:: W4B photography's companion blog ::

:: Friday, October 15, 2004 ::

PVR
Home entertainment Geek Alert: Went to Roger's at Wellington and Commissioners here in London and rented a SA8000 PVR from them. didn't get to impress the sales person behind the counter. Was rather non-plussed at my questions. Think bored government worker at a UI or passport office. I knew the technobabble in my head would have been wasted so I signed on the dotted for 20$ month and brought the beast home. Simple set up. Like a VCR, except this one set it's own time. If my TV had an S-Video cable I would use that interface. I found I have a couple of them in my bag of cables I accumulated over the years in the trunk of my car from working for Rogers.

Straight forward coax cable-in cable-out hook up and within half an hour (which the instructions say you have to wait) I was looking at the preview channel. I poked around a bit, and when my thumbs found the buttons I needed and so on I was able to use the digital side of things pretty easy.

Now for the PVR side. It is very impressive. Digital clear recordings. Find something on the program guide, select it and you are done. Heck, record two things at the same time. And if you are watching a show it stores it in a buffer so that it and the balance of the show could be kept as a full recording - from the time you started to watch till the end -I tried it with ScreenSavers on Tech TV. Just hit record and on the menu screen it confirmed the program and that was it. No end time or anything. Great when heading out the door. First program recorded in an unattended let's see what happens fashion was Friends.

I later digitized (that's what I am trying out as a verb instead of 'taped') CSI and The Apprentice that were on at the same time. So far, quite impressed. I know it is simply in concept a better VCR, but I'd like to see a VCR pause a live program.

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 01:23 [+] :: 0 comments
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