Best PVR - Can anyone help?

[PCH]

Hi guys,

I've heard that today's PVRs can do so much more than the DVD Recorders of old, and maybe it's time for a refit.

Does anyone out there have a PVR? What brand/model is it, and what has been your opinion of that model? Good? Bad?

What are it's best and worst features?

I've read some can stream recorded programs to your other wifi devices! How cool is that?

[gary]

Hi Paul,

Many of the PVR's on the market, and in particular those that have the
Freeview logo, don't permit you to move the free to air content you
record to some other device or media. They encrypt the contents on
the internal HDD. If coming from a DVD recorder world where
you may have saved some shows to a DVD to keep, then if that
was an important feature for you, you need to look at the manuals
for the PVR's carefully.

I don't have this particular unit myself so I am in no position to make
any recommendation, but the Humax 4tune is one of the higher-end
PVR's that, as I understand it, allows you to move or stream any
content you record to another device or media. It also happens
to have four tuners.

Most other PVR's have at least two tuners and many now have WiFi
and can act as DLNA servers, but they will only deliver your own
photos or music content, not TV programs you have recorded.

If you are also in the market for a new TV, many have an in-built
PVR feature and you simply plug a commodity HDD drive into their USB port.

For standalone PVR's. many support a form of HDMI-CEC these days
such as LG's SimpLink, Sony's Bravia Sync, etc. This can be a nice
feature so that when you turn off the TV, it also turns off the PVR.
There can sometimes be an advantage in buying the same brand of PVR
as the brand of TV you own, if it is a relatively recent model, as some
of these HDMI-CEC features can then be more fully exploited.

[PCH]

Hi Gary,

thanks so much for your detailed reply buddy.

I had a look at the Humax item you mentioned on their website. It seems a very impressive piece of kit and is the #1 best seller in the UK and Germany according to their sticker.

They're so reasonably priced atm, - same with smart TVs. It's almost a shame I'm not in the market for a new TV atm also as they are so cheap these days for what you get.

Have to think this over! Thanks again for pointing me in the right direction Gary :)

[The_bluester]

The best solution I have found to date is a bit more home brewed. I could never find a box that did everything I wanted.

Nowadays I have a NAS which houses all my media and other files, and in the background it runs DVBLink software that uses a networked tuner module to record and manage TV shows straight to a share on the NAS.

After that we have home theatre PCs running Kodi/XBMC which includes TV front end software to watch what we have recorded.

The TV shows are recorded as TS files that can be copied on to various devices and played back by any device that supports the format. There is even software available to get an iPad to decode the TS format and play them over wifi

Funny enough, after spending a long time making it all work to the point that it passes the wife acceptance test, we now record and or watch so little free to air TV that had I known I never would have bothered. It is all our own media and the likes of Netflix nowadays.

[Sato]

Hi. You might like to take a look at the 'Beyonwiz' offerings...

https://beyonwiz.com.au/

There is ongoing development & a good user forum available.

[redbeard]

Topfield make some nice units.

The one I have has a 1gb hard disk internal. Usb connection for more external disk or wifi dongle, an Ethernet port and the ability to download apps for more functionality. I can ftp to it from any computer to download recordings and watch in media player etc

Also I can remote from another pc and setup recordings and have complete control over the topfield

A good Google search will reveal different models and also user experience.

[PCH]

Hi Paul, Dom and Damien,

thanks for your input, - I'm happy to look at anything that's suggested.

The only 'con' I have against the Topfield is some quite negative reviews I read on whirlpool (I think) saying the quality had gone out of the units since they started being made in China.

I can't speak from experience as I haven't owned one. At the moment, the 'Humax 4tune' looks really good at just under $500, and it's the #1 best seller in the UK and Germany.

Any more opinions and suggestions are most welcome if anyone has anything to add :)

Thanks

[bojan]

Hmmm ..

I have "old" Akai set-top-box.. it was $50 7-8 years ago.
Does everything mentioned in the thread, but without restrictions of any kind... (records on USB stick).

[Renato1]

Are there any PVRs that automatically cut out ads?
If so, it would be the best PVR - and I might actually watch free-to-air commercial TV again.
Regards,
Renato

[tlgerdes]

Take a look at icetv https://www.icetv.com.au/store/pvrs/

They are an alternative TV guide service, but also sell PVRs to go with their service.

I've been using them as my TV guide for 10 years on my media center pc.

Personally I'd look at a 4 channel unit like the beyonwiz T4. The reason is that all good TV shows go head to head at the same time or close to same time, and they never start our finish at the designated time so you need some overlap capability. When I had 2 TV tuners, is was always missing out on something. With 3 tuners now I can manage 98%of what I want to record.

