Home > Consumer Reviews > Sharp Digital TV Recorder with Twin Digital Tuner, 160 GB Hard Drive and PIP (Picture in Picture)

I bought this item after trying one or two other models and returning them. This one seems to work well. I have now had it for six months, put it through its paces, and whilst it has had some slight wobbles I think I understand them and can live with them.

For short-term record-and-watch, it is a major step forward from the VCR or DVD-R - far simpler to use, vastly more capable, better recording quality - giving you a well organised and labelled library of 80+ hours of your favourite TV for minimal effort. And at the typical price of say 120 to 150 quid, it avoids the need for a big investment in technology which will be improved-on still further over the next few years.

If you are looking for something like the sky-plus experience on freeview then this might be for you. It has twin digital tuners which will let you:
- record - or play - one channel, whilst ...
- playing another channel, or play a previous recording.

So long as you understand this limitation its a good piece of kit - it is enough for most people, most or all of the time. But:
- if your heart is set in recording two channels at once - when there's two good programmes on at the same time, and you are out for the evening - then this box will only record one of them.
- It will do picture in picture - nicely - eg you can change channels on the small picture or on the large oe, swap chanels, etc. However, you can't do P-i-P if you're recording something at the same time, because the box can do two things at once, but not three.

Things that work well:
- recording is a doddle. go in to the 7-day programme guide / EPG, highlight the programme you want, and press the red "record" button. that's it. programme is now shown underlined in red.
- pause /rewind / fast forward / slo-mo / record of live TV
- when it does a recording it saves the programme info too and you can control it to always pad the begining / end, eg 1min at the start / 3mins at the end.
- The 160gb hard disk does indeed hold 80-90 hours of programmes, picture quality and stability is good, the timer recording works reliably and you can set it to record daily / weekly)
- its pretty helpful re deleting old recordings automatically should you so desire - eg you can set it do delete oldest first, including/excluding unwatched recordings, you can protect individual recordings against deletion and/or viewing. you can see how much disk is free and how much is reqd for the recordings in the pipeline.
- setup is easy and the remote is well laid out, the manual and the menu system are simple, the onscreen colours aren't garish!

Biggest limitation:
- like other HDDs / PVRs, the box does freeze up occasionally, which can mess up recordings in progress (existing recordings are not affected). This seems to happen when the disk is full or very nearly full. It requires a switch-off at the socket, then power up again, and give it five minutes to reboot. I suspect that it can be prevented if you get into the habit of keeping at least 10% of the disk space free.

Minor limitations:
- whilst you can delete or hide channels, you can't reorder them.
- if you want to record part of a programme - eg due to something else overlapping with it - its quite tricky. you need to set one recording, save, then go and edit its timings, then set the other recording.
- if your disk gets full and you want to archive stuff off to DVD - this would need to be done via Scart lead and would be slow [a 1hr programme would take 1hr to archive].
- There's no socket for faster file transfer, or for using the hard disk as a backup for your home PC.

Hope this is helpful in making your choice.

I bought this back in March 2007 instead of taking out a SKy subscription. All was well until around August when it started recording the wrong channels when I tried to record the same thing each week on the same channel. Now it won't record a single programme never mind a series. I'm sure I'm doing something wrong, but I'm quite technically savvy, and having made a cursory search of the forums to find other people with the same problem, I've decided a shouldn't have to do this, and I've gone for BT Vision so we'll see if that's any better.

Apart from this recording problem, the EPG doesn't compare with the Sky equivalent in terms of usability, and seems to take a while to access the drive.

Hope this helps !

I have recently bought one of these boxes. It seems excellent recording both single programmes and series with one entry. It will either record two channels at the same time (great for conflicting programmes) or it will play back a recording while making another. To save the recordings long term you need to export them via a Scart to a DVD or video recorder. These can be grouped together so you can record 4 hours overnight if you want.

I bought this item in January 2008 and have found it very easy to use. It is a great improvement over video and can even record two channels at the same time, as long as you are not playing another channel simultaneously. However, it does freeze occasionally and has to be re-started.

A exellent machine that is very easy to set up and to use but can only be used on digital signals