There are now 10 million Freeview boxes spread around 6 million UK homes,with Freeview's total number of households expected to overtake Sky's 8 million by the end of 2006.However,while 16 per cent of Sky's customers have a Sky personal video recorder (PVR) at the last count, hard-drive equipped Freeview recorders amount to only six percent of digital terrestrial products.That could soon change as Freeview PVRs shrink in price,such as this Astratec-branded box, which is sold in Comet for around £130.
If you read our April issue (305) you may have spotted the DigiFusion FVRT90 reviewed. You'll therefore work out from this picture that we're dealing with a 'clone'. In fact, the Astratec comes from a UK company, Access Devices, which makes the FVRT90 for DigiFusion.So while it might seem the shops are awash with Freeview PVRs,there are fewer variations than you think.
Like the DigiFusion, the PVRTU1 looks stylish with a large fluorescent display and main control buttons on the front. These are useful for playing Freeview's digital radio channels through a hi-fi as without needing to turn on your TV. Meanwhile a slot on the front takes a Top Up TV subscription card to receive a few extra channels, such as UK Gold and Eurosport. This gives the PVRTU1 a clear benefit over its DigiFusion FVRT90 doppelgänger.
Rear connections include two Scarts, one marked 'TV' and the other 'VCR'. The former can be switched in the menu to output S-video or RGB for a better picture quality (or composite if your TV is not compatible).The VCR output is composite only, so don't use this for linking to DVD recorders as the quality won't be as good as the 'TV' output. You also cannot get a digital TV picture from the PVR via its RF aerial output (it only passes on analogue aerial signals to the TV).
The PVR uses an 80GB hard disk, which can record up to 40 hours of TV. Another good thing about PVRs is the on-screen programme guide. In this case you get a full week's listings and it's easy to set programmes to record. You can also pause a current broadcast for up to an hour, or store it properly on the hard drive for viewing later. The live-TV buffer is not rolling constantly, however, which means you can't do your own instant replays whenever you like.