The Free to air TV listings broadcast by the networks I've found to sometimes take up to 5 mins to populate which means I have to turn things on and wait before I can scale something. ICETv is downloaded as many times a day as you want( I've set mine for once a day a 5am), plus you can get a smartphone app to remotely program what you want (sets flags in online guide that then gets downloaded to your device)

They also spam you with coming recommend viewing each week. As well, their personalisation of show descriptions and often worth a read :-D

The ongoing service cost is $8 per month, but it is definitely worth it as it just works.

[tlgerdes]

Renato, if you get a non freeview pvr, they can skip forward in 30sec intervals at the press of a button.

4 button clicks, and you are through most ad breaks. I haven't watched a TV ad involuntarily in 10 years as I record everything I want to watch and watch out when I want.

[KISSMAD]

I have a Topfield TRF7160 and a Topfield TRF2400.

Both are quad recorders that can record 4 channels from 2 muxs. Example ABC1, ABC24 and Ten, One. Both models can us TAPs to do other things. Not all models can use TAPs. I have a TAP that lets me configure buttons to jump at intervals to avoid ads. I have it set for +180, +30, -30 and -5 seconds.

The Topfield TRF7160 is currently on sale at JB HI-HI for $198.

[gary]

Hi Trevor,

IceTV went into voluntary administration last October.

See http://www.canberratimes.com.au/digital-life/computers/gadgets-on-the-go/online-tv-guide-icetv-put-into-voluntary-administration-20151007-gk3u4y.html

I never read if they managed to pull out of it.

[PCH]

Hi Trevor and Bruce

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this. I had read that icetv went into admin so hadn't considered that further. Anyway, the features I was after I envisaged being contained wholly within the PVR rather than a paid subscription.

Bruce, I've checked out the specs re the two topfield models you mention. The 7160 doesn't have wireless loan so that's out. But the 2400 could be a goer.

When I check out the specs on the Topfield website here http://www.topfield.com.au/products/pvr/trf-2400/
Whilst it has WLAN it says WiFi support is via TFWD10 sold separately !

Any idea what that means please?

[Wavytone]

Paul,

We use a Mac Mini with an eyeTV Diversity tuner stick in it. The eyeTV app records free-to-air programs and:

a) it has a a schedule for recording shows, easy to use;

b) it records the shows as files in its own format, they're just files so you can copy, move, edit or delete or play these or edit them at will; the app has simple tools to remove ads anytime later using the eyeTV app. This can consume 1.5 (for SD) ... 2.5GB (HD 1080P) per hour.

c) it can be configured to automatically transcode recorded shows to suit iPhones, AppleTV's or Quicktime, it then automatically transfers then into iTunes ready for the target device to be synced to iTunes.

d) With an Apple TV they are then ready to play in the TV shows list, automatically.

e) it has a remote.

Doesn't get much easier IMHO and even the wife can use it.

Our Mini has a 1TB drive and there's always the option of adding more storage if that's not enough, and our main server (an iMac running OSX Server) handles backup for all our computers and has about 5TB available.

Only snag is these eyeTV sticks are discontinued and hard to find nowadays, they were (and still are) a gem IMHO.

[KISSMAD]

Hi Paul

The TFWD10 is a wireless USB dongle that needs to be purchase separately if you want to use wi-fi with the 2400.

I searched the site for the TFWD10 but found nothing. However I did find the TF-GB100 which is compatible with TRF-7170, TRF-2400, TRF-2460, TRF-2470 and TF-T6000 models.

Wireless W-Fi Dongle (TF-GB100) http://www.topfield.com.au/products/freeview/wireless-w-fi-dongle-tf-gb100/

[The_bluester]

In relation to a question above, as far as I know there is no real way in Aus to automatically skip or fail to record ads, the commercial stations don't want you to do that. I believe there is a set "black" time before and after ad breaks in U.S. Transmissions that does or did allow automatic ad skipping.

Regards wifi, if you can manage it a hard wired connection is vastly better, in my experience of a couple of years, wifi media streaming is generally one variety of not quite reliable rubbish or another. We have a quite extensive hard wired network at home now as a result of our wifi experience over the years.

[acropolite]

If money's no object look at the Panasonic DMR-BWT945GL triple tuner DVR, Blu Ray playback & recording, 2tb HDD, wired lan and wifi streaming (e.g. to iPad), 3D capabilty as well as 4K upscaling & remote recording activation. Also plays from USB & Flash cards.
http://www.panasonic.com/au/consumer/home-entertainment/recorders/dmr-bwt945gl.html

[Renato1]

Thanks. Unfortunately, both my Foxtel IQ box which can record some free-to-air channels, and my LG PVR/DVD recorder - don't have that feature. The result often is a lot of overshooting and back tracking. Very annoying.
Regards,
Renato

[Renato1]

Thanks - though I wish there had been a better answer.

I especially hate Aussie TV after I come back from Italy. There I have 320 free-to-air channels to watch, and the seven or eight best ones have the English audio track available at the press of the Audio button. And although they do have ads, their number is so low that the experience is better than watching Foxtel over here, and immeasurably better than watching free-to-air TV here.

Regards,
Renato