Review Panasonic returns to the UK DVR market after an abortive early foray, with a 3D-enabled, media-streaming TV recorder. Rather more convincing than the brand’s first generation model, the DMR-HW100 offers access to the online VieraCast portal, has jukebox functionality and is only slightly bonkers.
Panasonic’s DMR-HW100 offers one way of getting your 3D photos up on the screen
Panasonic’s Blu-ray recorders, while technically impressive, seem almost wilfully complicated in this era of Sky+ and TiVo. Thankfully, this Freeview HD DVR is significantly more approachable. It doesn’t baffle with a multitude of recording modes, for one. Read the rest of this entry »
Review On the face of it, Samsung’s BD-D8900 seems to be the ideal convergence product that will allow you to get rid of the stack of boxes that hide under your TV. Not only does this deck act as a 3D-compatible Blu-ray player, but it also has an integrated twin tuner Freeview HD DVR, along with support for Samsung’s Smart Hub internet platform. As well as all this, you can use it to play back a range of media formats, either locally from its USB port or across a network with a PC or Nas drive.
Samsung’s BD-D8900: a convincing case for convergence?
The BD-D8900 is a good looking piece of kit, as it’s not much larger than a standard Blu-ray player and is finished in a classy combination of black and chrome. The Blu-ray portion of the player uses a slot loading mechanism and there’s a large 3D Blu-ray logo that glows at the top when a disc is loaded. If you don’t like this you can thankfully turn it off from the settings menu. Read the rest of this entry »
Review Back in October 2010, Reg Hardware looked at TVonics’ first Freeview HD recorder, the curiously styled DTR-HD500. The DTR-Z500HD is a more conventional ‘shoe box’ shape, though much smaller than many of the others I’ve looked at, but it once again packs in a good spec.
DTR-Z500HD: a more sober design than the last TVOnics DVR
There’s a 500GB disk drive, Ethernet network connectivity – BBC iPlayer isn’t supported yet, but is in the works, apparently – and twin tuners, so you can watch one channels while recording another, or record two at a time. Read the rest of this entry »
It’s almost a year since we reviewed the Foxsat-HDR from Humax, which was one of the first Freesat+ recorders to appear in the UK. Since then, there’s been more of a steady trickle, rather than a flood of Freesat gear coming on stream. To drum up a bit more interest in the satellite service, Freesat itself had a bit of a publicity push for its adoption of the BBC iPlayer and HD broadcasts for recent sporting events such as the Winter Olympics. Getting in on the act is Grundig’s with its Freesat+ HD DVR, the inelegantly named GUFSDTR500HD.
Grundig’s GUFSDTR500HD: the Freesat competition hots up at last
Equipped with a 500GB hard disk – that can store about 300 hours of SD programmes or 125 hours of HD – a 320GB model is also available for about £20 cheaper, so not much of a saving really. Incidentally, this Grundig recorder is virtually identical to the Goodmans 500GB Freesat+ HD DTR launched at the same time for the same price. Grundig and Goodmans are both owned by the same parent company, so they’ve effectively launched own-brand versions of the same product.
The Grundig GUFSDTR500HD is compact and solidly built, about the size of a small pizza box. It’s equipped with twin tuners, allowing you to record two programmes simultaneously. We were initially surprised to see a third satellite connector sticking out the back, although closer inspection revealed a little label next to this saying that it doesn’t actually do anything. Curious.
There’s an HDMI connector plus cable, two Scarts for older TVs and both optical and coaxial digital audio outputs for hooking the unit up to a surroundsound speaker system. The Ethernet port is labelled ‘for future use’. What wonders await remains to be seen. Read the rest of this entry »
This time last year, there was only one Freesat recorder available, from Humax. Now there are several, of which the Sagem DTR94500S HD is one of the latest.
Sagem’s DTR94500S HD: the front panel doesn’t exude quality
It’s a slim unit, around the size of three external hard drive enclosures put side to side – a size that’s partly achieved at the cost of having an external power supply. There’s a USB port on the front, but it’s unused.
