PVRs - Freeview Receiver/Recorder

[Misky]

Please can someone help me? I finally bought one of those receivers so I can get more than five channels - I now receive all the freeview ones and it's great, but I bought a set that records onto a hard drive too. I've tried recording and it works, but it will only record the channel I'm watching! Is this normal? What's the point of that? Should I have bought a different one? When choosing it, the only difference between the two I was looking at was the other one had a "twin tuner". The girl in the shop said this meant nothing except it might tune in the channels a little quicker. So do all these sets work like that? And, I bought a separate lead so I could still tape onto video. The video will record, but I can't get it to play onto the screen - the display says it's playing back, but the picture doesn't show. Have I set it up wrong do you think? I hope someone out there can help me......

[Oneeyedvic]

The hard disc recorder that you have is similar to a video - it will only record one channel.

If you do want to record a second channel then you need the twin tuner model.

Not sure why you would want to record on video still? The point of a hard disc recorder is that it makes video redundant

[Misky]

Thanks for this - I wanted to record to the video tape, to pass to my mam, which is why I bought the extra cable. I was checking if it worked when I realised I couldn't view what had taped. So then I started to wonder if I'll be able to watch what I taped before I bought this set.....

If what you say is right, the girl who said twin tuning meant it tuned in a bit quicker was wrong, so I'll take the machine back and change it. I do only want to record one channel at a time, but if I'm watching BBC1, I might want to record BBC2, which was my point. Back to the shop I think!

Thanks very much for your help.

[Ethel]

A twin tuner has two channels - so you can watch one channel and record another.

With a single channel you can only record the channel you are watching.

If the video is going through your freeview - you will only be able to record that same channel.

To record, you need to set it manually t the AV channel the signal uses - mine is EXT2 - and make sure the freeview box is tuned in to the correct channel.

[Misky]

Thanks for that too Ethel - I've rang the place I bought it from and they have apologised for the duff info. I can change it whenever I like.