Aldi - Technosonic PVR £99.99 - Freeview

Brockyman

I was in Aldi Lancaster about an hour ago where someone had just taken one back. I asked how many had been returned and was told "Just about all of them!". I personally have always found Aldi to be very good at offering refunds on returns. Sometimes I don't want a refund though, it's just that they have such limited stocks of most things that they sell out very quickly and have no swaps to offer. Incidentally, the Lancaster store was not trying to resell the digi PVR's that had been returned.
Since the software update I still get No Signal messages, but now only lasting 30 seconds or so. I get the ITV no sound problem which I didn't have before and occasionally I just get a black screen when switching channels. I have found though that even when the screen has a no signal message the box will record properly.
Ian.

znww5

Frankly, I feel that most of the helpdesk personnel are as much in the dark as the rest of us - the (very pleasant) woman I spoke to didn't even know what an OTA update was!

Irrespective of that, they are not going to turn around a hardware fix in 2 or 3 weeks around Xmas and New Year - there were 14,000 PVR-101s in the current batch - so realistically we are looking at software fixes. If the V1.1 software results in a significant drop in the returns rate, the stage could be reached where it is cheaper for the makers to move on to the next product and give up on the PVR-101.

As for the V1.1 update itself, I'm in a strong signal area with a good wide-band aerial and the box still pulls the 'No signal' stunt - less frequently than before, but it still fails. The recording problems seem to have improved somewhat, but I'll be taking the box back pretty soon, it still doesn't work properly and I'm getting tired of being an un-paid beta tester for Technosonic.

As for returns policy, irrespective of Aldi's company rules, the Sale of Goods Act states that a product must be 'fit for the purpose for which it was sold'. If it isn't, then under consumer legislation you - not Aldi - choose from the options of 1) a full refund, 2) a repair or replacement or 3) a credit note. However if you choose 2) or 3) you forfeit the option of a full refund later. If you get any problems, just mention that they will be hearing from the local Trading Standards Officer, that usually tends to concentrate their minds!

Happy New Year to all on the forum.

Nautical_2

diygardener wrote:

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!

I have had the same channel scan result as you. In my case all the channels dropped out last night and gave the no signal message. I auto scanned for about 4 attempts, it found nothing. The on screen message telling me to look at my aerial connection. The next scan was a new install and this only found BBC channels.
Only after powering off/on did it find the full set.
It will still record no problem in a no signal situation and all other functions display.
The set seems, in my case, to be slightly more stable after the software update but obviously not quite there yet!!

dart17

diygardener wrote:

<snip>
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!

There is indeed a wealth of information in the thread, I suspect the wealth of information will also have been reported by phone... though having the systems in place to take advantage of it may be another thing.

I suspect that you are correct about the fix being one targeted at the 'lost recordings' which look to have been (largely) resolved. Perhaps there are still some more obscure combinations that are yet to be sorted, but it looks good to me.

However, given the numerous reports about loss of signal etc, I am astonished that such a buggy software release could be signed off and shipped. Perhaps the development/testing environment is based in e.g. India and is being done against noise free signals, rather than real ones with fading, reflections, noise etc. It is also rather unfortunate that the options seem to be only swap out or OTA updates. If there was e.g. a serial/USB port, or a CD reader, then that would allow some in the field testing and I am sure that there would be many people willing to do some testing in the hope of getting this all resolved quickly I know that I would. It would be quicker and much cheaper to ship an update over the net rather than have to swap a box. I suppose that Technosonic could have test versions of the kit that allows this.

I suspect it will now be a matter of them trying to balance the costs/benefits of an early release of new software to try and avoid a mass return of the boxes, with the risk that most bugs have not been resolved, and thus a new release in the future; or a longer wait for a more tested version, but with most people returning the boxes as faulty. Perhaps it is too late already.

Your guess is probably as good as mine, but it will be costing someone a *lot* to sort this out one way or another.

Brian

jackson3

Gave it a fair try after the latest download - worked OK for a couple of days then back to its old tricks....
Just bought the Fusion 200 same as quite a few others.

JAK_2

Babbler wrote:

Im thinking of getting the HUMAX PVR9200T now. Can these things record off a video? Just wondering as I may use it to transfer a couple of vids to it. Also, can you get programmes off it onto a PC?

Cheers.

No one seems to have answered this for you... I've registered with the site to repy! Like the PVR101, the Humax 9200T can only record freeview transmissions. It cannot record from a video recorder (unless you can broadcast your own digital TV mux and record that!!) There is no digital encoding software onboard.

You can transfer from the Humax 9200T to PC via a USB port. PC software is included to do this. I think the only other PVR which has this feature is the Topfield 5800 (a bit dearer than the Humax.) The 9200T is quite a good machine but still on early software so not bug free yet (but nothing that causes it to fail.) On the other hand, the hardware side it seems solid and reliable.

jambooboo

-gonzo- wrote:

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

It's great! After a couple of days use it's very intuitive to use and being able to record two channels simultaneously comes in for a lot more use than I'd thought. The recorded picture seems to me to be the same as 'live', which is very good.

Aside from the bugs I thought the Technosonic user interface was very good. I like the 'info' button which imposes info relating channel it is on/what channel is recording onscreen. The Fusion displays this info on the actual unit or in a seperate menu rather than being able to view it over what you're watching.

The Fusion is a great machine. It won 'Best PVR' with What Hi-Fi magazine so I'd expect it to be.

gromituk

jambooboo wrote:

The recorded picture seems to me to be the same as 'live', which is very good.

The recorded picture will always be the same as live - this is a digital system, not like a VHS video recorder (which is analogue). It will only be worse if it has some nasty "long play" facility.

hobo28

Brockyman wrote:

I was in Aldi Lancaster about an hour ago where someone had just taken one back. I asked how many had been returned and was told "Just about all of them!". I personally have always found Aldi to be very good at offering refunds on returns. Sometimes I don't want a refund though, it's just that they have such limited stocks of most things that they sell out very quickly and have no swaps to offer. Incidentally, the Lancaster store was not trying to resell the digi PVR's that had been returned.
Since the software update I still get No Signal messages, but now only lasting 30 seconds or so. I get the ITV no sound problem which I didn't have before and occasionally I just get a black screen when switching channels. I have found though that even when the screen has a no signal message the box will record properly.
Ian.

I took one back today along with the MP3 car stereo I've also been having problems with. The woman who served me also said they've had loads back. Shame, was so close to being a good piece of kit.

Zaphod_Beblebrocks

Since the update I have been getting sound dropouts and blocking, once it starts the box needs rebooting and then is fine again, this is mainly in the evening from Rowridge transmitter,has anyone else noticed this, I intend giving the helpline 1 more call to see how long a swap out will be or else I wil have to reluctantly give up and return it and the old Nokia ondigital box will live again