PVR advice please

[admin_exported]

Hello everyone.

I'm trying to advise my parents who are looking at purchasing a Freeview Plus PVR machine of some sort - they want the ability to record, pause live tv etc.

What they also want though is the ability to view something recorded in the lounge on a seperate TV in the bedroom (useful for when they fall out!). Currently they achieve this very cheaply by recording to VHS and taking the tape to the other room - it appears that achieving the same thing with modern technology is far more expensive.

My questions are - do any solely HDD based machines allow access to their recordings from another room without affecting the functionality in the main room? I notice that some such machines have an Ethernet port but I can't seem to find any information on exactly what this might allow. OR do any such machines allow recordings to be transfered to a USB stick or SDD card in a playable format for another room?

I realise that what they want could be achieved by them buying a HDD / DVD writer machine but that feels a little old hat to me.

I'd imagine that many people would love to watch their PVR material in another room so if what I'm asking isn't available now do you feel it will be shortly?

Many thanks all - sorry for so many questions.

John

 

[Anonymous]

Everything your parents want to do can be done easily and cheaply with a HDD/DVD recorder such as Panasonic's DMREX768. Record onto HDD for playback in the main room, then copy at high speed to rewritable DVD's (or DVD-RAM) when wanting to watch in another room.

 

[Anonymous]

I own the Pace Twin ( only 10hrs of record time though) and this can output to the second scart which can feed a TV in another room.

I'm surprised no modern kit has this functionality.

You may find one cheap second hand, in fact, with the advent of Play TV for the PS3 I'm giving mine to my Dad, maybe someone else, is also upgrading.

 

[Anonymous]

I own a Panasonic DMR-BW500 not currently available in the UK but I understand the operating procedures is similar for all their machines and can't fault them. I also own Topfields top Australian model and its a pig in comparison. Sadly Panasonic dont do a standalone PVR in Aus or I'd have bought that instead.

 

[PJPro]

Humax make a range of excellent PVRs. I have owned the 9200T for a few years now (have just upgraded to the Foxsat HDR). The 9200T is brilliant. Not sure it is still available but would expect later versions to be just as good.

These humax boxes provide the advantage of twin tuners. They allow you to recored up to two channels at once. Depending on the multiplexes you are recording, you can view another channel or watch something you have recored earlier at the same time.

I tend to watch a lot of recorded stuff from the telly because you are able to skip the adverts.