Review: Digitalview DVR-810
By Adam Turner | theage.com.au | 24 April
Digitalview DVR-810 video recorder
RRP: $1099 (320 GB) or $1299 (500 GB)
Rating: 3.5 out of 5
www.digitalview.com.au
With analog television in its death throes, this hard drive-based digital video recorder aims to replace your old video recorder. It is capable of recording two high-definition programs at once, as well as tricks such as pausing live television and ad skipping, but it doesn't have a DVD player. The 320 GB model holds up to 45 hours of HD or 110 hours of SD recordings.
The Digitalview is one of the more attractive DVRs we've seen, with a well-designed remote control and a gun-metal finish helping it to look at home among your other AV gear. It features a HDMI output for connecting to a high-definition television and the picture quality is as good as anything we've seen. It comes with a thorough user manual, but the interface lacks polish. This is not a PVR and lacks some of the features you'd would expect from a "personal" video recorder. It doesn't buffer what you're watching until you press pause, so while you can pause live TV, you can't rewind past that point. But when you press pause it creates a new recording, so if you change channel you don't lose what was in the buffer - an impressive feature most PVRs lack.
This model can access the free-to-air electronic program guide but is not compatible with online services such as IceTV. The EPG's onscreen layout is terrible - it's impossible to view the evening's schedule on one screen. You can select programs to record from the EPG but there's no way to search for your favourite shows and automatically record them. Nor can it automatically delete old recordings when the hard drive is full. This model does what it does well but for the price you could get a fully featured PVR from Topfield or Beyonwiz.
First published by TheAge.com.au on April 24 2008
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