Dear Ozbargainers, My friend would like to buy his wife the best PVR (easy to use, best program guide, loads of storage…) for her birthday. She's at home with a bub and they're not the super online sort of people.
What are currently the best ones? They were thinking Topfield, Strong, maybe TiVo… Thanks.
This is the only advice I could find that was fairly recent and from Oz: http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/digital-life-news/toss-up…
I have a Strong PVR and it has many 'quirks' to say the least. Next PVR I buy will be a Topfield or quality equivalent.
Tivo. All the other PVRs can do the same thing, but Tivo is so easy to use its worth it if you can get hold of one.
I had a Topfield HD set top box and it would regularly lock up, etc. Support from Topfield was non-existent so I'll be avoiding the brand from now on. Not to say their PVR is the same but my experience so far with them has been poor to say the least.
I've got a colleague who has a couple of Beyonwiz PVRs and he swears by the brand. Has had them for quite a few years now.
Depending on what broadband they have they could
Get fetch.tv
I got a Grundig and it's horrible.
I bought my parents a TiVo and despite being absolutely useless with all technology they haven't had a single problem with it. I have a Topfield due to my love of my old sd version and while it's perfectly acceptable I really wish I'd bought a 2nd TiVo for myself instead. It's such a shame they never really pushed them properly as they are quality.
beyonwiz dp-lite! Has been flawless for ~4 years now
I don't own one but Humax has won a Sound & Image award.
It comes in 500gb or 1tb.
http://www.icetv.com.au/store/PVRs/Humax_HDR7500T_500GB_PVR
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/1909749
Review - http://www.techguide.com.au/reviews/televisions/1235-humax-h…
I've got a Humax and its pretty good. I haven't tried out the networking functions for streaming or anything but so far has been pretty reliable.
Thanks for all the great answers, guys! I will pass on the info.
I've got a couple of TiVo's and they're great - my wife loves it and has no issues at all programming in everything she wants to watch. Unfortunately they're basically impossible to get brand new now, but if you tracked one down it's worth a purchase.