Aldi - Technosonic PVR £99.99 - Freeview

creddish

horsenailbucket wrote:

I think by now the general consensus is to send the flipping thing back.

I don't think that is a general consensus yet. Quite a few posters are waiting to see if there is an OTA software update which solves some or all of the problems. There are a few things I like about this PVR compared to others. The 2 minute Skip is extremely useful for skipping adverts and is better than any similar feature I have seen on other PVR's. The GOTO feature (Press OK during Playback) is good too. TEXT seems very quick too, much quicker than my Sky box.

Colin

dr_nick_uk

Recorded 2 programs today.......or so I thought, I actually recorded none but resurrected one I keep deleting. So I would only record things on this I'm not really bothered about watching!!

bagpuss

I have had problems too and after 40 minutes in the queue waiting to speak to someone was told that they would absolutely be calling me on Monday or Tuesday to let me know if this was a hardware or software problem. I was also told that if it was a hardware problem then they would be replacing any affected boxes so I will be holding on until the New Year to see what they intend to do about this as I really like the box!

cliffb

Before you put the machine back in it's box. Run it out in the open away from other heat/electro magnetic sources. I have found very small heating causing what appears to be Tuner drift. (was sat on DVD player) It has worked perfectly for 24 hrs after being unusable yesterday!!!

kcegginton

Here's an interesting observation - when you get the 'No Signal' message, go to any desired channel and press 'Record'. Wait a while then play back the recording.

The programme has recorded despite the on-screen 'No Signal' warning (at least it does on my machine). It looks as though the 'recording' tuner behaves itself even when the 'watching' tuner doesn't.

Bagpuss - please keep us informed of the reply you get (if and when you get it).

Have you all had a look at the forums (here and DigitalSpy) dealing with other machines in this price bracket? It's quite alarming that many of them share similar problems (loss of recordings/format issues etc). Although I think that 'our' machine has all of them at the same time.

I wonder if ANY of this batch works correctly - I doubt whether their owners are still looking in these forums, so I guess we'll never know.

Clive.

shovon

This probably belongs in the main pvr forum but i thought i'd ask it in here incase it is problem that affects us pvr-101 users in particular.

I am admittedly a freeview noob but anyway. I see on the freeview website that the following channels can be received on freeview:

The Hits 18
TMF 21
UKTV 19
Men & Motors 38
Sky 3 11
FTN 20

Despite rescanning and performing a manual search for each of these, i cannot find them. In fact, when doing a manual search it only gives me the option to enter channel numbers between 21 and 68 so giving me no chance to search for 'The Hits', 'UKTV' and 'Sky 3'. Should i be receiving these or are they TOPUPTV channels only. Any ideas please?

Helix

All those are on freeview but you may not be getting them due to being too far from the transmitter or the aerial pointing slightly in the wrong direction.

talkshop

shovon wrote:

In fact, when doing a manual search it only gives me the option to enter channel numbers between 21 and 68 so giving me no chance to search for 'The Hits', 'UKTV' and 'Sky 3'. Should i be receiving these or are they TOPUPTV channels only. Any ideas please?

When the receiver is scanning channels 21 to 68, these are the analogue UHF transmitter channel numbers, and are not the same as Freeview channel numbers. Freeview channels are grouped together on 6 multiplexes, with about 8 channels on each multiplex. So for example, your receiver might pick up 'Multiplex 1' on UHF channel 23, which contains most of the BBC TV and radio channels which have their own Freeview channel number.

If you cannot receive certain channels, this is because all those channels will be grouped on one or more multiplexes, and it is likely your aerial is not good enough to receive them. Some of the multiplexes are transmitted at a lower power than others which makes reception more difficult. The channels you cannot receive are on MUX C and D which are the two weakest ones being transmitted. Some Freeview receivers also work better than others. I have a Humax PVR which gives me a signal in a poor reception area.

shovon

talkshop wrote:

When the receiver is scanning channels 21 to 68, these are the analogue UHF transmitter channel numbers, and are not the same as Freeview channel numbers. Freeview channels are grouped together on 6 multiplexes, with about 8 channels on each multiplex. So for example, your receiver might pick up 'Multiplex 1' on UHF channel 23, which contains most of the BBC TV and radio channels which have their own Freeview channel number.

If you cannot receive certain channels, this is because all those channels will be grouped on one or more multiplexes, and it is likely your aerial is not good enough to receive them. Some of the multiplexes are transmitted at a lower power than others which makes reception more difficult. The channels you cannot receive are on MUX C and D which are the two weakest ones being transmitted. Some Freeview receivers also work better than others. I have a Humax PVR which gives me a signal in a poor reception area.

Thanks for this. Mux C & D hmmm.... Would i have to buy a new aerial entirely or is there a way to boost the signal between the aerial and the freeview box?

You say your Humax picks up the weaker C and D signals, this might make my mind up about returning this 101 and getting a Humax 9200T when some companies start getting it back in stock that is!

gromituk

There's plenty of information about this on the web. You could start with somewhere like http://www.bbc.co.uk/reception/digital_tv/freeview_home.shtml