Back in October Martin brought to our attention Sharp's first attempt at the PVR market in the UK. It's safe to say that Martin's predisposed misgivings of anything Sharp have been proven to be true.
A review from Pocket Lint has found the 160 GB dual tuner PVR to be less than appealing with poor time shifting and recording functionality.
If something is already recording you can't time shift or record another TV channel at the same time. Pocket Lint also states that the Sharp PVR has below average picture quality.
I think it is advisable to stay clear of the Sharp TU-R160H PVR and go with another PVR on the market.
Hauppauge has released yet another TV tuner intent on making the tuner you bought just a fewmonths ago feel jealous.
The WinTV-HVR-3000 is the company's first "tri-mode" tuner, meaning it can capture digital satellite, analog cable, or Freeview TV signals on a PC. You can also listen to FM, digital DVB-T or DVB-S radio.
The PCI card features hardware MPEG-2 encoding, and comes with software for recording from a VCR or camcorder in MPEG-1 or MPEG-2.
While this isn't a "triple tuner" card as some sites are suggesting, it does allow you to capture video from three distinct types of sources. And if you're capturing a digital and an analog signal simultaneously, you can flip back and forth between the two recordings, so it's more like a tri-mode, dual tuner card.
It also comes with what looks like Hauppauge's standard IR remote. The HVR-3000 is available now for under £100.
1. Sky HD. If there's one present I'd really love someone to buy me this Christmas, it's BSkyB's news HD service. It's a Sky+ PVR with 160GB of storage capacity (around 80 hours) and it displays tons of Sky's content in glorious HD (presuming you have an HD capable TV. It'll cost you £299 for the box, £60 for installation and an extra £10 per month on top of your subscription, depending on the channels you already receive. More: www.sky.com/hd
2. Topfield TF5800PVR 160GB Freeview PVR. A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of ordering one of these top-notch Freeview PVRs for the purposes of my job. It's a twin-tuner unit with a 160GB hard drive and a fairly easy-to-use setup and EPG. The only drawbacks are a slow reaction time on the remote, but it also has the added bonus of a USB connection, which comes in handy for moving videos around on to portable devices. You should expect to pay around £250, but it's worth every penny. More: Amazon UK.
3. Telewest TV Drive. If you're an NTL or Telewest customer in the UK, and you don't yet have a PVR, but you're sick of their basic on-demand service, you should consider treating yourself this Christmas by upgrading to TV Drive. It has a twin tuner, 80 hour capacity, 8-day EPG and series link facility. Oh, and it does HD too. Subscriptions start at an additional £10 per month, with no connection fee. More: Telewest UK.
4. Humax PVR800T PVR. If the Topfield doesn't take your fancy, you might want to consider the Humax PVR800T. It has pretty much all the same function as the Topfield TF5800, but with a slightly smaller HDD (80GB) and can only record one Freeview channel at a time. Expect to pay around £130.
For a start, it's still a soft-launch -- or a "measured roll-out of the new service that would pick up momentum in the spring", as a BT spokesman described it.
Which is basically spin for "we've made a right hash of this one, and we're just going to release it three weeks before Christmas in the vain hope that a few deluded individuals might be struggling to buy a present for their partner and might see this as a way out."
With the product still largely unproven, and competitors like BSkyB, NTL/Telewest and dozens of other Freeview PVR manufacturers already several months (if not years) into the UK PVR/iPTV market, BT Vision looks likely to be a certain turkey.
More analysis: The Guardian: Paul Richards, a media analyst at Numis Securities, does not believe that BT Vision will pose a serious threat to BSkyB's business. "There's a big gap between the Freeview offering and something like Sky, but if BT can find a niche in there to give Freeview customers a bit more, that's probably enough to give them a viable model."
The Register: Few expect BT to wrest a very large portion of the pay TV market away from Sky and cable monopoly NTL (soon to be rebranded as Virgin Media). The rationale backing Vision surrounds customer retention and adding value to its position in the broadband market.
I came across an interesting blog post today which showed a text advert appearing across the screen on the UK TV station ITV during an episode of Emmerdale (see picture).
Fortunately for me I had persuaded my Girlfriend not to watch Emmerdale so didn't get to see the TV show myself or witness any obtrusive adverts.
According to the blog post the show was being watched on digital TV, although it has not been stated what PVR, set top box or service provider that was being used.
