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Sagem DTR 67250T
by illusiveman
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When I bought this Product
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A few years ago I decided I wanted a free-view recorder as I had been using a DVD recorder which was showing signs of wearing out, I bought the Sagem DTR67250 from Argos for around a £100 (I can't remember the exact price ... as it was a while ago)
I actually no longer use this as my main recorder as I have a Humax free-view recorder which at the moment is currently missing it's hard drive while I wait for a new one to arrive, while I wait I'm using this recorder so that I can still record all my programs.
It also features a 250gb hard drive which was the main reason I chose this particular recorder as I knew I would have plenty of storage space.
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My Experience / Features
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This free-view recorder was very easy to set up once removed from the box, once plugged into the TV I simply let it do the Channel Search and it found all the available free-view channels.
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Pause and rewind Live TV
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While watching TV you might have mis-heard a line in a movie or a TV show and normally would have to wait for a repeat to find out what the character said, with this recorder you could rewind the program enough to hear the line again, you could also pause the current program you're watching while you go do something else.
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Record two programs at once
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This recorder has the ability to record up to two channels at once, although I believe when you are recording two programs at the same time you would have to watch something you have already recorded.
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Series Recording
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If you are going away on holiday or are just going to be out of the house when a certain program is aired on TV instead of missing it and having to wait for a repeat you can set it to record as a series which I find very useful as it automatically records any further episodes yet to air, although I found that sometimes the box wouldn't always record everything as I sometimes found when I got back from holiday that a certain program had so many episodes missing, although I believe I had less trouble when I updated the firmware on it.
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Summary
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Good Points:
*Pause and rewind live TV
*record two programs at once
*large hard drive
Bad Points:
*EPG a bit slow
*Series recording doesn't always work
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Overall Rating
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This recorder has worked well over the last few years apart from the Series recording problems I mentioned above and the electronic program guide being a little bit slow compared to my other free-view recorder, I will be giving this 3 DooYoo stars, I would have given it 4 if I hadn't had the trouble with Series recording.
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Virgin Media TiVo
by JoelM
I had finally convinced my parents to upgrade to TiVo as being a student with my college a long journey away I can have a lot of free time or very little so when I do I want to be able to do what I want to do swiftly. I could not do this before. Regarding our internet we had a 2 upload and 2 download speed.. needless to say this is ... terrible! (4G is 10 upload and 10 download.. that's on a mobile phone!) The V+ Box was alright nothing special and no queries on the line rental as it didn't really affect me. We upgraded to the 'VIP Collection'
Anyway enough complaining once I had brought this across I noticed the change straight away, here's a summary of all the great things that came with it and upgraded old features:
- You still have the options to watch on demand, music and films but it has a much better layout
- The V+ box that could only record 2 programmes at the same time (or if a programme finished at 9 and you had 2 set to record at 9 this would count as three and clash. With TiVo you can record 3 programmes at the same time and the end time does not factor into this. Still can record series or single programmes
- It has an internet connection (so did the V+ Box) but with this you can watch videos on YouTube and use other apps pre installed on the box which are great and very innovative. It does not have an internet browser though
- Space for 250 hours of recordings
- Same layout for watching programmes can fastforward or rewind, live TV too. But the one main thing is that with TiVo you can put a programme into a slow mo mode. Which can help to see everything in great detail and being able to do this anytime is great!
The controller is slightly different to the V+ one with the middle slightly curved, takes a while to get used to but is more comfortable and will feel that way straight away to anyone who hasn't had a Virgin media controller before. The buttons are the same apart from the slow mo addition and V+ changed to 'My Shows' When I say the same I mean they all do the same thing but they are in different places. Can't say the layout is worse or better to me it's just different. The box looks well made though I won't be testing its durability anytime soon! The controller has had it's fair drops already and it seems durable the last one definitely was! One thing I have to say is the V+ Box could be very slow and freeze frequently, TiVo does not it is very fast and responsive, may be because its relatively new but have to see as time goes on.
Finally the internet speed is amazing! I have not lagged on the internet once, we have 4 people with smartphones connecting to the WiFi, 2 laptops, 1 desktop computer, the box itself and 2 PS3's all connecting to the internet. Never lagged on any online game, or while browsing since the upgrade whereas before I would be disconnected and slow even when it was working. This is all I thought I would benefit from with the upgrade but the TiVo box itself was a lot better than expected!
The price we got was only £10 more than before ended up as £40 month + £10 line rental. I do not know the price ranges for a new customer but the TV by itself can be got for £20 a month, I am sure this is for a limited time but it is what was advertised, getting a quote from them directly is a better way to find out. Also go around and find out what Sky and the other companies are offering if they offer cheaper tell Virgin Media that and they will 9/10 times match that price.
All in all this is more than just TV now and is an amazing improvement. Would recommend to anyone well worth the money and it is used a lot in the house!
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Amstrad DRX890 500 GB SKY HD BOX
by ginger321
Sky plus is brilliant - easy to use and intuitive.
One of the best things is the fact that you can record a whole series and that you can record two programmes while watching one you have already recorded.
The controls are really child's play - most children will pick up how it all works quicker than adults anyway, ... but even for technically challenged adults, it all works really logically.
Something that has recently changed is that you can recover deleted recordings. Occasionally I had accidently deleted something that I, or worse, my wife had recorded - now you can "undelete". Sky say that as your hard drive gets full, it permanently deletes the oldest "deleted" titles. I can say that we have never had a problem with running out of space and that is with series being recorded (sometimes 2-3 at a time) and with kids recording cartoons and all sorts of other stuff.
You'll notice that I said great "when it works". One issue we have had is freezing of the whole box. Sky have been unable to help with this as the box is outside warranty, but it seems to happen when you pause something you have previously recorded during playback for a long time - say 10 minutes to take a phone call - the only solution is then to turn the box off and on which does a reset - however, it then takes about 3-4 mins to get back to where you were which is very aggravating.
However, this aside, my overall experience with Sky+ HD has been positive.
If you can afford the monthly charges, I'd recommend it over a hard drive recorder
7/10 overall rating from me!
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