Freeview recorder box

[DBye]

Any recommendations for a terrestial freeview recorder box? After one for my mother in law.
Most seem to ether just subscribe to SkyHD or Virgin TiVo or use catch-up services.
At home I've got a Tvonics dtrhd500 which is awesome. Unfortunately Tvonics went into administration in 2012 so that's a non-starter.

She has a smart TV so not interested in apps etc. Ironically the TV has a hamstrung recording feature where you can record the channel you are watching only. Great.

 

[Deleted member 4366]

Don't get a Virgin one unless it's the recently released one. The one I have from a couple of years ago is pretty poor. It's illogical and pretty slow. I think the Talktalk one is much better. There's loads of independent ones that you can get from Ebay, Maplin, etc.

 

[soundwave]

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Android-6-0-Marshmallow-KODI-SMART-8GB-Quad-Core-OTT-WIFI-TV-Box-Media-Player-UK-/282507559817?hash=item41c6c34389:g:TwQAAOSwlY1ZMods

just load kodi and a plug in builder every thing is free.

 

[soundwave]

 

[topographer]

No idea...but from my Freesat experience I would say don't buy anything from Humax.

 

[danielrlee]

No idea...but from my Freesat experience I would say don't buy anything from Humax.

A few months ago I purchased a Humax DTR-T2000 1Tb Youview box (not Freesat) and I can highly recommend it. The only negative is that the remote features a few aditional 'clicky' buttons rather than making them all the usual preferred soft touch buttons found on most remotes.

 

[Sheffmax]

I've had a Panasonic DMR-HWT250 for a year now and it's a nice bit of kit. 2 channel recording while you watch another plus all the usual PVR stuff. It also connects to the internet and allows you to program it remotely.

It has too many feature to mention here but it is available at John Lewis'.

 

[flecc]

I've also not been impressed by a Humax Freesat box, but my Humax Freeview recorder with Freeview 7 day lookback has been ok for years. Only criticism is that the programming is slow acting, but once used to it, works well.

The newer models now have more features like i-player and the equivalents from the other channels.
.

 

[jhruk]

In April last year I bought a BT DTR-T2100 YouView box. I don’t have it connected to the internet and only use it as a PVR. It supports HD but not 4k.

So far it’s been excellent, much better than my older Humax PVR. I believe these are supplied with some BT packages and there are many around on e-bay or Amazon, new, nearly new, or s/h, as they are often unwanted.

I paid around £80 for a new one from a private seller on e-bay. If it packed up tomorrow I’d buy another one.

 

[danielrlee]

In April last year I bought a BT DTR-T2100 YouView box.

So far it’s been excellent, much better than my older Humax PVR.

Do you realise that it's a rebranded Humax YouView box?

 

[jhruk]

Do you realise that it's a rebranded Humax YouView box?

Yes, I do know it's made by Humax. It's still much better than my older PVR-9300T, and usually cheaper than the Humax branded ones.

 

[DBye]

Thanks for the suggestions. I've heard good things about the BT DTR T2100 box. Is the software the same as the recent HUMAX offerings?
She'd like to avoid Sky and Virgin due to an adversion to subscription charges.
@soundwave Kodi is great but I need something mother in law proof. My initial plan was to get a kodi set up at home and then give my old but perfectly working Tvonics PVR to her.

To that end I bought an IPTV streamer to stream the tv signal over my internal network (http://www.vboxcomm.com/products/xti-family.html) -I need to avoid the plugin builder as I'm a patent/trademark lawyer and being involved with copyright infringement would be hard to explain!
I've had a lot of teething problems with this set up though as play back can be choppy (IPTV streamer connected to router by ethernet, in turn to raspberry pi3 via ethernet running kodi). So not sure what the problem is there. The recording is ok though there are problems with series record and I havent been able to solve fast forward and rewind (I get an error saying stream isn't searchable or something to that effect).

I'll check out the HUMAX's and BT box for now though. Thank you!