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What advantages do PVRs offer?

Sky+ box
  • Posted at 5:00pm
  • 19 July 2008
  • by DoctorDigital-RT
  • 8 comments

Q You advised Barry Hyman (Feedback, 5 July) to buy a hard-drive recorder to solve the problem of recording one digital channel while watching another. Is that the only advantage they offer over videotape?
Janet Miller, Bristol

A It's the main one, but hard-drive recorders (also known as personal video recorders or PVRs) do much more. Get one with a twin tuner built in and you can record one programme and watch another, record two programmes, or record two while playing back another. But you can also pause live TV and rewind it, because the PVR makes a temporary recording of whatever you're watching now (it'll wipe this should you change channels).

You can record whole series at the touch of a button rather than remembering to record them every week - you simply select programmes from the onscreen schedule, although this tends to provide scant information on each show, so you'll still need to consult RT! You can also store as much as 80 hours' worth of programmes on some PVRs. And if you replace your normal digibox with a PVR that has a built-in twin tuner, it doesn't mean adding an extra appliance to your living room.

All of this was pioneered in the UK by Sky with their Sky+ service, which is still seen as the easiest to use. You pay roughly £100 (depending on your Sky package) for the PVR, plus a monthly fee. Virgin cable viewers can also pay an upfront fee of £150, plus a monthly surcharge to subscribe to V+, which offers the advantage of recording two programmes while watching a third.

The cheapest option is Freeview+, the new name for Freeview boxes with a hard-drive recorder built in. They offer roughly the same functions as Sky+ and V+, but without a monthly fee. You simply pay for the box - they start at about £80 from a range of manufacturers.

PVRs for the new Freesat service will be available in the autumn.

**

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Comments

  • Posted on 18 August 2009
  • at 7:43pm
  • by alec

Please explain is a a freeveiw+ box capable of also rcording programmes received by aerial in addition to programmes received by satelite

  • Posted on 22 May 2009
  • at 3:07pm
  • by DoctorDigital-RT

FAO Royston: No, a standard PVR uses a hard disk (just like in a PC) to record and play back TV programmes, so DVDs don't necessarily enter into it. However, a number of manufacturers do now produce PVRs with built-in DVD recorders/players, which allow you to burn DVDs from programmes stored on the hard drive as well as playing DVDs.

  • Posted on 22 May 2009
  • at 12:24pm
  • by DoctorDigital-RT

FAO janey: That's right, you just need to have a dish connected and you're ready to go.

You can arrange to have a new dish installed by a Freesat-approved retailer, from a cost of around £80 (it may well be simplest to contact the retailer who sold you the TV).

If you have an existing dish you could decide to adapt it for use with a Freesat receiver - see my post below [12:55pm on 24 March 2009] for more details.

  • Posted on 20 May 2009
  • at 1:26pm
  • by Royston

Do PVR's have the facilty to play back ordinary DVD's?

  • Posted on 08 January 2009
  • at 11:17am
  • by DoctorDigital-RT

The number of HD channels depends on the service you use: Sky, Freesat and so on. Whether you buy it in a TV or as a separate box, you are buying a HD box because that's what decodes the HD signal and brings it to your screen.

The advantage of a TV that has it in is that you've just got the one thing to buy. The advantage of a separate box is that you can change your mind and buy a box for a different service without replacing your TV.

I'm not clear where you're seeing HD on Sky+, though. Any Sky or Sky+ subscriber will see the channels listed on the EPG but to watch them you need a Sky+ HD subscription - and a Sky+ HD box.

  • Posted on 07 January 2009
  • at 3:30pm
  • by Doctor Digital-RT

There are plenty of hard-drive recorders that have a DVD recorder built in - but none has a twin tuner, allowing you to record one channel (to the hard drive) while watching another. Machines with twin tuners and a hard drive are freely available of course, but not with a built-in DVD recorder! The technical reasons for this are quite complex, but it boils down to the fact that hard drives store their information in a slightly different format to that required to burn a DVD. Including not just two tuners and a hard drive, but the technology to convert all programmes received by both tuners to a DVD-ready format, plus a DVD recorder, would be too expensive to manufacture in one box. So, at the moment you have a choice: the DVD recorder built-in, but no twin tuner; or a twin-tuner PVR plus separate DVD recorder.

VHS is now seen as too old-fashioned to include in such state-of-the-art machinery, so there's no prospect of a twin-tuner PVR with built-in VHS.

  • Posted on 01 January 2009
  • at 9:50pm
  • by Geoff

The major disadvantage is that the recording is on the PVR and thus cannot be taken somewhere else to play it back like a tape or a DVD can. I wonder if anyone makes a PVR with a built-in video tape recorder to get over this?

  • Posted on 19 December 2008
  • at 9:37am
  • by Kenny Wisdom

Can you explain something about HD TV, please? I understand why I would need a new TV to enjoy HD, but would I really need a dedicated HD satellite box as well? I see them being advertised, yet I also see that some, albeit only a few, HD channels available on an ordinary satellite subscription box e.g. Sky+.

Are they peddling HD boxes just to make some more money from us?

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