[LINK] US going digital TV in 2009

[Paul Bolger]

> and i'm still waiting to see a PVR (Personal Video Recorder - a HD or
> SD set top box with a hard disc recorder) with an RJ-45 network port
> built in. the cheapest ones still cost over $400 these days, and some
> cost well over $1100...but they don't have a network port in them for
> transferring recordings to/from a PC (or for playing video, or mp3,
> files that happen to be stored on a PC).

Topfield, a Korean PVR have a number of models which all have USB-2
interfaces, two digital tuners - so you can record two channels of TV
and view a recording simultaneously. They also allow a HDD upgrade
with about the same difficulty as changing a desktop PC hard disk. One
model even has an 802.11g interface, although when transferring an
hour program to a computer via wireless it may be more like 'go grow
some coffee beans' than 'go and have a cup of coffee'.

I tried the PC DVB card option for a while, it worked ok, but was a
convoluted and labour intensive way of watching recorded programs. The
real advantage of the PVR is that you can watch a recording while it's
still happening. We tend to record the ABC from 1900 to midnight every
night and then watch the news followed by whatever's appealing.
Although I know it is possible to export the programs in practice
there's very little I would bother keeping.