trogdor
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| posted on 8/12/08 at 03:57 PM |
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Recommend me a freeview plus box
Hi all,
Seeing the LCD tv thread reminds me I am looking for something in the same vein. Our old school CRT TV is still soldiering on, must be over 10 years
now! (Twas my parents) but the freebox we got from my In-laws which would only work upside down has finally given up the ghost
So, what is the best plan for getting a freeview plus box? Is it best to get something cheaper and replace in a few years or get something that is
half decent. What are the going prices nowadays. I am sure I have seen them for £60 or so somewhere but I can't find them on the interweb
any opinions would be gratefully received.
[Edited on 8/12/08 by trogdor]
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carpmart
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| posted on 8/12/08 at 04:19 PM |
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What about Freesat, have you considered this?
You only live once - make the most of it!
Radical Clubsport, Kwaker motor
'94 MX5 MK1, 1.8
F10 M5 - 600bhp Daily Hack 
Range Rover Sport - Wife's Car
Mercedes A class - Son's Car
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nick205
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| posted on 8/12/08 at 04:20 PM |
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Freeview boxes start from around £20 these days (Tesco/Argos etc).
A PVR (Freeview box with internal HDD) will allow you to pause and record TV on the fly and seem to start from around £75. I'd go for one of
these - it'll change the way you watch telly 
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matt_gsxr
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| posted on 8/12/08 at 04:30 PM |
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I've got a tvonics box which records and plays back really nicely.
The user interface is excellent (not complicated)
The latest ones are more powerful.
matt
p.s. its made in wales
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Peteff
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| posted on 8/12/08 at 05:00 PM |
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I bought a set top box for £9.99 from the supermarket. If you connect via scart to a dvd/hdd recorder you can watch and record through that but we
also have a twin tuner box so you can watch and record a different channel or record two at once and watch through the other cheap box on a different
channel.
yours, Pete
I went into the RSPCA office the other day. It was so small you could hardly swing a cat in there.
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MikeR
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| posted on 8/12/08 at 05:16 PM |
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i've got a tvonics which is good but .....
There is a company called topfield who do a box thats for geeks but excellent.
It basically runs unix so you can (if your mad / wish) patch it to add features which is neat.
The big plus is you can tell it to record all programs that contain the words XXXXXXXXX.
Mate does it for dr who. Never has to set a timer again as it searches *ALL* the listings for you. Obviously as he's not spent time setting it
up he gets the BBC4 repeats etc. Had a shock one saturday morning to notice it was running - it was recording the DR who cartoon on the kiddies show
he didn't even know existed.
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britishtrident
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| posted on 8/12/08 at 05:16 PM |
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Only difference withe cheap 12 quid boxes is the digital program guide tends to be a bit crappy.
Also Freeview DVRs are pretty cheap especially if you already have a spare ATA hard disk around and can buy bare bones box -- not need to format
just use fdisk to erase the paritions before you fit it.
Avoid any DVR with Top Up TV as part of the package --- Top Up TV force a lot of crud onto your recording space.
[I] “ What use our work, Bennet, if we cannot care for those we love? .”
― From BBC TV/Amazon's Ripper Street.
[/I]
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dubstar_04
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| posted on 8/12/08 at 06:03 PM |
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I would highly recommend a humax box:
Humax Website
I have bought 2 of these for people and they always win in tests like on the gadet show.
I would be supprised if you could find a bad word about them!!
If your a bit of a techie fiddler the topfield boxes as MikeR suggested are good but if your that way inclined I would build a MythTV box using
MythBuntu:
MythBuntu
I have used every pc media center application that has been made publicly available and this is the most stable you will ever find.
I have used mythtv for 3 years now and I can't see me changing.
Which ever you choose depends on what you want to do with it and your budget. They all allow you to watch, pause, and rewind TV. The main differences
are in the way you schedule recordings and storage space.
A good humax box with 2 tuners can be had for slightly over 100 quid where as a high end mythtv media centre like what I have can cost 10 times that
and more.
