Does Such A Machine Exsist?

i_love_it

Hi Techies

I've spent days seaching the web and forums including AV until my brain is scrambled!
I want a pvr with twin digital tuner and recordable dvd drive to enable recording to hard drive whilst watching another digital channel and ability to record good stuff to disc and play regular dvd all in one machine.

I have sony bravia lcd tv and basic virgin cable box for all viewing, no analogue as no aerial currenty fitted for this particular set.

I haven't found an answer after hours of reseach! Does such a machine exsist?

BillScarab

No idea, but if I was you i'd get a V+ box from Virgin and a stand alone DVD Recorder and just connect them up. V+ gives you 3 tuners so you can record 2 channels whilst watching a third.

Doing the above you'd end up with 2 boxes under your TV but adding a standalone PVR/DVD Recorder to your current setup would also give you 2 boxes.

cowbutt

You can get a device with such flexibility, but it'll probably be a PC running MythTV!

tweeter

Try here http://www.avforums.com/forums/index.php

Slapps

found this 1 on ebay but before you buy i would have a good look about to see if you can find it cheaper as ebay is not always the cheapest place.
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Samsung-DVD-SH855M-250-GB-DVD-Recorder-HDD-Recorder_W0QQitemZ270226471969QQihZ017QQcategoryZ75529QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
hope this helps
i did see a whalfdale dvd recorder with freeview and 160gig hd for £89 @ our local pc fair so they might be worth checking out 1st

esuhl

Well a quick search brought up the following, so it looks like these devices do exist:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ikasu-320GB-Digital-Freeview-Receiver/dp/B000ZYOM9G/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=kitchen&qid=1207664861&sr=1-1
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sagem-DVR-64250SL-T-Terrestrial-Recorder/dp/B000YCICT0/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1207664861&sr=1-2

I just used the following search criteria:

DVD AND ("twin tuner" OR "dual tuner" OR "two tuners") AND ("hard disc" OR "hard drive")

Woby_Tide

both of those have no DVD drive from teh description

back to the original point, they don't exist yet, the main problem is that a PVR records programs in their native format, a DVD recorder converts that native format to DVD format, basically it creates a problem for a normal machine to have to cope with encoding two different types of stream at once. Also a PVR will be pretty useless if you have no aerial like you say, a PVR can only record from an aerial connection

jmc160

What kind of budget are we talking about?

I wanted a similar setup so built myself a media centre. Discussion is here if you're interested.

buglawton

I was researching something similar, gave up and got a Humax refurb PVR and an ultra slimline DVD recorder as well. The DVD covers almost every format known, chance of getting this in a combo unit is slim I would say.

esuhl

esuhl wrote: »

Well a quick search brought up the following, so it looks like these devices do exist:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ikasu-320GB-Digital-Freeview-Receiver/dp/B000ZYOM9G/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=kitchen&qid=1207664861&sr=1-1
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sagem-DVR-64250SL-T-Terrestrial-Recorder/dp/B000YCICT0/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1207664861&sr=1-2

Woby_Tide wrote: »

both of those have no DVD drive from teh description

D'oh! I hate Amazon's search facility - I really did type in "DVD"... I just didn't look at the search results closely enough.

Well... how about this, then? I don't think it has a twin tuner, but maybe you could add a separate Freeview tuner...

http://www.trustedreviews.com/tvs/review/2007/08/06/sony-rdr-hxd870-digital-video-recorder/p1

Woby_Tide

esuhl wrote: »

D'oh! I hate Amazon's search facility - I really did type in "DVD"... I just didn't look at the search results closely enough.

Well... how about this, then? I don't think it has a twin tuner, but maybe you could add a separate Freeview tuner...

http://www.trustedreviews.com/tvs/review/2007/08/06/sony-rdr-hxd870-digital-video-recorder/p1

it's a close as it gets, this is the restriction, a PVR will have two tuners allowing multiple recording but no DVD drive, a DVD recorder will have DVD recording but no twin tuner to allow multiple recording. I'll admit to not knowing if the DVD recorder has the functionality to allow you to record internal tuner to HD, whilst at same time a second recording through the AV1 from an external box.

The dual box way as bug says, whilst not being the simplest, probably is the best option as it also reduces risk of a malfunction making you lose all options.