A Freeview PVR should offer Sky+ like features as that is the demand of more and more sophisticated users who are demanding more of the free to air terrestrial platform. Like Sky+ users want an EPG or electronic programme guide that lists programmes with their synopsis at least 7 days in advance (preferably 14) enabling users to scan through and tag programmes for recording.

The Sony SVR-S500 is Sony's answer to the challenge, they have previously made standard Set-top boxes without a record function and also a rather good range of Freeview enabled HDD and DVD recorders, so we had high hopes for this model. The unit is about the size of a slim line DVD player, it's bigger than your average Freeview box but looks great under the TV or as part of your HiFi stack, Sony always style their kit well and the S500 is no exception.

Set-up was fairly simple with the SVT S500 taking the RF cable input and then producing 2 SCART outputs enabling you to feed it to both a TV / LCD screen and a VCR or other display device. Soon we had the device up and running and much to our surprise the on screen display was not the same as the higher DVDR / HDD models instead the whole thing seemed a bit low rent!

Pushing buttons seemed to incur a 3 second display before anything happens and moving though the EPG bordered on painful. After a few minutes of getting gradually more disillusioned we decided to make a recording by tagging a programme on BBC One that was due to start in 5 minutes. Dutifully the PVR sprang into life and recorded the programme in its entirety displaying the resulting file with a thumbnail and the EPG synopsis in the library. During the recording we were able to view other Freeview channels using the 2nd tuner and we could have made a second simultaneous recording.

Replay quality is excellent in any of the record modes which are equivalent to the old VHS standards SP (Short Play), LP (Long Play), EP (Extended Play), in order to make the most of the 80gb disk you need to use EP which should give you just under 75 hours of recordings.

Weirdly we couldn't see the difference between EP and SP at all, however after a few days use we accidentally viewed a programme recorded several days earlier and much to our horror the image quality seemed to have degraded? How can this be it's a digital system after all? Well it seems that the Sony SVR-S500 record everything in SP (hence our first impressions) and then when it's not busy it recompresses the EP recordings to a smaller size! The resulting concatenation makes the images pretty poor and made us switch to making all recordings in SP meaning only room for about 20 hours of programmes.

Then we had a bun fight with the EPG, it's not fair to blame Sony for the lack of series linking in the Freeview EPG, so don't expect and Freeview PVR to have this, therefore you can't leave the box to record all episodes of your favourite soap. Instead you have to hunt through the EPG and tag them, well if we could! It seems that the box just slows down to a crawl as you try to browse beyond today's listings and we never even got close to 7 days let alone the claimed 14 days.

So programme look good when we record them in SP only and it's a fight to schedule them but at least the package is well built and whisper quiet!  Ah, well sorry guys this has to be the nosiest under TV gadget we've ever tested, when the HDD is spinning the whole unit vibrates and whistles, it's as if the area under your telly has been commandeered by the Americans as a military air base. It's not even quite when you are just watching a Freeview channel without recording.

This is probably due to the facility to rewind live TV, which means that one tuner is normally recording what you are watching so you can spool it back. Even when in standby it makes noise, probably as it squashes your nice SP video into EP Poo!

After 3 days with the Sony Freeview PVR we just couldn't believe that this is a Sony product, sure it has the badge (and the price tag) but that's about all that is Sony. With a little research we found that this model is in fact a rebadged Digifusion DVR (the FVRT200)and not made by Sony at all!

At last something that made sense, it seems Sony have opted for this route to get something on sale now rather than use their own technology deployed in the DVDR machines. Priced at around £230 this is a very expensive re badge of a much cheaper and poorer unit. We advise you sit tight and wait for a real Sony Freeview PVR or take a look at the units from Humax rather than spend money on this noisy, slow, poor quality fake.

More Sony Reviews

Published - 12/08/2006

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