Barebones Twin Tuner Freeview DTR (PVR) £49.99

[ArthurDent]

Saw this in the latest Maplin newsletter:



Barebones Twin Tuner Freeview DTR (PVR):

• Futureproof your TV with a digital set-top box
• Install a new or used hard drive
• Watch one channel and record another
• Compatible with most IDE hard disk drives
• A full hard drive can be replaced with another
• Accepts hard drives up to 500GB giving over 250 hours'' recording time
• Auto-formats the hard drive for video use
• 7-day Electronic Programme Guide (EPG)
• Pause live TV (time-shift) and use scheduled recording

At Maplin: item code: A52HF

[bh1]

Make me an offer.

[Guest 12924]

Originally Posted by bh1

Make me an offer.

Wrong forum?

These boxes are cracking, also this one from Micro Direct (re-furbished but with full one year warranty and an 80gb h/d) DigiFusion-FVRT200-FreeView-Set-Top-Box-Dual.aspx

I've got the fvrt100 which I upgraded to the fvrt200 and stuck a 160gb hard drive in so it holds loads.

[inkafone]

The make is Nikkai - any good?? plus it says "Compatible with most IDE hard disk drives" - so what's it not compatable with. It's got a twin tuner though and the hard drive looks a doddle to replace. Free delivery too.

[Guest 7918]

Originally Posted by Cheezy_bunnet

I've got the fvrt100 which I upgraded to the fvrt200 and stuck a 160gb hard drive in so it holds loads.

Out of interest, is the whole 160gb utilised or just 120gb?

[Guest 18642]

see below

[Guest 18642]

Originally Posted by Cheezy_bunnet

Wrong forum?

These boxes are cracking, also this one from Micro Direct (re-furbished but with full one year warranty and an 80gb h/d) DigiFusion-FVRT200-FreeView-Set-Top-Box-Dual.aspx

I've got the fvrt100 which I upgraded to the fvrt200 and stuck a 160gb hard drive in so it holds loads.

Gone for this as it seems to be better value

[Guest 1156]

Originally Posted by ArthurDent

Saw this in the latest Maplin newsletter:



Barebones Twin Tuner Freeview DTR (PVR):

• Futureproof your TV with a digital set-top box
• Install a new or used hard drive
• Watch one channel and record another
• Compatible with most IDE hard disk drives
• A full hard drive can be replaced with another
• Accepts hard drives up to 500GB giving over 250 hours'' recording time
• Auto-formats the hard drive for video use
• 7-day Electronic Programme Guide (EPG)
• Pause live TV (time-shift) and use scheduled recording

At Maplin: item code: A52HF

These are supplied without a hard disk, in case anyone is unsure.

[Guest 12924]

Originally Posted by Accident Man

Out of interest, is the whole 160gb utilised or just 120gb?

137gb is recognised, but tbh I've hardly used most of it. When you think even a half decent cheap freeview box is about £20-25 and either of these is £20 dearer it's a bargain

[nwgarratt]

Does anyone know if the two tuners can record two channels at the same time?

[Guest 63862]

Originally Posted by nwgarratt

Does anyone know if the two tuners can record two channels at the same time?

No. Only one channel can be recorded at a time.

But I do have other questions:
The hard drive is formated as 'unallocated' and when this drive is read on another machine no files can be seen on it. How can the 'hidden' recorded files be seen and transfered? Is there a program somewhere that can read files on 'unallocated' partitions? And what format are the recorded files?

[Guest 4227]

Hi. Does anybody know if either of these units can output s-video through the scart? Cheers.

[Guest 63998]

I have bought one of these and ordered another. An old 60Gb hard disk (probably about 6 years old) from an old computer was recognised and formatted immediately. I have yet to try a slightly newer old 160Gb hard disk in the other machine.

Yes there is a SVHS output as well as CVBS and RGB.
You cannot access the hard drive if put back into a computer since the formatting system for these systems is different from the WIndows standards

[Guest 12924]

Originally Posted by henhouse

No. Only one channel can be recorded at a time.

The digifusion one can record two diff channels at the same time and then you can watch a third prog you have already recorded

[Guest 2241]

Originally Posted by Cheezy_bunnet

137gb is recognised,

Isn't that the max you'll get from a 160gb drive, since they assume that 1gb=1,000,000,000 bytes for marketing reasons?

[Guest 63862]

Originally Posted by Philiip

You cannot access the hard drive if put back into a computer since the formatting system for these systems is different from the WIndows standards

Okay. But I already know the formating is different. What is it?? And how can it be read on a computer? Is there software that can read it? And how do we go about getting it off?

[Guest 36346]

BigPockets have these (simjilar) with 80gb for the same price (+postage)

refurbs tho

[Gavin01]

sorry to go off topic but cheesy bunnet i cant email you as you have this feature disabled....

I bought the digifusion one and cant get the 14 day guide to work and its also very noisy.......also how did you upgrade the drive as i reckon this could be the noise...

[Guest 33714]

The 14 day guide gets updated at 3am every night s you have to leave your box on.

I get home from work late and it interupts my viewing. lol.

You can cancel it if you are watching TV otherwise it downloads updates and puts itself on standby. (You do need to be able to receive a certain channel to receive the updates. Its in the manual somewhere.)

As for noise it could be faulty. I have three and none of them are quiet.

[Guest 64294]

Originally Posted by ArthurDent

Saw this in the latest Maplin newsletter:



Barebones Twin Tuner Freeview DTR (PVR):



At Maplin: item code: A52HF

Greetings to one and all.

I bought one of these about 3 weeks back because it sounded so good with the option to swap hard drives etc rather than being tied to an in-built one and it was really easy to put together - under 20 minutes and the whole unit was wired up, channels scanned and hard drive installed (a 200 Gb one which showed as having around 190 Gb free or some 138 hours recording time).

However, after a week or so of trouble free usage, the drive froze whilst I was fast forwarding through some adverts and the unit would not respond to the remote control, so I turned it off from the power switch on the front panel, switched it on again and bingo! "no recorded programmes" message. Reformatting the hard drive let me resume usage, but recently the thing went awol again and so I tried a different drive (just an 80 Gn this time) which failed to be recognised (a constant "HDD init not complete - please wait" message on screen.

Maplin swapped the unit no problem yesterday and as soon as we plugged in the previous drive, same error message and again it's not been possible to use another drive. This is a shame as it seems to be a good little unit from the limited time that I have had to play with it and was a doddle to set up (even allowing for the rather clumsy English in the instructions ).

Question then, which I have not seen in any of the other threads here - any suggestions as to a course of action apart from taking back this again and swapping to another make?