Another refugee; Sat or Freeview PVR?

alfablue

New Member
Hi I am a Topfield freeview PVR user since the very start!

I have had 3 machines, and upgraded and customised them, and done the dreaded capacitor replacement.They have served me well, and the toppy community has been great.

Unfortunately my HDMI equipped model has finally deceased, so I am left with the Scart only 5800. As I now have a new 50" Panny plasma and an Onkyo NR515 receiver I am considering getting a hummy. I have discounted YouView, but given that I have Sky (and 2 spare outputs from the LNB) and also a good Freeview signal that works fine on the Panny for HD channels, would I be better going for the Sat or Terrestrial hummy pvr?

(obviously I could upgrade to Sky HD but I don't want to pay £10 extra a month, and I like the extra recording capacity of a second PVR).

Your views will be appreciated!

Richard (alfablue)
 
Both the Humax Freesat and Freeview models have the benefit of Custom Firmware, although the Freeview has more packages available (See links), so if adding extra features is important, I think the freeview is ahead, The Freesat is capable of more Hi-Def content, although at present, I don't think it is ahead, I'm focussing on Hi-Def content because as you have sky-SD, I guess the Hi-Def content the main thing you would be gaining, as far as IPTV goes, Freeview has BBC-Iplayer, Internet radio, YouTube etc. , the Freesat version also has ITV-Player and twin scarts
 
Cheers Ezra

Yes HD recording is the main thing I am interested in, but I am most likely to record BBC channels, so maybe the Freeview box is the way to go. The TV (and the BluRay player) has iPlayer and Netflix etc.

Do you know of any other pro's or con's? What about their relative reliability? Is the picture quality on a par as far as you know?
 
I don't know of any winners or losers as far as reliability goes. As far as the Hi-def stuff is concerned, I don't think there is much difference in quality, both are now 1920X1080 pixels and although It has been said that the bit rate was better on Freesat, I am told that it has been reduced to bring it in line with Freeview
 
In your position (in fact I *was* in a similar position pre-DSO in my area) I would get a Freesat HD PVR to use alongside your existing Toppy PVR and so cover all the bases.
 
Back
Top