Personal Video Recorder in Ireland?

S

Sqoh1

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Hi

Does anyone know when Personal Video Recorders suitable for us in Ireland will be available?

Has anyone any experience with using a UK verision of MS Windows Media Center in Ireland? Can many channels be tuned in here?

Sqoh
 
Sqoh1 said:
Hi

Does anyone know when Personal Video Recorders suitable for us in Ireland will be available?

Has anyone any experience with using a UK verision of MS Windows Media Center in Ireland? Can many channels be tuned in here?

Sqoh
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You can buy HDD + DVD recorders from around €400 (e.g. [broken link removed] from Richersounds.ie. However, most of them only have one tuner - you need two tuners for UHV and VHF in Ireland, although you may get away with one if using a digital connection. (I just ordered a cheap DVD recorder - without a hard disk - from eBay so will be testing this theory soon.)

Check out the group test review of DVD recorders, mostly with Hard Disk Drives in this month's What Hi Fi magazine (print only - not on the Net). There is also a review of Freeview PVRs, some with hard disks - pity these are not useable in most areas of Ireland. Whatever happened to Digital Terrestrial TV in Ireland??

There is always the Sky Plus box if you are a Sky subscriber.

Unfortunately, NTL don't have a PVR in Ireland yet - probably have to wait until they are sold off and the new owners invest in the company.
 
Have been looking into these recently with a view to buying and the Sony HX710 (Eur599 in pixmania) seems to be the business - 160gb hard drive, writes to + and - r/rw, and DV in. Compare this to Sony's HX510 in Dublin at Eur599 for the lower spec of 80gb without dv in .

Very similar model available in Dixons is the Liteon LVW5045 at Eur449 for a 160gb disc. Seems to be very prone to problems though according to internet forums and while it has the hard disc, it does not offer the feature to watch a program stored on the drive, while recording another one. It does over the basic timeslip though - i.e watch the beginning of the program you are recording before it finishes recording.
 
podgerodge said:
Have been looking into these recently with a view to buying and the Sony HX710 (Eur599 in pixmania) seems to be the business - 160gb hard drive, writes to + and - r/rw, and DV in. Compare this to Sony's HX510 in Dublin at Eur599 for the lower spec of 80gb without dv in .

Very similar model available in Dixons is the Liteon LVW5045 at Eur449 for a 160gb disc. Seems to be very prone to problems though according to internet forums and while it has the hard disc, it does not offer the feature to watch a program stored on the drive, while recording another one. It does over the basic timeslip though - i.e watch the beginning of the program you are recording before it finishes recording.
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www.homecinemachoice.com have good reviews of this Sony device.

The LiteOn got a terrible review in this month's What Hi Fi - 2 stars out of 5 due to the poor tuner.

I personally am going to wait for a device supporting HDMI output (such as the [broken link removed] which is due in July) so that when I eventually buy a 42 inch LCD or Plasma, I can get the best from it, and so that when I eventually buy an amp which supports HDMI switching, I can route all devices through the amp to the LCD/Plasma with little or no loss of quality.
 
Thanks... very good replies.

It sounds like its best to wait a while for the dual tuners and the price to come down a bit... I guess these'll become more mainstream here over the next while.

Thanks again.

Sqoh1
 
Speaking of tuners re UHF and VHF, I have narrowed down my search to the Toshiba XS34 - 160gb hard drive, records to Ram, -R and -RW.

Toshiba UK have said to me that the tuner on this in the UK will also cover VHF - but "as this has not been tested , we can only confirm that this should work in Ireland, but cannot confirm that it WILL work in Ireland." Argggh.

Pixmania have this model on their French site and now I'm worried if I buy the European version that will be stuck on PAL B or G or Secam and not cover PAL I even though it states VHF is covered.

Anyone with more knowledge of these things?
 
podgerodge said:
Speaking of tuners re UHF and VHF, I have narrowed down my search to the Toshiba XS34 - 160gb hard drive, records to Ram, -R and -RW.

Toshiba UK have said to me that the tuner on this in the UK will also cover VHF - but "as this has not been tested , we can only confirm that this should work in Ireland, but cannot confirm that it WILL work in Ireland." Argggh.

Pixmania have this model on their French site and now I'm worried if I buy the European version that will be stuck on PAL B or G or Secam and not cover PAL I even though it states VHF is covered.

Anyone with more knowledge of these things?
Click to expand...

Most European consumer tv / video / av devices support PAL & SECAM - it would not make sense to only sell a product in the French market.

Why not send Pixmania an email - it's worth it for them to check it out, in the interests of a sale!
 
Have purchased the Sony HX710 from Pixmania.

Setup was simplicity itself and it has a Multi PAL tuner so no problems with the Irish channels. Mrs Podgerodge is thrilled with the 1.5x fast playback with sound for getting through the boring bits of Coronation Street. I'm already experiencing the satisfaction of not having to worry about how much space is left on a DVD disc any more, the 70 hours of SP quality or up to 269 hours on lowest setting (not bad quality actually!) means the only time I will be bothering with a blank DVD will be to copy over something I want to keep - using the fast dubbing mode.

A great machine for Eur 597. Even better for Eur 551 which is the price they brought it down to a day after I bought it, typical!
 
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