Live TV and then starting was fine.

Digital text fine.

Not tried recording one channel yet and pausing live tv yet though.

No issues with sound/channels etc

Using this on an integrated Sony TV so not a huge leap for me, although the digital text is much much quicker and if it will record one channel and at the same time pause TV on the other tuner then its fantastic.

Hoping to be able to hook it up to the pc and "record" some files off there or record straight from a DVD.

Just need to work out how to get my Lost Season 2 files onto it and in what format.

Not a scart problem as I've tried using the other outputs as well aerial, digital out. Even openned it out but all the conectors inside seemed well conected!! so guess it must be a software problem?

I rang the tecnicsonic helpline too and requested a swap out, they said not to expect anything before christmas so I'm unsure whether to hold onto it or go get a refund.

pjmony

I've got a 'typical' machine in that it works most of the time but to get sound on ITV1 I have to change to 5 or 9 before going to 3.

However, one nasty thing I've noticed.
I tried recording Alien Ressurection on Thurs night which went from about 22:30 to 00:40 - in other words it went over midnight.

Sod's Law - it only recorded up to midnight!

I recommend anyone doing something similar to check the times that the EPG selects. I didn't check mine so it may be they were correct any way, and the machine messed up.

In spite of this I'm keeping it for a while to see if they fix these bugs.

boyohboy

I to have the NO Signal problem. It goes from 85% to nothing !!!!!!!
The biggest disappointment is not been able to "chase" a show your already recording, IE You come home 30 mins after the show starts and you start watching it from the beginning .
I have a sagem pvr that does this and I think its a big plus. I may go back.

dranz100

Overall I'm fairly disappointed with this box.

I spent a few hours on it yesterday evening and intermittantly got the "No Signal" problem (you switch to a channel, it flashes up for half a second, and then goes to "No Signal".....if you then leave it alone for a few minutes then usually starts woing again).

I'm sure a made a few recordings last night....which it hasn't saved, and there are all sorts of sequences of button presses which do something completely different to what they should.

There are simple things like there are 3 different layouts for the EPG, and you can set up the default view (I like the one with the little inset TV picture), but to get the one you want you have to set it to a different one!

It strikes me that this is virtually untested software.

I rang the helpline, and they took my name and address which they said would probably result in a swap after xmas.
Dz

cc1_3

didnt even bother unpacking mine

set me dads up yesterday and all was fine until he turned down the volume on the TV and it switched the technosonic on!

repeated the process and it happened every time,from then on it was all down hill.(freezing,turning itself off,no signal etc.......)

took both back today,refund no probs.

will wait for something better to come along,i'm in no rush

creddish

gromituk wrote:

Well that's not surprising, because a lot of these offers are something re-badged in small quantities.



I'd be surprised if the picture quality were noticeably different, unless you were actually gettting decoding errors on the Nokia (blocking and freezing pictures). Perhaps the Nokia was only connected to the TV via composite (CVBS) and this one via RGB? With CVBS you smeary colours with crawling dots on them.



Lots of people are saying this, because they don't have the digital mindset. This is a digital recorder which records exactly the same data you watch live, so pictures will be indistinguishable from the original. ALL PVRs will behave like this.

Is that correct? The recorded data stream may be identical to the broadcast but surely the box has to do some decoding and convert this to an RGB (or CVBS) output to display on the TV. The processing performance could be different for different boxes.

Colin

terrierlady

Having returned our set the local Aldi shop manager was very good, he did say he has 3 returned so far all the same problem no signal......
Hope all your returns managers are as helpful and nice as this poor guy on a busy Friday afternoon.

virgo17

creddish wrote:

Is that correct? The recorded data stream may be identical to the broadcast but surely the box has to do some decoding and convert this to an RGB (or CVBS) output to display on the TV. The processing performance could be different for different boxes.
Colin

This is completely correct. The PVR may well record the program stream to the hard disk exactly as it were broadcast. During playback, the data will be processed and perhaps limited before being fed to the SCART socket. The quality of this processing will determine the viewed quality.

This is where a PVR with some form of computer connection scores. You can copy the data from the PVR hard disk to the hard disk in your computer and from there use various tools to manipulate it, perhaps to burn it to DVD or maybe compress it to Divx or Xvid according to your requirements.

HTH.

V.

Whirly

OK, I took mine back. For £100 I expect better.

Got the cash back in Aldi no problem and on the way home passed a Currys. Decided on the spur of the moment to go and look at the Digifusion PVRT100 that is £120 on their website.

They had it at £119.99 displayed and just one boxed PVR left. I dithered a little and then thought "sod it, it will make Christmas TV view much nicer and 40hrs recording isn't that much less than the 55 offered by the Technosonic."

Took it to the till and the woman tried to charge me £169.99. I complained and told them it was £119.99. So she sent a girl off to check and she brought back the shelf label. The woman on the till said to her assistant: "Was this the only Digifusion model" to which the reply was "yes" (it *was* the only one there).

So she commented how odd it was but just used the stock no. on the shelf and it came up £119.99.

Well, I've just got home and had a look at the box. It's an PVRT200! The 80gb £170 one!

Woohoo!

No wonder it came up £170 in the shop. Let's just hope it's the 200 in the box and I haven't just got a wrongly printed box...I'll set it up after dinner.

Mind you, my receipt says PVRT100....might have some trouble should I need to take it back.

Still, if everything is fine, I've got the Digifusion - 80hrs recording (25hr more than the Technosonic), TRUE twin tuner, rewind live TV, 14 day epg, and far more reliable - for only £20 more than the awful Technosonic.

Merry Christmas from a rather happy bunny.

Oh yes, and the Digifusion seems to be able to use compression on the broadcast data stream so there *can* be differences in picture quality.

From the digifusion website:

"Super Compression Technology (SCT) is Digifusion's new technology that enables a DVR to deliver the maximum record time-comparable products with similar hard disk sizes can only achieve a fraction of the recording time available on the FVRT200"

Searcher2

Whirly wrote:

Oh yes, and the Digifusion seems to be able to use compression on the broadcast data stream so there *can* be differences in picture quality.

From the digifusion website:

"Super Compression Technology (SCT) is Digifusion's new technology that enables a DVR to deliver the maximum record time-comparable products with similar hard disk sizes can only achieve a fraction of the recording time available on the FVRT200"

From the reviews I have read it is better not to use the SCT technology. I don't know cos mine isn't coming until next week!