Hi Peter,
'Freeview' is simply the consortium of free to air digital TV stations.
It includes the five major networks, namely ABC, SBS, Seven Network, Nine Network
and Network Ten that broadcast in the metropolitan areas and their regional affiliates
in the rural areas.
On the digital broadcast channels, these free to air broadcasters are transmitting the
same programming on one channel as what you are use to receiving on your
analog VCR at the moment plus they are all broadcasting additional channels with
different programming as well.
In a nutshell, the consortium sees itself competing with pay TV and so
have been aggressively advertising themselves lately.
The Freeview consortium transmit the Electronic Program Guide (EPG)
which the PVR can then display and allow the user to setup recordings in
advance.
Though it is never advertised as an 'ad skip' feature, some of the better PVR's
come with a pair of buttons that allow one to jump back and forth through
"chapters" that the PVR automatically divides the recorded program into on the
fly as it is recording. Some of these players have built-in heuristics that try
and determine when best to mark some point as the beginning of a "chapter".
For example, they look at when the scene appears to change or for that fade
to black that is common at the beginning of an ad period and the resumption
of the program. So not 100% accurate all of the time, many of them do
a pretty good job of skipping over that stuff you may not have time to watch.
The "chase play" feature of a good PVR, that is the ability to watch a
program at the same time whilst it is being recorded, including the ability to
pause, stop, rewind and fast forward (up to the point it is currently recording)
is a feature that I am sure once you have experienced that you will not miss your
old VCR.
Better PVR's often have larger disks and recording times and additional features like
the ability to dub to a recordable DVD. Commonly, a better PVR also
has faster response times when you press a button to say, playback or fast
forward or rewind, compared to the lower cost generics.
I have personally not encountered a Freeview digital channel program that could not
be recorded to a PVR.
As some of the Freeview channels are only transmitted in High Definition (HD)
format you might want to consider a PVR that has an in-built HD tuner, but if you
still have a standard definition (SD) TV, then has the ability to scale down to SD.
The TiVo which is a PVR that uses its own EPG was featured in the
Sydney Morning Herald on 8 Feb 2011 and I recommend you might like
to read this article carefully if considering it.
See
http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/c...208-1al3j.html
