BT vision box as cheap PVR?

Heinz

My daughter has just moved into a new rental and, although she has a new TV licence and a cardless Sky box for TV reception, she has no way of recording programmes.

A friend has offered her a working BT Vision box and I was wondering whether she could just connect that up (it appears to have 2 scart sockets so connection to the Sky box and TV would not be a problem) to enable her to record.

almillar

There are a few tricks to the Vision boxes, but I think it should be fine for viewing and recording Freeview, as long as it's connected to a working aerial. Test it! Give it a retune when you connect it up too.
Don't expect any on-demand stuff to work.

blisteringblue

Heinz wrote: »

My daughter has just moved into a new rental and, although she has a new TV licence and a cardless Sky box for TV reception, she has no way of recording programmes.

A friend has offered her a working BT Vision box and I was wondering whether she could just connect that up (it appears to have 2 scart sockets so connection to the Sky box and TV would not be a problem) to enable her to record.

The BT vision box is a PVR so as long as you have a working aerial you can record as it is broadcast.

You cannot use it like an old school VCR though and record what sky are showing, which is what I think you are describing above.

You can connect the BT vision to the scart in the TV for playback purposes though if you do not have a HDMI socket.

If you have no aerial and only satelitle then you will need to remove the sky box and replace with a Freesat Recorder. These enable recording without contract. Humax are by far the best and some good deals here.

http://www.humaxdirect.com/Direct/ProdCat/freesat?ck=factory

Note you need a recording model, the cheapest there is £129.

Heinz

Thanks allmillar and blisteringblue.

The Freeview reception part is the problem - which is why the cardless Sky box is used.

I know that, despite receiving from a main transmitter (Belmont), her terrestrial aerial produces broken reception on most non-PSB channels (I assume that's because UHF 22, 25, 28, 30-, 53 and 60- are used and most of the commercial channels use the higher UHF channels and her aerial's an old low-band type).

Nevertheless, it sound like it might be worth a try - she might be able to record from the 'main' channels.

fiendishlyclever

If she has a decent unmetered internet connection she might get by with a NowTV box, as long as you get into the habit of watching stuff as it appears on demand.

almillar

Heinz - if you're in a good reception zone but getting bad reception - sort the aerial out. It may just be slightly misaligned, free fix (if you can reach it!). No Freeview box can overcome this!

VisionMan

almillar wrote: »

Heinz - if you're in a good reception zone but getting bad reception - sort the aerial out. It may just be slightly misaligned, free fix (if you can reach it!). No Freeview box can overcome this!

Agree with aliimar. The BT Vision box will work as a standalone Freeview PVR but it has dual tuners, so a strong aerial signal strength and quality is required. Sort the aerial out and you should be fine.