Aldi - Technosonic PVR £99.99 - Freeview

mk-donald

After the update mine still had NO SIGNAL all over the place - it just didn't want to know about one particular MUX's signals - found them when tuning - but wouldn't display them!

So back to Aldi it went this afternoon and got the refund, as always, without any quibble whatsoever. Manager said had had one returned this morning and he clearly knew the phrase "No signal".

jambooboo

Took mine (and another I bought for my dad) back today for a refund.

Contrary to what others have said the manager at my local store was very reluctant to take them back. I listed the faults and said that furthermore it was mis-sold as being able to record two channels, to which she said there was a sign in store stating it didn't on the day of sale. Maybe there was later in the day after people had brought them back but there wasn't at 9:00am when I bought mine.

The manager was acting like she was doing me a favour with her reluctance so I mentioned that it was accepted that the machine was bug-ridden and consumer/av forums are full of people with similar problems, hence my not even opening the second unit, and when I asked if they'd had any returns she said they had not. That there were more than a few units in slightly worn looking boxes for sale said otherwise.

Got my bug-free twin-channel recording Digifusion 200 for just another £60 more so I'm happy now anyway.

virgo17

jambooboo wrote:

Contrary to what others have said the manager at my local store was very reluctant to take them back.

As this is quite unusual for Aldi, perhaps you shoud 'name and shame' the branch? This might prevent some of us who perhaps use the same branch from running into further problems?

In my case, the male manager of my local branch was quite happy to take mine back and admitted that there had been several.

V.

-gonzo-

Well it lasted a day now the clock stopped working 00:17 and I cant turn the unit on..
Looks like im gonna give in and get my refund..

-gonzo-

jambooboo wrote:

Got my bug-free twin-channel recording Digifusion 200 for just another £60 more so I'm happy now anyway.

With bugs and problems aside how does the Digifusion 200 compare to PVR 101 in terms of userbility, picture etc?

robonz

my No Signal problem is worse with update than it was before! some update.

does anyone know if its possible to reboot from the remote rather than having to crawl around the back of the unit to switch it off?

does anyone know when a likely second update might occur?

bagpuss

OK I have actually managed to speak to a person (Dennis) on the help line for Technosonic who was VERY helpful and apologietic and told me that they were not happy with all the faults either! I said all I wanted was a box that worked and didn't really want to have to go back to get my money back and then have to pay more for an alternative! He agreed and said that he would arrange for what he called a swap out to occur but this could take about two weeks as they wanted to ensure that the boxes they sent out worked.

I am therefore going to hang on a little longer to see what happens and then reluctantly will go and get a refund from Aldi.

WATCH THIS SPACE!

dart17

While Denis may well be sorry about the number of problems, I think there are a few contradictions or at least some things that do not add up.

If he is suggesting a swap out will fix the problem, then it must either be a new version of software or of hardware (or both). If it is simply software, then why not go for a OTA software update. To have a swap out timescale of a couple of weeks means the software must be available now. I think (without proof) that a hardware swap out would be *much* more expensive than an OTA software upgrade, so there must be a hardware problem, or something that can not be fixed OTA.

I do not think that Denis, knows what the situation really is, I know the person that I spoke to (before the OTA upgrade) did not but insisted that there was nothing wrong with the hardware, and the OTA upgrade would fix everything! When I queried this, he insisted that people on the forum/newsgroups etc. did not have the facts, and therefore should be ignored.

I suspect that it is not a case that Denis and others are deliberately missleading us, but it is simply much easier/quicker to tell it like they want/hope it will be rather than admitting that it is going to be a long time before they can sort everything out.

Unfortunately developing fault free software is not quick.

Brian

LesD

dart17 wrote:

While Denis may well be sorry about the number of problems, I think there are a few contradictions or at least some things that do not add up.

If he is suggesting a swap out will fix the problem, then it must either be a new version of software or of hardware (or both). If it is simply software, then why not go for a OTA software update. To have a swap out timescale of a couple of weeks means the software must be available now. I think (without proof) that a hardware swap out would be *much* more expensive than an OTA software upgrade, so there must be a hardware problem, or something that can not be fixed OTA.

I do not think that Denis, knows what the situation really is, I know the person that I spoke to (before the OTA upgrade) did not but insisted that there was nothing wrong with the hardware, and the OTA upgrade would fix everything! When I queried this, he insisted that people on the forum/newsgroups etc. did not have the facts, and therefore should be ignored.

I suspect that it is not a case that Denis and others are deliberately missleading us, but it is simply much easier/quicker to tell it like they want/hope it will be rather than admitting that it is going to be a long time before they can sort everything out.

Unfortunately developing fault free software is not quick.

Brian

In all these conversations with the 'Helpdesk', has anyone found out what, exactly, they are planning to change in the 'swap-out' boxes?

If it is anything significant, that would imply, to me, that the original boxes were not of merchantable quality and that the whole batch should be recalled. It is certainly something I would think Trading Standards would be interested in.

Conversely, like Dart17, I think they could just be playing for time and that nothing much will be changed.

Personally, I'm very happy with our box. Since installing Version 1.1, we've not had a single 'No Signal' incidence. Previously, it occurred for up to 30 secs nearly every time we changed channels. Although with only limited testing, we have not lost any more recordings. And the speed of the teletext is awesome (compared with our previous Nokia box).

diygardener

I've just found another quirk I haven't seen mentioned before. While in a "no signal" condition, I decided to try updating the channels list. I ended up with just a small handful of ITV and other channels with no BBC at all! Hard reset and another auto channel update quickly brought back the full set. I hope someone from Technosonic is watching this forum as there must be a wealth of information they will find useful for passing onto their software guys!

Also did a quick check on the two other boxes that were targeted by the current software update. Both are 80 gb PVRs (Goodmans GHDD1782 and Bush IDPVR801B). But they are single tuner boxes making me feel even more certain that this update was intended primarily to fix "lost recordings" problems is unlikely to have been targeted at any specific "twin tuner" bugs such as those we are still experiencing. So lets hope they get working on more fixes!