I doubt this would have been done by ITV itself but rather by the company providing the digital service or alternatively it could have been some sort of error.
Did anyone else in the UK witness this and what service provider were you using?
If you're put off getting Sky+ by the price tag (£10 per month, plus the price of a basic subscription, or a subscription with at least one premiumn channel package), then Top Up TV's latest offering might be the one for you.
Top Up TV Anytime bills itself as a DTR (a Digital Television Recorder) with features like pause, rewind and being able to record two programmes at the same time. Effectively, it's a Freeview PVR, but with access to lots more channels.
It also offers a TV on-demand service, with access to over 100 hours of programming each week. The box itself can hold up to 120 hours of SD video on its 160GB HDD.
It's currently priced at £9.99 per month, with movies £5 per month extra - but the box itself will also cost you a one-off fee, but there's no price confirmed yet for that.
Well, Pinnacle has released a bunch of TV cards which do pretty much the same job, except they look better, and one is a USB stick that packs a punch.
The PCTV DVB-T PCI, PCTV Hybrid Pro Stick and PCTV Dual Hybrid Pro PCIe are pretty much aimed at entry-level users (the Hybrid is aimed at laptop users) -- but don't let that put you off (I have a WinTV USB stick on my work PC, and it's perfectly fine).
All three can access DVB-T signals (Freeview in the UK), and come bundled with Pinnacle's PVR software.
They should be available around now, priced £29.99, £69.99 and £89.99 respectively.
I received an email about this new product release last week from Hauppauge, but didn't manage to find the time to write it up.
The firm known for their varietty of TV tuners and PVR cards has released yet another PCI-based card known as the WINTV Nova-T 500, a twin-tuner Freeview TV card, which runs on Windows XP Pro, Home and Media Center Editions.
It ships with a remote control, and according to the blurb in the press release, you'll be able to use it with Vista, but the jury will be out on that until it's actually been spotted in the wild.
It has all the features you would expect from a twin-tuner PVR unit, but here's the doozy; it has a built-in conversion tool for transferring clips to you iPod or PSP.
I'm thinking of building myself a new PC in 2007, so I might take a closer look at this one when I've saved up my pennies.
Goodmans has created a bargain of a PVR for the UK market.
Known as the GHD8015F2, the personal video recorder has dual digital Freeview tuners and can store up to 35 hours of standard definition content on the 80 GB hard drive.
The ability to record two shows at the same time is pretty much a necessity in todays quickly crowding PVR market, and it must be nice for the UK market to get this feature at the reasonable price of £100.
It's not the prettiest PVR money can buy, but at least you don't have to spend a lot to get it.
If you live in the UK, and you're contemplating getting yourself a PVR -- perhaps even a Sky+ box -- then you probably won't find a better reason than this for the next 12 months: Lost is moving from Channel Four to Sky One at the start of the next series.
To put our US-readers in the picture: Channel Four is the 'fourth' terrestrial TV channel in the UK. It's free to everyone with an aerial on the roof of their house, it appears on Freeview (as well as on digital platforms like cable TV and satellite) and exists as one of the major commercial competitors to the BBC.
However, BSkyB's crown jewel is their mainstream channel, Sky One. On Sky One, you tend to find shows like Eureka, 24, Enterprise and Battlestar Galactica - the prime-time US shows which would normally appear on terrestrial television first, before being snapped up by Rupert Murdoch's cash-flush broadcasting empire for twice the asking price.
Well, it's happened again. It started with Star Trek: The Next Generation, moved on to X-Files, The Simpsons and Buffy, and now the world's most popualar TV show, Lost, has been snatched from Channel Four, with series 3 set to appear on Sky One in the next few months. (I could have set things up nicely with a dumb headline like 'Channel Four loses Lost', but decided not to)
Oh, and Sky One is only available if you have a BSkyB sateliite TV reciever or digital cable.
And if you're planning on getting yourself a sattelite subscription, you'd be as well just getting Sky+ (or NTL's TVDrive, for that matter).
In the course of my work (my other work, that is), I've had reason to purchase a Topfield Freeview PVR, which I plan on reviewing for the delight of PVR Wire readers at some point in the next week or two.
However, it's always good getting a second opinion, and even a view on a different Freeview PVR, for that matter.
So, Hexus Lifestyle has posted an extensive review of the Evesham 160 PVR, a Freeview twin-tuner unit with (you guessed it) 160GB capacity -- and all for the measly sum of £160.
