Wharfedale LP160DTR
The basics
The Wharfedale LP160DTR is a low-energy PVR with a 160GB hard drive for up to 80 hours of recording. It has twin tuners so you can record two channels at the same time, and a seven-day EPG. It measures 360x 278x56mm and has two SCART sockets.
The good
Hands up who wants to be entertained by well-endowed twins? This digital video recorder has twin tuners, letting you record two separate channels while you’re watching a recording (assuming you can find that much on Freeview worth taping). A healthy 160GB of memory can store up to 80 hours of telly, while a comprehensive seven-day EPG minimises the chance of accidentally surfing on to a channel showing anything with David Van Day. Forgetful viewers will appreciate the Sky+ style ‘series record’ function.
The bad
This is a bit weird – you can pause live TV on the Wharfedale but, unlike most Freeview DVRs, you can’t rewind it. There’s no upscaling or HDMI connections, either, just an aerial socket and a couple of Scart cables hanging out around the back like it’s the early 1990s. Which is handy if you want to download shows to your VCD player, I suppose. Image quality tends to the VHS side of standard def, too.
The bottom line
Not the perfect Freeview recorder but an easy way to stay on top of digital TV – and cheap enough that you won’t get too annoyed when you upgrade to High Definition in six months.
User comments (3)
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Tiger196915 May 2010
I own one of these machines and cant wait to toss it out of my 5th floor window and watch it smash into thousands of pieces on the ground. i have a bottle of Verve in the fridge just waiting to celebrate the moment in grand fashion. Functionality it has everything you need - twin turners, pause live telly, watch a recording while recording two programmes etc. its really good on this aspect...oh and its very quite. The down side? It sucks...basically. I am not a techy person so i cant explain in technical terms its faults but this is what it feels like to me. Most times it takes forever to display the TV listing, and freezes when pressing the next/previous page. I am forever turning it off and back on again to refresh its cashe (it may not be the cashe, but it feels something like this). About 25% of my recordings i cant not watch because recording jump, ie it misses every 5th second or so. Usually this happens on the recordings i really want to watch. Also, sometimes it freezes whilst watching a recording and flashes the same image over and over again. there is no way to reset the issue so i have to again turn the power off and back on again. this is really annoying especially when i am recording another show at the same time. I could go on with all the other issues it has but i am bored talking about it. All i can say is dont buy one. Buy a machine made my a quality developer. As my big sister all ways says, if you buy cheap you pay twice...or something like this.
Report as inappropriatedebbie19 May 2010
i have a virgin box downstairs but use the wharfedale one upstairs and i keeps not taping things for one reason of another and it keeps freezing, wish id never bought it.
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