I hope this has helped.
Dan
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trogdor
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| posted on 8/12/08 at 06:35 PM |
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thanks everyone, some great ideas there. Is a shame I haven't got much to spend, a MythTV or the UNIX box look really good. I have an Xbox set
up to run Linux, could i run MythTV on that?
Otherwise the barebones set up looks good! Have a 40 Gb internal drive spare to use in it and then i can upgrade when needed
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dubstar_04
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| posted on 8/12/08 at 07:09 PM |
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mythtv does run on the xbox hardware but only as a frontend. meaning you would still need another pc with tv cards in to grab and record the tv
signal!!
If you bought a pvr and setup your xbox with xbmc for the living room that would be cool.
You could use the pvr for all the tv stuff and then watch all the webstuff, iplayer etc, and dvds on the xbox. only downside is no 1080P from
either!!!
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iank
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| posted on 8/12/08 at 07:15 PM |
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Don't bother with the cheap Philips box tescos flog. Ours is constantly on the blink (reboots, loses "now and next" display,
occasionally loses sound or waits for the now and next to disappear before going black).
Sadly the older Philips one I had before was much more reliable - till the kids lost the remote.
--
Never argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level, then beat you with experience.
Anonymous
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trogdor
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| posted on 8/12/08 at 07:22 PM |
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well not having 1080P isn't so bad, my TV is an old CRT so its not going to benefit from any high definition broadcasts etc. Must admit i think
i will do that, run XBMC on my xbox and have a PVR for the TV. Have to figure out how to use the mod chip, has been a few years now since i used it!
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lsdweb
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| posted on 8/12/08 at 11:04 PM |
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I've got a PVR that needs a new hard drive if you're interested.
U2U me and I'll send you the details.
Wyn
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geoff shep
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| posted on 8/12/08 at 11:04 PM |
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Another vote for Humax. As a PVR the Humax is hard to beat. There is an upscaling HDMI version out now which (since you don't have a HD TV)
simply means that the older models are cheaper. An 'A' grade from Humax Direct is £96 fro 160Gb or £126 for 320Gb. They are twin tuner
so you can record one and record another - actually with freeview channel bundling you record 2 channels and watch a third. The best thing I have
found though is the ease of use and the way you record direct from the programme guide. Latest software has series link (it will ask whether you want
to record one episode or all of them) and other groovy features. You can archive to DVD recorder or copy to PC although this is VERY slow. Latest
models lack USB to PC link.
Humax Direct
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dubstar_04
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| posted on 9/12/08 at 07:44 AM |
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quote:
Originally posted by trogdor
well not having 1080P isn't so bad, my TV is an old CRT so its not going to benefit from any high definition broadcasts etc. Must admit i think
i will do that, run XBMC on my xbox and have a PVR for the TV. Have to figure out how to use the mod chip, has been a few years now since i used it!
I use my Xbox with XBMC now and again. I take it to parties loaded with music and everyone asks if I will sell it.
I didn't use a mod chip on mine. I soldered a jumber across the bios and flashed it directly with one of the bios' off the web.
If you get stuck I have the all-in-one slayers disc that reinstalls a fresh modded build including XBMC and flashes your modchip all you need to do
then is copy a new build of XBMC over the top and its all upto date.
If you haven't used XBMC for a while you will probably be amazed by all the new features I know I was!!
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trogdor
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| posted on 9/12/08 at 09:21 AM |
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well I used the softmod orginally to install Linux on the Xbox, then i nutsack it up royally by wiping the whole hard drive rendering the whole thing
unusable.
The easiest thing to do at the time was to use a modchip, I forget which one now.
At the mo it has XDSL installed on it. Which works well. But the main reason i stopped using it was because on the TV the screen resolution was god
awful for a PC you couldn't really read txt etc so I just left it where it was. but this XBMC looks good as it will work well with the
TV's Resolution. May have a go with it this evening.
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