What I have:
- Panasonic 32" LCD TV "hd ready" ie 1366x768 with freeview tuner integrated and sdhc card reader (avchd video only)
- Bunny ears antenna with good freeview hd reception ;-)
- Teac 250gb HDD recorder (not HD compatible, no freeview tuner, but will read divX)
- Samsung dvd player with progressive scan 480p possible (wow).
- PC (ATi radeon 5770, E8400 3Ghz cpu, Vista, standard dvd burner)
A . Capabilities I'm after:
- ability to record without having the telly on (requires extra freeview tuner)
- ability to watch videos downloaded off the net in all the usual formats .mkv .avi divx xvid etc without having to convert them to avchd for the sd card or to mpeg2 or divx for a dvd-rw.
B. Extras could be nice:
- use freeview guide to record
- good scaling to 720i/p
- maybe even recording and playback in HD (well as good as my tv will do 720p) off freeview
Limitations:
As you can maybe tell, i'm on smallest possible budget here. sub $250 would be great.
Now as far as I can tell, the options are many but what is the cheapest/simplest way to fulfill wishlist?
Examples:
- Media center/extender that reads divX mkv etc off USB flash drive: is there one that can record as well? closest i've found is WD TV Live $130NZ shipped amazon.
- with separate freeview tuner? (do the el cheapo chinese ones work?)
- HDD recorder with freeview tuner integrated that reads divX etc off USB flash drives - does this exist at a reasonable price? (would be ideal).
- media extender, ethernet cable (presuming wireless g router not enough) attached to PC transformed into HTPC with freeview tv PCI card and software. (difficult to drill hole in wall as a tenant for ethernet cable...)
Cheers people - too many options out there, my head is sore, time for Appliance Integration!!
maybe one of you has an elegant solution?
