Best Hard Disk Recorder

cheersthanksbye

My trusty VHS has blown up so am in need of a replacement.

Have been very impressed with sky plus and the like (pause programs, rewind etc.) so am tempted to go for a HDR replacement.

Absolutely no idea where to start. What sort of price would get me a decent one? I see most are about 80gb in size, is this OK? Would I be likely to get a decent model for £250? DVD recording would be nice too.

Any advice greatly received. Cheers.

lipidicman

You mean a freeview PVR?

I really liked my Humax, except for the bugs. It HAD to go back

They all seem to have problems

cheersthanksbye

I mean stuff like this:

http://www.comet.co.uk/comet/html/cache/241_245283.html

Most are termed as DVD recorder with Hard disk. Already have a free view box, but instead of having to use tape, I wanna record dvd on to hard disk.

Have to say, they are well pricey compared to conventional vcr.

lipidicman

Record DVD on to hard disk? Most WONT let you do this (with copy protected DVDs at least). The idea of the machines is that you can record TV to HD, then save it on a DVD if you want to keep it

cheersthanksbye

lipidicman wrote:

Record DVD on to hard disk? Most WONT let you do this (with copy protected DVDs at least). The idea of the machines is that you can record TV to HD, then save it on a DVD if you want to keep it

Apologies - my typo.

I did indeed mean I want to record TV on onto HD so I can do away with tapes. So that is is the sort of kit I would be looking to buy with a budget of about £250.

Am wondering if it would be better to just buy a cheap VCR player and wait a bit for the HD recorders to progress a bit.

lipidicman

I think these things are so much better with a freeview box - digital tv records so well. The PVRs are getting there - when they have built in DVD, or proper links to a PC they will be great. The DVD recorders just dont do the PVR features yet.

cheersthanksbye

So how much we talking for a freeview one then? From your previous post, did you say they are all a bit primitive and might be worth waiting?

Cheers for all your posts by the way

bargain_2

Order one two days ago came today cost 260 pounds its got 160gb. When we set it up over the weekend will let you know if it is any good.

rich_jtg

A good value DVD/HD recorder is the Toshiba XS34 which you can pick up for around £270-275. Has a good size HD (160Gb) and can also record onto RW discs (which I wish my Panasonic one would do!)

Pioneer also do a similar model, which has an EPG to help ease of recording.

DVD/HD machines with freeview are limited at present - I know Sony do one, and I believe Goodmans do one, but I'd probably shy away from the latter.

The Freeview PVRs are good for just recording stuff off the TV to watch later, but you aren't able to archive them on to DVD - unless you buy a separate recorder.

The Humax one is supposed to be good, but is very basic as it only has one Freeview tuner which means you can't watch something else on Freeview whilst recording.

They are bring out a new one in a month or two which has twin tuners and a slot if you want to upgrade to Top Up Tv. A company called Topfield do a fully speced one already but I've heard mixed reports about them.