Thois might only be relevant to UK people but any help would be hugely appreciated.

Ok - so our trashy old VHS video recorder has finally packed in and its time to step into the digital age.

Im looking at getting a HDD recorder (records TV onto a Hard drive for those who dont know) but I can see only 2 sorts.

DVD Recorders with HDD - straight forward, I get it but dont really want another DVD player as it pushes the price up a bit.

The other option is a HDD recorder with a built in Freeview box - loads in Argos and for a good price but Im confused....

Do these things only record what is coming through the Freeview channels or can I plug in my NTL and record as I would with a normal video player (missing footie matches is getting a pain)

I dont want to waste my money on that if I can only record the freeview channels.

Are there just stand alone HDD recorders out there, if so where and how much?

Thanks for your help guys

Go skyplus and a DVD recorder best of both worlds because you can transfer from the skyplus to the DVD recorder if you reall wanna keep it.

mdiver said:

Cheers but I want to stick with NTL because its waaaay cheaper than Sky as teh price includes telephone line rentala nd broadband access.

I guess I'll just have to bite the bullet and buy a dvd recorder with HDD...sham cuz its about £100 more than teh freeview/HDD thing

mdiver said:

Yeah, whether or not you buy a HDD recorder, I'd still purchase a DVD Recorder - or a combined HDD Recorder.

It's just so easy to rip things to your PC from a DVD-R or DVD-RW.

If you do get any kind of DVD Recorder, I'd also invest in one with MPEG4 playback (DivX or Xvid).

I'd hold out on HD-DVD and Blu-Ray DVD for the time-being. It's too expensive and holographic storage is going to surpass it in the next few years anyway.

Justin1972UK said:

Number23 said:

Yes. It's mind-boggling. One holographic storage disc can store the equivalent of 64 DVDs.

http://pubs.logicalexpres...asp?ID=118

They don't spin around and they're transparent.

My Freeview box has a HDD. I love it! http://www.richersounds.c...A-TUCTH100

I've got a DVD Recorder that does it too and that works wonders transferring VHS to DVD: http://www.richersounds.c...NA-DMREH50

Ellie said:

But the freeview/HDD combo only records whats coming through teh Freeview box right? You ccant plug NTL through it with Sky Movies and Sky Sports etc.

I cant believe that there isnt a simple digital TV recorder out tehre which works liek a video recorder...its either got to be limite dto teh 30 free channels or have a DVD player in it (which I dont want to pay for as there are already1,2,3....7 in this house)

http://www.pvruk.co.uk/
Check out this site - they have a few HD recorders without dvd players that appear to be able to record other sources than just freeview..

EDIT>>scratch that - doesn't look like they will be able to record from ntl.
However, turns out that ntl is finally going to be releasing their own 3 tuner dvr box sometime this year as their reply to Sky+
http://www.digitalspy.co....25412.html
Problem with these type of systems from what I understand is that if you want to keep the recordings/transfer to dvdr/pc you need a hardware hack to do it digitally, or you are stuck with an analogue transfer.
I'd say just buy a dvd/hd combo unit, or if you really don't want another dvd player build yourself a nice pvr based pc mediacentre and get ready for the HiDef revolution. It'll cost more but will be much more fun if you are a tech head.
[Edited 8/8/06 10:53am]