PVR with DVD recorder for Christmas, but which one?

[ballandbiscuit]

I am going to treat myself to a FreeView PVR with DVD recorder this Christmas. I have about £200 to spend. Does anyone have any recommendations? I had been edging towards a Panasonic Panasonic DMR-EX768EBK.

I would like it to have series link (I think they call this freeview plus?) and it would be good if it knows about programmes running late etc and auto adjust.

The only reason I want one with built in DVD is so I can burn recorded items to disc so I can watch them on the TV/DVD upstairs too.

Thanks

[Bigsby]

Have a look at the Sony 890 too, £170 at Richer Sounds.

http://www.richersounds.com/showproduct.php?cda=showproduct&pid=SONY-RDRHXD890B

[wseed]

I bought the Sony for my parents and TBH (not that I'd tell them) I wasn't that impressed. The picture quality was average and not as good as their TV's built in freeview or the Topfeild I have and the user interface and epg display was poor IMHO.

[LV426]

Odd, that. I have a Multi-Region RDR890 and the picture quality as displayed via HDMI on my 9ft projector screen, is excellent for Freeview, live and recorded, and for DVD playback.

I'd highly recommend this range which, incidentally, are actually Pioneer models in disguise. And I highly recommend buying one pre-modified for Multi-Region DVD playback. Richer Sounds is a good source and they price-match websites (like for like product, in stock, inc. del) plus give you another £10 off.

[Bigsby]

Odd, that. I have a Multi-Region RDR890 and the picture quality as displayed via HDMI on my 9ft projector screen, is excellent for Freeview, live and recorded, and for DVD playback.

I'd highly recommend this range which, incidentally, are actually Pioneer models in disguise. And I highly recommend buying one pre-modified for Multi-Region DVD playback. Richer Sounds is a good source and they price-match websites (like for like product, in stock, inc. del) plus give you another £10 off.

If you have a One4All remote you can make it multiregion yourself.

[LV426]

No doubt. But I prefer to buy modified. I always have. It rarely costs much, if anything, extra nowadays. And it gives me a single point of comeback with no "excuses" in the event I need to call in the warranty.

[belly]

sorry for intruding on this thread, but this Sony looks like it may fit the bill perfectly for my needs also.
does anybody have experience of using the usb ports for divx files?

(mods - i don't know if i am allowed to ask about DivX but this is for training material and is legit. if i am breaking rules i appologise.)

[nwgarratt]

It might be worth pointing out that there is no such thing as a PVR and a DVD Recorder. What you have there above is a DVD Recorder that records from Freeview and renencodes it onto the hard disk at lower quality. A PVR records Freeview as is with no reencoding onto a hard disk plus you have things such as twin tuners, rewind tv and so on.

[ballandbiscuit]

It might be worth pointing out that there is no such thing as a PVR and a DVD Recorder. What you have there above is a DVD Recorder that records from Freeview and renencodes it onto the hard disk at lower quality. A PVR records Freeview as is with no reencoding onto a hard disk plus you have things such as twin tuners, rewind tv and so on.

So are you saying that the quality of recording on the devices mentioned above would not be as high as something like a Humax PVR?

[nwgarratt]

So are you saying that the quality of recording on the devices mentioned above would not be as high as something like a Humax PVR?

Yes.

A PVR records the actual transmission as it is broadcasted in the original quality. There is no mpeg encoder to renencode the programme like there is with a DVD Recorder. How much of a difference over re-encoding depends on the person watching.

[Bigsby]

sorry for intruding on this thread, but this Sony looks like it may fit the bill perfectly for my needs also.
does anybody have experience of using the usb ports for divx files?

(mods - i don't know if i am allowed to ask about DivX but this is for training material and is legit. if i am breaking rules i appologise.)

The Sonys won't play Divx from the USB port unfortunately, only from discs.

The USB port will allow you view pics.

[Si b]

Hi, I went with the Sony 890 for my parents for Christmas it is nice and straight forward to use which is the main reason I bought it for them, and the picture quality is good.

I personally have a few niggles with it, though it mentions that you can watch one channel while recording another I thought this implied you could watch one Freeview channel while recording another, (which is possible but would also have to add an external Freeview unit as the device only has one digital tuner) what it really means is that you can watch the analogue channels while recording Freeview.
When scrolling through channels the device takes a while to load the Freeview channels, displaying a black screen while doing so, whereas the original Freeview receiver would just instantly load the visual / audio which is a little strange.

But I do have one question, when then the device finishes recording a program it turns itself into standby mode is there away to prevent this? The device does not have to be in standby mode to record so I don’t understand why it does this when it finishes.