Technosonic PVR-101

It is for the hundredth or more times sat on the bench rufusing to accept any command. It will not reset and you have to go through every sation when it eventually does work to put everything back working £100 of trash

It was good value for money with good video quality a bigger hard drive would make it perfect for me.

I do have a problem that is probably my own fault with the Technosonic PVR-101. I didn't realise that a password was needed to delete etc programs on the hard drive. Is there a default password I can use to access & reset the code.

I have had this Technosonic PVR-101 for 20 months now and the situation has now reached the point where I feel like throwing it through the window. The software upgrades seemed initially to solve the problem whereby the unit would show a loss of signal although signal strength is high and I had replaced my aerial with an expensive digital one. Each software upgrade caused as many problems as it fixed. Now the unit has reverted to loss of signal whenever the channel is changed and has to be restarted. Doing this deletes any markers set to change to programmes. If I am recording - I dare not change channel as I will invariably have to power off when signal is lost.

My advice is DO NOT buy Technosonic PVR if you value your sanity and your marriage.

TECHNOSONIC PVR-101

It is three months since this item was in Aldi stores and I grabbed one at the time. What do I feel about it now? It's not perfect but it was fantastic value for money. It has changed the way we watch TV and has proved a real asset.

As per the earlier review the good things are: -

Good picture.

Excellent recording ability.

Shift function works perfectly.

Fairly easy to use (wife still not fully competent).

Bad points: -

Dreadful remote layout (buttons all over the place).

BIG JOKE .. the pvr-101 is affected by ALL my other remotes! They either cause channel or volume changes.

Occasional "No Signal" appears which requires a mains switch off reboot.

This doesn't happen often enough to be a real pain and only happens when changing channels.

Digital display so small as to be useless but who needs it?

EPG may be dated but works ok. I record local news automatically every day.

I have one other problem, which may be due to the signal processing time of the LCD TV. If I connect the audio of the PVR to my HiFi there is a marked delay in the sound and therefore poor lip-synch. Its ok for music if the TV sound is off but unsatisfactory for plays and films etc. I have no simple audio out of the TV so I am stuck.

Despite the cons, all in all I am very happy with my bargain and only hope it continues to work happily for the next few years.

After using a Sky+ box recently, I was hooked on obtaining a freeview PVR (Personal Video Recorder). I already have a Sagem ITD 602 (see http://www.reviewcentre.com/reviews8692.html for reviews), and used a number of Goodmans/Ferguson Freeview boxes. I had seen the Technosonic PVR-101 advertised on the Aldi website, and I went to pick one up, and it had sold out.

So imagine my surprise when I picked one up five days ago!

For £99 you get a lot for your money, including twin tuners, 80GB hard drive, twin scart sockets with RGB, left & right audio out, 7 day EPG (Electronic Programme Guide) time shift function, multiple reminder function, and a few other functions which I will describe later.

Opening the box, the unit comes complete with remote, batteries and scart leads. The instruction manual is rather scant. The unit itself is rather sleek looking, measuring just over 5cm in height, in a silver finish and mirrored front. On the left hand side is a digital display showing the channel number, or time in standby mode. This brightness for the display can be altered.

Switching the unit on shows a very similar Goodmans user interface, asking if I want to scan for new channels, which took less than 5 minutes, which surprised me since I'm using a Slx 20db internal aerial. Picture quality is excellent and I'm receiving all freeview channels and digital radio (not DAB). The first thing you notice when operating the unit is how poor the remote control layout is. With the "menu" button situated on the bottom left hand corner and the toggle keys at the top, a more sensible layout would have been much more appreciated. Also the volume control on this unit is very poor, with little change in volume levels whether it was set to near the loudest or 1 bar before mute. I constantly have to adjust the TV remote to compensate.

The OSD, although adequate, is decidedly "first generation" with the EPG being somewhat erratic with regards to displaying a full 7/8 day EPG, which cuts out audio/video to just show the EPG. This problem could be due to my location (Harrow) and use of an indoor aerial, although going through the www.dtg.org.uk website, I found that I was being serviced by the Crystal Palace transmitter. A recent (2/1/06) over-the-air update to 1.1 firmware does not seem to have solved this problem, although "now and next" is functioning fully.

Still, on a positive note, the unit is supplied with an 80GB hard drive, which for this price bracket, is very good value. When the full EPG is available, recording or reminding yourself of a programme is a breeze. Although it might be wise to allow a few minutes extra to the beginning and the end of a programme in case it gets cut off - this has happened a few times. I believe that this is not the fault of the unit itself, since other owners of PVR's have noted the same issue. I am glad to state, that when recording or in play back mode, the unit is whisper quiet with no access noise.

Being that the unit has twin tuners, you can watch and record a programme on another channel at the same time, but you cannot record two programmes simultaneously. You can record and playback if you like.

Another good idea is the time shift function, which you can use to pause "live" TV and continue watching a little later. I haven't tried this function whilst recording from another channel though.

This unit also has a first, in that it has a 2 minute one touch fast forward button. This means, that on most programmes, if you tap it twice at the beginning of an ad break, you skip the whole of the ad's and continue watching with little interruption. Brilliant.

Access to interactive functions are extremely fast, with pages from either Teletext/Sky text/BBCi taking less than 2 seconds to load, with BBC News Multi-screen taking 6-7 seconds to fully load with no interference. Much faster than the Sagem model that I had.

Recently, I attached my Yamada DVX-6600 (http://www.reviewcentre.com/review147484.html) to the second scart socket. The picture quality was very good (x2 gold plated scart leads) with only a hint of noise. It was only when I put the Yamada onto standby mode that it seemed to have a conflict issue with continuous screen flickering, which only ceased when I switched the DVD player off completely.

Conclusion...

For the price, this is a good freeview PVR. There are a number of other products, including Ferguson FPVR1T and the Humax PVR9200T being some of the more popular models. The biggest let down for myself is the poor remote and volume controls. That said, I won't put anyone off from purchasing this model at this price. Some might be put off by there being no TUTV slot, but quite frankly, the channels are not worth paying for.

I am aware of some reviewers on other websites not giving a favourable review, but I'm going to stick my neck out and still recommend this product. It still performs, in essence, all functions, and any flaws can be fixed with future firmware updates.