Humax PVR-8000T (80GB) review

During testing, we also encountered a couple of occasions where the box would miss the start of the programme by a minute or two -- you can select a whole programme, but it sticks rigidly to its scheduled timing so you may need to prolong it slightly. You also can't edit recordings once they've been made, which would be perhaps more important on a DVD recorder, but this device is meant as a scratchdisc for your programmes as opposed to a permanent storage. If this kind of functionality is important to you, it's a shame you can't network programmes across to your computer and convert them to DivX files -- this would be an extremely cool feature if you had a portable PVR and wanted to watch last night's news on the journey to work.

The remote control is a little bit cluttered, but it can be used to control your TV as well. This can be a little confusing at first, as you end up changing channels on your TV when you really want to do it on the PVR. Otherwise, it's very easy to navigate the various Freeview features -- digital text services are very quick to load, plus you can access the EPG while a recording is being made to hard drive. Thankfully, you can also call up detailed programme information on-screen, allowing you to see if you've seen that particular episode of The Simpsons already.

Performance
This particular Freeview box is one of the best we've seen at picking up channels, even from a weak signal. A lot of Freeview broadcasts are actually made at a low bit rate, and when you output via RGB Scart there can be a hell of a lot of artefacting on an LCD or plasma screen. When watching swimming, the result was actually unwatchable, as were any children's programmes with fast camera pans. Use a regular CRT, however, and the picture quality is fantastic. Colours are extremely vivid and the detail is the best we've seen from any set top box.

The recordings are also made directly from the MPEG2 broadcast, meaning picture and sound quality are flawless. You simply cannot tell the difference, and the fact that you can store 40 hours of footage on the hard drive means you could fit a whole series of 24 or Desperate Housewives on there.

What a shame, then, that there's no feature to automatically record every episode of the same series like Sky+ and Windows Media Centre offers. The dual tuner issue might sound slightly snobbish, but when you've used the box for a week you'll realise the frustration that such a limitation can cause. The Sky+ system allows you to watch one programme while recording another, or even record two programmes at once. If this is important to you, you might want to hold off for the Panasonic TU-CTH100, a dual tuner 80GB recorder that will launch in the spring for £280. The PVR-8000T meanwhile, is a superb idea that has been well implemented, but one that needs an upgrade to realise its potential.

Edited by: Mary Lojkine
Additional editing by: Nick Hide and Tom Espiner