Thinking of buying a media recorder

leaphaze

We have a media centre computer in the living room but it’s not always convenient to use to view recorded material, plus it’s quite nosey to run due to its small size, and I’m also concerned about leaving it running over night to record late-night material. Another problem is that typically we set it up to record several programmes over the next few days then forget to switch it on at the required time! Hence the alternative of a media recorder, which I’d be happier to leave on most of the time. I’d be interested to hear what media recorders others have and their experiences with it.

I guess the minimum spec for me would be 500gb HDD and USB or network connection to transfer files from/to a PC. We don’t have HD at the moment nor any plans to upgrade. I guess I was hoping to find something on eBay from someone who had upgraded to HD.

I started looking at media recorders with DVB-T tuners, but these tend to be expensive, i.e. over £180. I then came across the EMTEC Movie Cube Recorder which seemed ideal and cheap (< £100) until I discovered that the software was written in the dark ages and is very unfriendly. I understand it’s basically a unix box so software upgrade should be easy although I can’t find any software online. Anyone have any experience of this?

Media recorders without a tuner are cheaper but I guess that because it has no tuner it must be connected as a slave to another device (i.e. digibox) which does have a tuner. This seems less convenient and requires two devices on when recording instead of one. Anyone got one of these? Can you pass on your thoughts?

buglawton

Apple TV as around £100 is just being launched and is a taste of the good things to come soon. But that is a streaming only solution, Personally I'm waiting for a decent all-in-one solution with hard drive and WiFi streaming built in, Humax ought to make one but don't yet.

spakkker

You've just missed dixons clearout of emtec cube q800 500gb h/d for £50 - got one and it streams ok ,better than the screenplay pro which was also a misco clearance at £50.
There is a thread on hukd and someone linked to an emtec firmware support site. I like mine a lot, doesn't play mkv or h.264 tho' , I thought the screenplay was good 'til I got the cube http://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/emtec-movie-cube-recorder-and-dvbt-/743010#comments

leaphaze

spakkker wrote: »

You've just missed dixons clearout of emtec cube q800 500gb h/d for £50

Typical! :mad::mad::mad: