Freeview + ??

stoofa said:
Indeed Sky+ is a free service now - so as long as you're a Sky customer and have the box it doesn't cost any monthly fee.
The box is only £99 brand new or around half that if you go for a refurb or second hand.
Most have 160GB (80GB usable) HD's for around 40hrs of recording.
I have upgraded mine with a 250GB (170GB usable) for around 85hrs recording.

I love Sky+ to bits.
I have my Sky subscription because of Sky 1 mainly - I don't have any of the premium channels.
Sky+ just makes the whole Sky experience 100x better.
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I'm not sure if they're still doing it, but when Sky+ was initially made free, they were offering free boxes if you called up trying to cancel. Mine is a refurb Amstrad PVR2 which isn't the best box, but it records around 30 hours and didn't cost anything.

Guru said:
Also... if recording TWO programs on sky plus can you pause the one you are watching without messing up the recording?
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If you're recording two programs, you have to be watching one of those channels, or at least that is how my box works. The sky+ box will change to one of them, and if we try to change, it comes up with a message to say it will stop recording on that channel. Once a program has started recording, however, you can pause/rewind etc all you want without causing any problems.
 
basmic said:
Basically PVR boxes have a tuner splitter built into them, enabling them to record one channel while you watch another.
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No, they have 2 tuners. No splitters.

basmic said:
With Sky, you need to pay extra for Sky+ - I believe this covers for the costs for having two connections to your Sky dish, rather than just one. I also believe you have two wires feeding into the Sky+ box, so you'd also have more wires.
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Sky+ is now FREE. Sky no longer charge any premium for it as long as you have some sort of subscription. It costs Sky the same amount of money to send there satellite signal to 10 homes as it does to 10million due to the nature of satellite technology.

basmic said:
Maybe Sky+ boxes have built in splitters now - but you'd still need to pay Sky extra (£10?) a month.
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As above the £10pm fee has now been dropped. Without boring everyone Satellite signal can basically not be usefully split so Sky+ boxes also have 2 tuners.

basmic said:
Personally, I'd go for freeview over Sky anyday - purely out of principle, if nothing else.
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Currently living at home so I go halves with my parents on the Sky bill (They have a Sky+ box downstairs and me in my room) If I was to move out I dont think I could justify Sky at over £40 per month so I would agree with this.
 
With Sky +, as said you can record two channels at the same time, also you can watch a recording previously made whilst those two channels are being recorded. :)
 
sup3rc0w said:
Build a HTPC
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Indeed, this is a serious alternative to an off-the-shelf freeview PVR.

Has the benefit that you can use it for other media too, such as playing downloaded movies & music.

I built an MCE box nearly three years ago and haven't looked back since.
 
Vertigo1 said:
Indeed, this is a serious alternative to an off-the-shelf freeview PVR.

Has the benefit that you can use it for other media too, such as playing downloaded movies & music.

I built an MCE box nearly three years ago and haven't looked back since.
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I don't know what an HTPC is or an MCE box, but I have a pc and 2 laptops and a usb freeview thing which records, I use this to record programs but it uses up liike 2gig an hour and I dont think it can pause could any of this be used for what you mean?
 
What is the usb port for on a sky+ box?

Could you transfer a program you recorded on one sky+ box onto an external hdd and put it on a different sky+ box to watch it later?

Or even put it on a pc to watch?

Bascially I don't have sky sports at this house bit my brothers do at my parents house, could they record man u tomorrow and put it on a usb stick for me?
 
Currently unknown and no.
Your brother pays a subscription for Sky Sports - would defeat the need for subscriptions really if everyone was exchanging movies and sports on cheap USB keys.
 
Can anyone recommend a Freeview PVR for around £100? I'm looking at the Daewoo DSD9503 at the moment which seems the best bet. It seems unless you spend £200 (which i cant) there's at least some 'issues' with the cheaper PVRs.. :(
 
Scam said:
Can anyone recommend a Freeview PVR for around £100? I'm looking at the Daewoo DSD9503 at the moment which seems the best bet. It seems unless you spend £200 (which i cant) there's at least some 'issues' with the cheaper PVRs.. :(
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I would love to know this too! In fact I think that question deserves a whole thread of its own.

I've found the daewoo for £129 and I wouldn't mind paying that if its any good :)
 
Guru said:
I would love to know this too! In fact I think that question deserves a whole thread of its own.
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I've asked a similar question in the hifi forum but nobody seemed interested :(

I've settled on probably about 3 different PVRs around that £100 mark - but as soon as i do, i read that they're no longer supported, or lose recordings, or are generally crap! Annoying!
 
Scam said:
I've asked a similar question in the hifi forum but nobody seemed interested :(

I've settled on probably about 3 different PVRs around that £100 mark - but as soon as i do, i read that they're no longer supported, or lose recordings, or are generally crap! Annoying!
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Bummers :(

whats the cheapest one you've found?
 
djjuk said:
Topfield 5800PVR.

Now you can close the thread ;)
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so true :)
Topfield all the way sooooo much more customisable than the humax(although if you don`t want to fiddle with anything there is nowt wrong with the humax)
 
I have Digihome PVR from Argos.

£100 does tje job very well, but be warned you need a good aerial more so as your one feed in goes in Series to the second tuner.

I live in a high rise building and it has the aerial point in the wall, TV is on the opposite side though so I was running a couple of extension cables to get the aerial to react to the PVR. All was fine except when my PC was on. Actually bad weather would also stop it recording properly (would stutter the picture)

In the end I got myself 5 meters of Shielded CoAx and I havent had any problems since, buying the proper stuff with connections costs less than £4.

Granted the software on the box isnt fancy but its more than acceptable. Take the reviews with a pinch of salt.:)
 
If you are thinking about getting a PVR and have broadband you should seriously consider getting SKY+ and Sky BB. For £25 a month you get the basic sky package (freeview + sky 1, uk gold, paramount and a few other) and up to 16mb unmetered broadband.

Installation is £30 + £100 for the SKY+ box which is pretty reasonable for a PVR, and in my last house I was paying £25\month just for 8mb broadband so the Sky subscription is effectivly free for me! :)

Edit: you can also get free phonecalls from Sky aswell (BT charge a few quid a month for free evening phone calls, Sky give it to you for free). Link.
 
My local Supermarket was selling a Techwood PVR with 80Gb / twintuner for less than £100. Haven't got a clue how good it is :)
 
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