I reckon the prices of Freeview-based PVRs will plummet in 2007, but this box could make a good Christmas gift this year, if you're struggling for something to get your partner.
It has all the usual features, plus some nifty add-ons like picture-in-picture and excellent picture quality -- plus, that £160 price tag.
Pinnacle systems has released three new PCTV products over here in the UK, and all for pretty good budget prices.
According to Pocket-Lint.co.uk, the three devices on sale now are the PCTV DVB-T PCI card, the PCTV Hybrid Pro Stick, and the PCTV Dual Tuner Hybrid Pro PCI express card.
The major outstanding features of all three is their ability to pick up DVB-T signals here in the UK, effectively making them Freeview tuners for your PC.
The DVB-T PCI featurse a remote control, some PVR software with timeshifting functionality and DivX recording, while the PCTV Hybrid Pro Stick is a USB2.0 device which includes an A/V input for recording from external video sources.
And the PCTV Dual Hybrid Pro is a Dual-Tuner PCI card which acts more like an advanced PVR than the others, on account of being able to record from two separate signals at once.
The prices for all three are £70 and £90 respectively, while the DVB-T PCI card will cost £30.
The Digital Television Group is reporting that the first-generation of Freeview 'Playback' PVRs could be on sale in Britain for Christmas 2006, just over two months away (possibly earlier, if they want to make an impact on the marketplace).
The uptake of Freeview in the UK has been nothing short of phenomenal over the past few years, as the government ploughs onwards with the UK analogue switch-off and moves over to a more 'digital' Britain.
However, the uptake of Freeview PVRs has been slow of late, and the Freeview consortium worked hard to produce a set of standards and specifications in conjunction with the DTG to enable the production of Freeview PVRs, known as the 'Playback Standard'.
Included in the Playback specification will be provision for features such as series-linking, with the standard originally intended to be released in September on new devices, but now appears to have missed that deadline.
I can't imagine the late release of Playback PVRs will have a sensational impact on the Christmas 2006 market, but you never know. It's more likely that consumers will buy into it when word-of-mouth starts spreading next year.
Alba has selected the SupraTV processors from Zoran Corporation to power its Freeview digital set top boxes and PVRs in the UK. The set top boxes will be sold under the Bush and Goodmans brands.
Zoran say that SupraTV will deliver an easy to use graphical interface, over the air download support, support for easily recording to an integrated hard drive, and other advanced features needed for digital recording.
I'm in the market for a Freeview PVR, and happened upon a Lord Percy review of the new Humax 9200-T Freeview PVR which boasts twin DVB-T Freeview tuners and 160 GB hard drive (80 hours), plus a 14 day EPG.
The cool thing about these Freeview PVRs is the access to 30+ free DTT channels in the UK, which now includes Film Four and will hopefully include Sky One at some point inthe future.
Being able to watch a different channel from the one you're recording (or record two things at once and view something already on the box) is another major bonus, and a replication of features already available on a subscription-based PVR like Sky+.
The EPG has always been the weak point of Freeview, and it seems this unit is no different, with no series link capabilities, but where it betters Sky+ is the ability to remove recordings from the box using the USB connection -- and then take them out on the move using a portable media device.
Whatever the case, Lord Percy has the full skinny on a great device which will set you back no more than about £199.
Back in October Martin brought to our attention Sharp's first attempt at the PVR market in the UK. It's safe to say that Martin's predisposed misgivings of anything Sharp have been proven to be true.
Hauppauge has released yet another TV tuner intent on making the tuner you bought just a 
1. Sky HD. If there's one present I'd really love someone to buy me this Christmas, it's BSkyB's news HD service. It's a Sky+ PVR with 160GB of storage capacity (around 80 hours) and it displays tons of Sky's content in glorious HD (presuming you have an HD capable TV. It'll cost you £299 for the box, £60 for installation and an extra £10 per month on top of your subscription, depending on the channels you already receive. More: 
Oh, and it does HD too. Subscriptions start at an additional £10 per month, with no connection fee. More: 
If you're put off getting Sky+ by the price tag (£10 per month, plus the price of a basic subscription, or a subscription with at least one premiumn channel package), then Top Up TV's latest offering might be the one for you.
Goodmans
Alba has selected the SupraTV processors from Zoran Corporation to power its Freeview digital set top boxes and PVRs in the UK. The set top boxes will be sold under the Bush and Goodmans brands.
