While England fans were celebrating their team's 2-1 victory over Uruguay, the Shopper team were commiserating an undeserved draw. The error was due to Humax's Duovisio PVR-9200T, which had finished recording the match at the scheduled time, thereby missing the all-important winning goal. But excepting this one error, it's a great device that will dramatically improve your Freeview TV viewing.
Its silver casing is tasteful and should fit in well beneath your television. The rear has all the connections you'd expect from a decent Freeview box, including twin SCART sockets. It also has composite video and stereo phono outputs and an optical S/PDIF output with support for Dolby Digital. The front of the unit opens to reveal a USB connector and Common Interface slot, so you can upgrade the player to receive pay TV channels such as Top Up TV.
Inside is a 160GB hard disk, which provides storage for around 100 hours of recording. Twin tuners are provided so you can record one programme while watching another, or record two programmes at once. You can even watch a third programme while recording two others, as long as it's on the same digital multiplex of channels.
Scheduling recordings is simple. Just browse the well-laid out EPG to find the programme you want and then press a single button to schedule it. Unfortunately, there's no easy way of adding a few minutes to the end of a recording in case your programme overruns. You can do this in manual scheduling, but it then removes the scheduling icon from the EPG, which causes confusion. This is a minor oversight in an otherwise excellent interface. It's also a shame that you can't set the PVR-9200T to record an entire series, as you can with Sky+ and Media Center.
Pausing and rewinding live TV is well implemented, and the large remote is clearly laid out and labelled. Picture quality is high throughout, and recordings look identical to live TV. There's also a flexible picture-in-picture function, so you can keep an eye on the news or sport while watching your favourite show, though this doesn't work while watching recordings.
A USB port provides a limited connection to a PC, enabling you to transfer JPEG and MP3 files to the device's hard disk. However, its photo and audio interfaces are limited and make this little more than a gimmick. More useful is the ability to copy video from the Humax to your PC. The format is unusual, though, and you'll have to use a program such as VideoReDo, from www.videoredo.com, before you can play them on media players and other devices.
The Duovisio PVR-9200T is an excellent product that makes TV viewing more flexible. It is worth remembering, though, that most PCs contain a lot of this hardware already and that adding an inexpensive TV card may prove just as effective.
System Specifications
HARD DISK RECORDER 2x digital tuners, 160GB hard disk, RF input, 2x SCART, RF, composite, stereo phono, optical S/PDIF output, USB
Author: Seth Barton
Computer Shopper Online