What kind of PVR do you have? (For those that do)

Forums › Freeview (DVB-T/DVB-S) › What kind of PVR do you have? (For those that do)

meremaiden

134 posts

Master Geek

#64230 11-Jul-2010 14:59

Hi, all just doing comparison shopping (Trademe etc) and curious if anyone can help with the What type to buy questions:

I've read some of the oler locked threads on Digistars (the copies) etc -- are there any good and inexpensive PVR's out there? What type do you use and pros/cons? I have a satellite freeview setup with a basic topfield box, but ready to start recording some shows-- would love any feedback!

Cheers

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281 posts

Ultimate Geek

#349942 11-Jul-2010 15:50

PVR = Personal Video Recorder? If so, I have a great Panasonic VHS machine. Been very reliable over the last 20 years

Or do you mean DVR? hehe! ;-)

illicit

553 posts

Ultimate Geek

#350039 11-Jul-2010 21:43

same thing

ocs

7 posts

Wannabe Geek

#350047 11-Jul-2010 22:15

I've had a Topfield TF6000PVR ES for about a year. One of its pluses is that you can download small programs (TAPs) to modify how it works. I do find some some aspects of it a bit frustrating and it will sometimes reboot for no apparent reason. If I was to buy one now, I would probably buy an Ultraplus F-9000HD PVR instead for about the same price (about $850). For less than that you could buy a USB harddrive PVR (some as low as about $250 not including the cost of the harddrive).

nate

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#350060 11-Jul-2010 23:35

Grabbed an old box we had at work, installed a couple of Hauppage cards and now running GBPVR - works like a champ.

Next upgrade is (fingers crossed) a couple of 1TB hard-drives.

tomgeeknz

923 posts

Ultimate Geek

#350077 12-Jul-2010 08:18

I have a Magic TV MyFreeviewHD PVR and have found it to be almost 100% reliable. It is a really great device available for about $600 or less.

Jaxson

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#350154 12-Jul-2010 10:51

I have the Ultraplus 980HD single tuner PVR, connected to an external usb hdd.

I have a larger sat dish so I do need something that can work with sat, otherwise I'd def go with a terrestrial unit for the superior picture quality.

I think an EPG is pretty important and I'm a big lobbyist for a good user interface. I've tried a few options and in the end if the user interface is crap it makes using the thing horrible. Cheaper is not always better, as it's 99% of the time always the interface that suffers, as well as external drive compatibility.

meremaiden

134 posts

Master Geek

#350155 12-Jul-2010 10:53

|Thanks all-- great point on the interface/EPG Jaxson-- been thinking that a lot lately too..

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graemeh

2078 posts

Uber Geek

#350224 12-Jul-2010 12:54

Got a Tivo HD from a beta tester via Trade Me. It only had a 160gb drive so I upgraded that to 1tb :)

I also have a Series 1 Tivo.

alig

56 posts

Master Geek

#350349 12-Jul-2010 17:31

Small and silent Compaq EVO D500 with WinXP Pro form Trademe ($100) + PCI DVB-S Nova-T card ($100) + MCE Remote Control with ehome receiver from Ebay ($25) + GBPVR. Working fine. Though UltraPlus 980HD for $380 + HDD looks nice (very good user interface and EPG)

freitasm

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#350353 12-Jul-2010 17:36

I have a Dell Zino HD running Windows 7 Media Center, and a HDHomeRun for the DVB-T (tuner).

joco

11 posts

Geek

#350415 12-Jul-2010 21:19

MythTV frontends running Mythbuntu on Asus EeeBox E1012's. The E1012 has been proven work with 1080p content with no issues at all. CPU load <20% using VDPAU offload.

Headless MythTV backend dedicated server with two Nova-S DVB-S cards configured to support 4 recordings per card Currently experimenting with the signal issues of DVB-T. Using a usb KWorld dual tuner (399UR) purchased from JayCar. The 399UR works very well under Linux when it has signal, even weak crappy signal.
Server is an AMD Athlon X2 2Ghz low power model, 1GB ram, 60GB OS drive, 1TB recording drive.

Cheers.

xpd

Geek @ Coastguard NZ
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#350491 13-Jul-2010 08:30

Running a Digistar unit, working well except for some reason it dosent like my external HDD anymore :( So back to using 8GB USB stick, but works just as well :)
For the money, cant go wrong.

Gavin / xpd / FastRaccoon / Geek of Coastguard New Zealand

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meremaiden

134 posts

Master Geek

#350494 13-Jul-2010 08:32

Thanks all for the responses--- @graeme, what do you think of your TiVo?

Jaxson

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#350508 13-Jul-2010 09:02

xpd: Running a Digistar unit ..... cant go wrong.

xpd: except for some reason it dosent like my external HDD anymore

Ha, you just said it can't go wrong, and then explained what went wrong.
I know what you mean though, in that there is a big jump between a real cheap PVR and a good one.

I went for the Ultraplus 980 HD in the end for the fast and intuitive HD interface, the DVB-S2 and it's tolerance of external USB drives.

xpd

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#350515 13-Jul-2010 09:13

Yeah bit myself there heh ;)

Gavin / xpd / FastRaccoon / Geek of Coastguard New Zealand

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