Looking for a freeview DVD recorder

Philip624

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sony-RDR-HXD890-Freeview-160GB-Recorder/dp/B0018PRXWE

I am looking for a freeview DVD recorder. I like the look of the Sony one above, the only minus being that you cannot record adn watch another freeview channel at the same time. Can anyone recommend a machine around the same price that will allow this?

malky39

most freeview dvd recorders will only come with one digital tuner i am afraid which does mean you can only watch the channel you are recording, if youu looking for a twin tuner one you will probably need to pay more that is if you can find one

BillScarab

Most Freeview Hard Disk recorders have twin tuners and cna be had for around £80 and up. They usually have a scart socket so you can connect a VCR or DVD recorder so you can presumably archive stuff off the hard drive if you want. The Humax ones are well regarded and are around £200

Fortyfoot

Have a look at these, they are very good, also have serise link - HUMAX

Save £40 and get the grade A.

Laskys had the 300T but is out of stock at the moment, probably due to it's price.

Fortyfoot

Gordon861

That Sony unit is a nice bit of kit, I got one about 6 months ago and mostly use it for backing up SkyPlus recordings. Only problem with it is multi-region isn't an easy thing to setup on it.

Your best solution might be to just pick up a cheap Freeview box for watching a second channel.

Also the Sony from Richersounds is £170 (http://www.richersounds.com/showproduct.php?cda=showproduct&pid=SONY-RDRHXD890B) or £187 with refundable 5 year cover.

They also do a simple Freeview box for £15 (http://www.richersounds.com/showproduct.php?cda=showproduct&pid=SAGEM-ITD58)

Just noticed the Humax doesn't have a DVD so no way to store your programs for backup etc.

Leopard

Gordon861 wrote: »

That Sony unit is a nice bit of kit, I got one about 6 months ago and mostly use it for backing up SkyPlus recordings. Only problem with it is multi-region isn't an easy thing to setup on it.

Your best solution might be to just pick up a cheap Freeview box for watching a second channel.

Also the Sony from Richersounds is £170 (http://www.richersounds.com/showproduct.php?cda=showproduct&pid=SONY-RDRHXD890B) or £187 with refundable 5 year cover.

They also do a simple Freeview box for £15 (http://www.richersounds.com/showproduct.php?cda=showproduct&pid=SAGEM-ITD58)

Just noticed the Humax doesn't have a DVD so no way to store your programs for backup etc.

Gordon,

What's the problem with setting up the multi-region on it? Haven't tried that yet. Can you offer any advice? :A

BTW. I came across THIS the other day. Looks like it might be good for archiving Sky HD recordings.

Gordon861

Most DVD players can be set multi-region by just entering a code from the remote control.

When I got mine I got it from Comets and did some searching on the web afterwards about setting it to M-R, all the pages on the web said you needed to buy a new Universal Remote to set it as the Sony one didn't have the ability to transmit the correct codes, somthing about needing one of the 'engineers remotes' to unlock the features. But the Universal Remote could transmit the codes.

I didn't worry about it too much because I already had a good M-R DVD player that did everything I wanted, or I could RIP my DVDs to a PC and use a Media Streamer to play them.


That new PVR unit looks interesting but at £180 it's not cheap, for the same money you can get the Sony and just use SCART to transfer from the SkyPlus(not the HD version). Take out the ads with the Sony and burn to disc, and if I want to be really OTT use the SlySoft software to RIP the disc to DIVx and store it on the network for later viewing.

Also not sure how that unit will handle MacroVision which I think HD and BoxOffice both use to stop people copying films off.

Philip624

brilliant - thanks to all for the helpful advice

JennyW_2

Gordon861 wrote: »

That Sony unit is a nice bit of kit, I got one about 6 months ago and mostly use it for backing up SkyPlus recordings. Only problem with it is multi-region isn't an easy thing to setup on it.

Your best solution might be to just pick up a cheap Freeview box for watching a second channel.

Also the Sony from Richersounds is £170 (http://www.richersounds.com/showproduct.php?cda=showproduct&pid=SONY-RDRHXD890B) or £187 with refundable 5 year cover.

They also do a simple Freeview box for £15 (http://www.richersounds.com/showproduct.php?cda=showproduct&pid=SAGEM-ITD58)

Just noticed the Humax doesn't have a DVD so no way to store your programs for backup etc.

I too have the sony DVD recorder - again use it as back up to my Sky+. However before we had the Sky+ we used the freeview in our TV

unitedwestand

I have two freeview cards which I just popped into in my PC, and a DVD recorder drive (region doesnt matter).

I can watch one channel & record another as well as playing and burning DVDs.

Cost - £60 brand new, set up time 15mins.

trcooke

With regards to the price of the Sony unit in question, I'm interested to see that it's now down to under £170. I purchased this unit about 18 months ago for £185 from Sony staff sales and this is the first time I've seen it for less than that. A really good piece of kit with very decent up-scaling to 1080p HD.