Comments on: Expensive simplicity: the PVR tradeoff

By: Matt

Matt — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 05:28:10 +0000

I’m really looking forward to the Tivo. I have a Mac based PVR (EyeTV) with IceTV now and it’s flexible but it can also be exceedingly flaky and frustrating to use, which completely kills it for the wife. Although the Tivo is shy of some of the archiving features, I never use them anyway and I know it will be very user friendly which helps a lot with the spousal acceptance!

By: Adam Turner

Adam Turner — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 03:07:46 +0000

I’ve been looking for years and I have to say there’s no perfect lounge room companion. Microsoft’s MCE interface has potential, but it can be flaky. I have high hopes for TiVo. The lack of achieving features is annoying, but my media centre can do this and I never use the feature. Of course it’s not a media player, so you’d want something like a Zensonic Z500 alongside it. Of course there’s no Blu-ray here, so you’d want the Panasonic DMR-DW500 Blu-ray recorder in there. Now you’ve got three devices and lots of feature overlap. I’m about to start looking harder at Linux and Mac based PVRs, but meanwhile $700 for a TiVO that won’t let me down (I hope) sounds like a good family-friendly solution while I continue to search for the holy grail.

By: Benno

Benno — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 11:25:08 +0000

I have the first generation IQ and I love it… The only problem I have had with it is the size of the hard drive… i’ve been considering the IQ2 but I don’t have a HD tv so i think it would be pointless

By: Angus Kidman

Angus Kidman — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 05:00:27 +0000

D’oh! Yes, I did indeed mean PS3. Thanks for picking that up. Fixed now.

By: sparcs

sparcs — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 03:23:39 +0000

We/I have been doing the latter (media pc) for ages, and while it wasn't as simple as puching a button on a PVR it wasn't too bad. The PC in Q started having hissy fits and we both (wife and I) have macbooks so its dying away. But we now have the SD STB with harddrive from Aldi, and while the EPG is CRAP, (it doesn't even give you info on one program ahead)(oh and you have to scroll thru by hour to get to "in a few days" oh and it doesn't tell you what the program is called even though it "knows" it just tells you what channel and when it was recorded) But you get scrapheap challange and can record stuff, so at about $150 its great..

Did you mean that you would need a PS3 (you wrote PS2)for the SONY?

By: Michael

Michael — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 01:43:09 +0000

A second vote for the Topfield. I've got the 4400 model (which doesn't allow the additional software tricks that more expensive Topfield models allow) and it's been the best gadget in the house. My wife absolutely loves it. It doesn't have the EPG features that the upcoming TiVo will have, but then again you can get the 4400 model (new) on eBay for around $150 these days.

The next PVR I buy will need to have a DVD burner. We haven't missed this feature much, but occasionally it would be nice to burn a program you've recorded on the hard drive.

By: Peter

Peter — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 23:59:49 +0000

I bought my Topfield PVR two years ago, and it has provided trouble free 21st century viewing.
No messy tapes or dvds lying around, the ability to rewind and watch a programme while it is still recording, and to record two programmes at once and watch another.

It's great.