Well, it had to happen eventually. I’ve done the full switch over of all my A/V equipment at home to digital formats.

Over the last few weeks I’ve been racking my brain over how long it’s been since I last used my SVHS video recorder for anything other than timeshifting programmes and worked out that it’s probably been about three years. Although the machine works perfectly, for time shifting it can be a bit of a pain if you’ve recorded a couple of programmes, looked at one or two at the beginning of the tape and then need to record another one at the end. I’ve been thinking, therefore, about getting a PVR for a while but I don’t want to be tied into Sky with Sky+, the DVD recorders weren’t flexible enough and degraded the quality to fit a number of hours into 4.7GB and the HDD recorders didn’t have a means to write the programmes off onto longer term storage.

However, last Sunday morning, as I was buying a Christmas present in Comet I noticed a new breed of PVR, a HDD based machine with a built in DVD recorder.. or is it the other way around?
Wibbling about DVRs