The Humax Foxsat-HDR has some competition at last – but can Sagem's first Freesat+ PVR top it?

Decently priced Freeview+ recorder ready for Top Up TV

The Topfield SRP2100's look tells us to expect something different and we aren't disappointed. The convergence era has arrived

For what is a ‘budget’ Freeview Playback PVR, the GHD2521F2 looks surprisingly upmarket, with its mirror-finish, sensible array of front-panel controls and green LED channel display.

To date, taking a TV show with you to watch on a laptop or portable media device has meant downloading it (e.g. from iTunes) or else recording it using a TV card or capturing it from a set-top box on a computer and converting it to suit.

Having just acquired Philips’ set-top box division, UK receiver innovators Pace Micro are now amongst the world’s biggest suppliers of STBs. They produce standard- and high-def digital recorders as well as bread-and-butter TV boxes for the biggest pay-TV operators in the world.

Tiscali - formerly Homechoice - had been hitherto an exclusively broadband-based service, but it's now offering a combined Freeview and broadband PVR, with on-demand channels as well. It's partly practical; you can't get more than one broadband TV channel over Britain's lousy broadband connections, but Freeview covers most areas.

Topfield’s TF5800PVR was well received (we awarded it a Best Buy badge way back in Issue 298) and it is still available, so why would you opt to cash out an extra £150 or so on this new model?

The Thomson DTI 6300 is a well-specified Freeview PVR with two DVB tuners and a whopping 250GB hard drive. With curves at every corner, the box is styled to match the SkyHD unit. It uses pretty-much the same remote control design too.

One of the latest boxes with the all-important support for DVB-S2 and H.264 is the Vantage HD-7100S – the first HD satellite receiver with blind search that we’ve seen.  Other noteworthy features include HDMI and component hi-def outputs (to 1080i, with upscaling of standard-def ), two-slot CAM emulation, two CI slots, Ethernet and PVR upgradability via  USB or Serial-ATA (SATA).

The Archos TV+ is a flexible media streamer, even if one or two extra costs are needed for it to realise its full potential. Setup is a painful process and we failed to get it to do a lot of the things it was supposed to.

Freeview set-top boxes with built-in digital recorders have been around for a while from the likes of Humax and Sagem, but sales have never really taken off. Maybe that's because we've been loathe to give up on our VCRs

A 250GB hard-disk drive is a lot of memory for less than £200. Of course, you'll have to ponder how much of that 125hrs of recording space you actually need given that you're constantly freeing up space by deleting old recordings.

This is the third Sagem PVR we've reviewed in three years and long-term readers could be forgiven for thinking they've seen it all before.That's because three years on, Sagem has kept its latest batch of Freeview PVRs looking pretty much the same

Only recently launched amidst a fanfare of TV and print advertising, BT Vision is a 'hybrid' service which gives you a Freeview PVR that can also download TV shows and films via broadband

Let's face it, Top Up TV was never cool. With Sky subscribers watching brand-new episodes of 24, the idea of paying for a subscription to UKTV Style looked as enticing a proposition as the Last of the Summer Wine DVD boxset

Though BT hopes that its PVR will draw subscribers to its broadband service by the truckload, the silver V-box responsible for providing TV is basically a set-top box with 160GB hard drive and online capability.

Budget Freeview PVRs are two a penny (well, not literally) in supermarkets these days, typically offering slim specs to match the slender price tag. The Daewoo 9503T, however, proves the exception to the rule, packing in far more than we expected

This is not the last word in personal video recorders, but it comes pretty close. Drab in looks and without advanced features such as the editing of recordings, this twin-tuner Freeview PVR is, nevertheless, an advanced budget deck

BT believes that its BT Vision digital recorder is so clever, it'll bring subscribers to its broadband service in droves and help the telephony giant compete against Sky, which is already making inroads into BT's phone and broadband business

As is often the case with consumer electronics, cost is a big influence on the rate of adoption. Indeed, the price of digital TV recorders has fallen over the past year or so, meaning the benefits of tape-free recording are finally getting to the public

With digital switchover looming, the powers that be in charge of digital terrestrial TV have come up with a new badge for the AV industry: Freeview Playback. Put simply, it means that any kit sporting the logo can record TV programmes in a manner akin to the much-publicised and widely adored Sky+ box.

The growth of Freeview is attracting more manufacturers to digital TV products, from set-top boxes to iDTVs and hard drive recorders - also known as personal video recorders (PVRs). TVonics is based in Wales and has its roots in a former Sony project

Not to be confused with the previously reviewed satellite tuner-equipped model, at first glance this Freeview PVR seems like a cosmetic upgrade to the Inverto IDL-7000T, the biggest amendment being the ditching of the former 'iPod' white styling

The PVR160 is exclusive to Argos, and offers twin Freeview tuners and a 160GB hard disk that can hold around 77 hours of programmes. It's a less expensive model and this is reflected in the unit's drab design