Review: Evesham Freeview personal video recorder PVR160

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At a glance

Pros

* Reasonable price
* Very easy to set up
* Very easy to use on a day-to-day basis
* Twin tuners let you watch one programme while recording another
* Delivers good picture and sound (better than Sky SD) even where analogue TV suffers severe ghosting
* RGB composite and S-video TV output via Scart
* Right size - 360(w) x 280(d) x 48(h)mm - to sit with other AV components
* Many features that let you fully enjoy the benefits of Freeview multi-channel digital TV and radio, including:

+ Time Shift, so you can come back and watch a programme where you left off
+ Seven-day programming guide for choosing what to watch and what to record
+ Five favourite-channel lists
+ Four-corner Picture-in-Picture (P-i-P)
+ Digital text that's fast-loading and easy to use

Cons

* No way to edit out commercials from recordings
* Can't record two programmes at the same time (so can't also can't use Time Shift if already recording)
* No way to watch subscription channels on the Top Up TV digital terrestrial service
* Hard disk (160GB) only let's you store up to 80 hours of programmes
* No way to connect digitally direct to a PC for repurposing TV footage onto DVD or for media players
* Can only record from own TV tuners - not from other AV sources
* Fascia display not easily visible except when it's at eye level
* No dedicated (DIN) S-video socket
* Freeview-specific:

+ Freeview's picture and sound quality are not as good as the best available from analogue terrestrial TV in the best reception areas
+ Freeview still not available nationwide

In most ways, Evesham's PVR160 is a first-rate product. It's easy to set up and use and offers an affordable way to get the most out of all the many TV and radio channels offered by the Freeview digital terrestrial service.

It's not going to everyone's cup of tea, though. Anyone who wants to repurpose the programmes they record from Freeview - to burn to DVD or to encode for use on a portable or home media player - will need to look elsewhere, unless they already have (or are willing to buy) analogue-digital converter boxes that let them encode to a PC in real-time from analogue outputs.

Even then, the fact that the PVR160 can output S-video only via Scart, rather than having a dedicated S-video output, makes the task a little trickier to get footage out of the Evesham and into a PC at the best possible quality. A Scart-to-S-video lead will be needed. That's not a cable we've ever had to use and suspect it won't be found in many people's armouries but, fortunately, you can buy them on line for under a fiver.

For most people, though, we reckon that the PVR160 is going to hit the spot and we're comfortable to recommend it to anyone who's seen what it can't do and doesn't think that they'll be missing out.

This, however, is the first Freeview PVR we've looked at and so we can't say to you from personal experience that it's better than Product X or Product Y and inferior to Product Z. That being so, we'd recommend you check out what's being said about competing Freeview PVRs - though when we've done that ourselves, we've found nothing of comparable price that seemed to be clearly superior.

To find out more about a range of PVRs and to see what users think, you'd do a lot worse than to check out the digital spy forums. One of the boxes you must check out is the Humax PVR-9200T but although that has a number of useful features that Evesham doesn't, it typically sells for about half as much again - around £230. An internet search, though, will bring up prices far keener than that. The best we're currently seeing is £185.50 all up, from Martin Dawes.

And the very fact that it is possible to do this with for the Humax underlines the one reservation we have about the PVR160. Like any product that's available only from a single source, you'll have no opportunity to shop around to find a better price or to choose to buy from a company that might charge a little extra but you're used to dealing with and in whose hands you feel especially comfortable.

None of this, however, alters our substantive view on the Evesham - it's a great product and one that, bearing in mind those things we've just said, we are happy to recommend.

Update October 23, 00.50

Originally, on page four, we'd talked about there being one option - Now - in the programme guide that we couldn't get our heads around. Well, we've finally realised what it does and come to the view that it's pretty useful. Naturally, we've updated page four to explain its function.

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Posted by Chunkers - Fri 24 Nov 2006 20:40

Nah, 6 years down the line and still nothing beats a TiVo.

Buy one on Ebay and enjoy, thats what I say.

Chunks

Posted by Funkstar - Sun 26 Nov 2006 11:54

and a Tivo can tune to DVB channels how?

Posted by autopilot - Sun 26 Nov 2006 13:04

But, is it “Playback” certified?

With the implementation of the Playback feature (series linking) into Freeview transmission, it's something that is important to know.

If not, i would avoid - especially as it can't record 2 channels at the same time. In fact, it looks pretty wet to me. At that price, there has already been some better boxes out for a while (if a touch more expensive). But can/will there be a Firmware upgrade to add the confusingly titled “Playback”?

A new £9.99 monthly package of 18 channels is promised but when you see the details, you'll perhaps understand why Evesham and many others haven't bothered fitting card-reader slots to the kit they sell.

It's not that the choice of forthcoming channels is poor - we don't think it is - it's just that Top Up TV is being promoted in a bundling deal that requires you to buy a Thomson personal video recorder (the DTI 6300-16) for £180, along with a £30 starter pack. The starter pack covers the cost of connection (what's to connect; does it need a permanent phone connection like Sky?) and provides a viewing card, plus the first month's subscription.

From what i have heard, Thompson will basically have exclusivity to begin with - but other boxes that can do it will come out. In fact other manufactures have hinted that existing boxes, such Topfield, will be able to do with a firmware update. So not including a slot for a CAM might be a mistake after all.