Re Colins point, I definitely receive signals from other transmitters: Some Central from The Wrekin and occasional Welsh stuff. If I try to auto-tune on a bad Winter Hill day the others can tend to take over the 1,2,3, & 4 slots. There are a number of 800 slots in the setup. We'd certainly suggest you start your search here: the Humax PVR9300T hits all the right notes spec-wise, it's priced to succeed and, best of all, it performs to a very high standard. I must admit I haven't actually tried formatting the drive. I didn't want to lose any recorded programs but my father tells me there is nothing he is worried about losing so will try a reformat of the existing drive first before buying a replacement What a full format will do (that may be helpful) is to map out any marginal sectors; this is done by the disk controller firmware and so is a level below the file system and hence will persist when reformatted. However, there are restrictions – if you’re recording two channels on different multiplexes, then you can only watch a third channel if it’s on the same multiplex as one of the channels being recorded. But if you’re recording two channels on the same multiplex, then you can watch a third channel from any multiplex. It sounds complicated, but trust us, it’s a very useful feature.

When recording two channels on the same multiplex, you can also watch a third, but if the two recordings are on different multiplexes, the third channel is limited to the same multiplex as the other two. Yes. Fit the new drive, power the box up, it will notice the new drive and offer to format it; less than five seconds later the job will be done. Also onboard are two Freeview tuners that enable you to record one channel while watching another, or record two and watch a third. The rest of the feature list goes well beyond the norm. You can chop out sections of a recording using an editing tool that lets you enter start and stop points in real time, or split a recording in two. The picture-in-picture mode lets you watch two channels at the same time and even has its own set of controls on the remote. You get access to all the usual Freeview features including lightning fast digital text, MHEG support, favourite channel lists and subtitles, which can also be recorded. There are also four devilishly addictive games embedded in the firmware, which help pass the time when there’s nothing on TV. You're left with unofficial versions out of the goodness of people's hearts and no guarantee that the link is valid.Additionally, you can also watch a recording from the start while it’s still being recorded thanks to the Chase Play feature, or watch a previous recording while recording two channels. With the picture quality and ease of use of the award-winning PVR9200T, but with twice the hard-drive size, the addition of an HDMI output capable of delivering upscaled pictures to make the most of your flatscreen TVs, and some truly useful new recording options this new Humax would make a fantastic upgrade to an existing freeview box.

I've had my unit since about late 2011 and have never been able run a software update on it, the version showing is UPTTF 1.00.26 July 7 2011. Auto or manual updates do not work. I will concede that my solution is destructive of data but would argue that a PVR is inherently more about time-shift than it is about long term storage of masses of media. There are other methods significantly more appropriate for this task - including netflix! and iTunes So a better internal format utility and some built in maintenance routines would go a long way towards getting maximum value out of HDDs Ps I am aware of the warninsg about the open frame switching power supply so will be very careful when working on this box.Note: If your receiver is connected to a TV that does not support compressed audio using a HDMI cable, I have read on these forums about a command line utility which can run on Windows to copy recordings but ideally unless the drive is completely shot would like to copy them to the new drive. Is this fairly easy to do from a Linux live CD? The signal quality is often 100%. I do use manual tuning, I got the codes from Digital UK. Maybe I should re tune every week but surely that shouldn't be necessary. So perhaps if I bought the new model it might work better, although that is an expensive gamble. Also, do I simply remove, reformat and replace the drive, power up, reset to factory settings and go from there or do I somehow need to restore some software? E.g. where is the Loader stored? If on the disk, how do I restore it?

A bought this PVR four weeks ago and am pleased with its performance. However I have had a few mishaps, the system has frozen on three occasions and yesterday for the first time I had break up in a recorded programme. The latter may be due to signal strength because I've found the PVR wasn't using the best signal (for BBC1). There are a number of faults which can occur with these units. If you take them one at a time the ones that can be improved upon are doable with some guidance.An idea maybe is that since you can replay them is to get a HDMI splitter (example only) and connect the PVR to a TV and a PC via the splitter and then use a video capture card in the PC to copy and save the videos to maybe an external HDD connected to the PC. If you've got a Marcus easy-access savings account or cash ISA, you can easily boost your interest rate to 4.75% – here's how. Two tuners, of course means you can record two programmes at the same time, whilst watching another, or if using the aerial loop-through, you can still use the tuner in your TV. A word on warning on the loop through - if you turn on the "power saving in standby" feature, it will not pass the signal through very well, meaning some channels drop out.