Digital TV Recorder (PVR)- Currys Sale

firespire

For anyone in the market for a Freeview PVR -

At Currys you can currently get the
Matsui M802PVR 80GB HDD for £119.99 link
Matsui M1602PVR 160GB HDD for £149.99 link

These are twin tuner recorders and importantly can record two programmes at the same time - not all twin tuners have the technology (eg. none of the twins in the current Argos catalogue can dual record).

They are getting good reviews over at Digital Spy forums and for people who don't want the higher priced ones which connect to computers these seem perfect.

Before anyone asks - Freeview PVRs like this can only record from their internal tuners and not from anything connected up to it.

A_Nice_Englishman

It's always worth checking out the supermarkets for budget consumer electronics too.

Note firespire's comment about the twin tuners though. You will need this if you want to watch one channel and record another or record two channels at the same time once analogue is turned off (unless you have a TV with Freeview or another Freeview box.

tin

Juat to make people aware the £149.99 1602PVR is *NOT* a genuine sale price. Currys have been cheekily manipulating their prices again, it was £149.99 the day it hit the shelves. However from what I know it's a damn good box, and I think it's probably worth that price

firespire

Regardless of the Currys prices ups and downs (I think the 160GB one was £150 for about a week when it was introduced) it still has got to be a good price as you say.

They are the cheapest 80GB and 160GB twin tuner Freeview PVRs currently on the market (new) with the technology to record from both tuners at the same time - not just recording from one tuner watch the other one like the other cheap ones around. (record 1, watch 1 can also be done on the Matsui).

xlt_hunter

Or how about the digifusion FVT200 - brilliant little peice of kit - okay I paid £150 for it last nov but you can pick these up for £100 online shops if you look. Has a 80Gb drive to record around 40hrs of TV programs and can be modded (after the wattery goes out) for a 132Gb drive and USB can be modded into the unit to export the data from the drive!

WIth a twin tuner that you can record from "2" channels at one time!

Never let me down, and as I am deaf it even record subtitles - a real bonus

EvilMonkey

A bit of a newbie question, do any of these boxes come with "parental controls" IE things to stop my young daughter accessing specific channels?

Not sure if what I want is actually made...

E.M.

firespire

xlt_hunter wrote:

Or how about the digifusion FVT200 - brilliant little peice of kit - okay I paid £150 for it last nov but you can pick these up for £100 online shops if you look.

The £100 are all refurb models rather than new. I think the best price for a new 80GB as you say was £150 (making the Matsui cheaper) - Maplin had the FVRT200 for this price recently but have now discontinued selling them. There a few reports at Digitalspy forums of occasions of Digifusion hardware failing which is what puts me off.

xlt_hunter wrote:

Never let me down, and as I am deaf it even record subtitles - a real bonus

Glad to see it is reliable, the software on them I believe on them is good also (apart from the delete all your stuff if you use compression bug they have/had?).
The Matsui can record subtitles too and also the subtitles can be turned on and off when timeshifting (rewinding live TV).

firespire

EvilMonkey wrote:

A bit of a newbie question, do any of these boxes come with "parental controls" IE things to stop my young daughter accessing specific channels?

Not sure if what I want is actually made...

E.M.

On the Matsui -

Yes - You can lock specific channels with a pin number.

There is another parental control option which has settings -
• block all channels
• block programmes with an age rating of 18+
• block programmes with an age rating of 15+
• block programmes with an age rating of 12+
• block programmes with an age rating of 6+
Which you override with a pin number when you want to view them.

Important - this second control option relies on the broadcaster ataching the data to the programme of what ages it is suitable for and also if you have recorded any of these programmes to the disk your young daughter will be able to play them back without the pin requirement.

BMR_2

Thanks to the OP , after reading the thread as well on DS forums i went ahead today and bought one of these from Curry's superstore in Hove (they had 3 left).

First impressions are good, its very easy to set up and use and the recording is crystal clear, the ability to record 2 programmes at once is a great bonus and one of biggest niggles with freeview stuff is the sluggish response to remote intructions however this is nice and responsive.

well worth the 150 quid, and with 160gb HD it should take me awhile to fill!

I am not positive but pretty sure that if there is a programme i really want to keep on the HD then i can record from the HD to my dvd recorder, havnt had it long enough to try this though yet!

EvilMonkey

Firespire, thanks for your help. It seems as if these fella's may be what I'm after. I can lock out ALL channels, but leave the programmes recorded open? - Sounds great!

One last thing, is there no way with these to take recordings off onto DVD for long term storage?

E.M.

gary892

xlt_hunter wrote:

Or how about the digifusion FVT200 - brilliant little peice of kit - okay I paid £150 for it last nov but you can pick these up for £100 online shops if you look. Has a 80Gb drive to record around 40hrs of TV programs and can be modded (after the wattery goes out) for a 132Gb drive and USB can be modded into the unit to export the data from the drive!

WIth a twin tuner that you can record from "2" channels at one time!

Never let me down, and as I am deaf it even record subtitles - a real bonus

I bought one of these (digifusion FVT200) a while back and it went wrong in about a month, I got a replacement and that also went wrong in about the same time period and with the same fault.

In the end I complained and got my money back.

Don't recommend them...