While the UK may be playing catch-up in the PVR stakes, the success of Freeview’s digital offering, and upcoming digital video recorders with ramped up features, bodes well for the country’s advanced moving image viewing.
Excerpt from: Guardian Unlimited | Online | From Sky+ to A+
FVRS100 Digital Video Recorder, which launches in April, pairs a Freeview decoder with a 40Gigabyte hard disk. Unlike similar products from Pace and Humax it features a programme guide that gives what’s on information for up to a week in advance. The Pace and Humax recorders, to say nothing of the other digital TV decoders, only say what is on now and what is coming next.
Another bonus is that for each programme it records it takes a screen grab every five minutes which it displays on the programme menu, enabling users to negotiate their way round individual programmes much faster than they can on a Sky unit. Users can also choose the quality levels they want for each recording, so they can store up to 60 hours of programming on the unit – 20 more than the Sky box.
Digifusion has a second model due later in the year that features a 120Gigabyte hard disk and some additional software tweaks.
