Freeview boxes ?

Humax.  No contest

Humax again, been using a Humax Freesat box for nearly nine years never missed a beat

+1 for the Humax.

I've had mine for four years now, completely reliable, does all the functions you've mentioned, and I assume the range has come on since I got mine.

Easy to set up, and generally, they're available in both Freesat and Freeview.

Well, a couple of years back I picked up a Panasonic DMR-PWT530 for a price that was hard to pass up. It combines a 500GB HDD, twin Freeview HD tuners and a Blu-ray player.  It was ideal to match up with the Panasonic 32" TV in the study.  The Freeview tuners are marginally crisper than the one in the TV, HDD playback is superb, as is the very fine blu-ray and DVD playback. It has a fan, but it's very quiet.  The UI is straightforward and simple to pick up - put it this way, I haven't had to open the manual yet, which is a good sign.  So far, very pleased indeed, and the integrated blu-ray player is a big bonus for keeping things simple.

Brilliant - i knew i could rely on the forum for answers. Humax seems to be favourite and the Panasonic options looks interesting too as i could ditch another box in the process. I'll investigate further 

Many thanks

James

I have a version of Richard's player which also records DVDs. The UI is clunky but it just works. We've also had various Humaxs. All have worked well and operated slickly until they developed bugs. Nothing a reset won't fix but they never ran for ever without locking up or going bonkers. The Panasonic exhibits no such behaviour.

I can confirm that so far the panasonic has never locked up or needed a re-boot, power cycle or reset.  Which, if you think about it, is quite remarkable really in this day and age.

+1 for Humax though I can only comment on on the freesat box. Its only drawback is the rather slow interface. It could do with a bit more cpu but the newer boxes are probably a bit snappier. Its been working well for four years though I did swap out the original 500Gb drive for a 1Tb disk.

Well, SWMBO has a 1TB Humax YouView PVR.  Never been any bother.

She also has a Panasonic 1TB VR.  Seems to constantly want to retune itself and has occasional "temper tantrums" when it won't receive BBC1 or BBC2.  I can only assume that the tuners inside it are less sensitive than those in the Humax.  SWMBO is a soap/reality addict, BTW, and often uses all 4 tuners to record!

I've think I've managed to cure the loss of BBC channels (you can see the Sutton Coldfield transmitter aerial if you stand on our roof!) by inserting an aerial booster into its supply.  Well - that seems to have worked for the last few weeks anyway.

I've had a Humax for about 4 years. It's ok, not great. The interface is pretty slow. My brother has a similar model to Richard's and is a lot better. When I get an old, I'll be buying a Panasonic.

Many thanks folks - plenty of food for thought. 

Cheers

James

During my last attempt to break away from Sky, back in January, I bought a Panasonic Smart HDD Freeview box. Unfortunately, apart from the fact that a couple of features it advertised weren't working on the model I got, the interface was pretty poor in comparison to Sky's, and the app. for it was truly dreadful. Back to Sky.

Dumped Sky last month and bought a Humax Freesat box for £220 or thereabouts. It does the job, and I like the HD & streaming. The interface is overly fussy/complicated - more style than substance; the Sky interface may be more basic, but it does the job despite not looking "pretty"

OTOH, it's not costing me £55 per month, for what was very modeat usage.

I think the Sky box is excellent, the price not so much.

We periodically call them and threaten to leave and usually get a discount.

We pay £15.20p a month for Sky HD. Not interested in sport, get movies through Netflix or Amazon Prime, but apart from those we get various extra channels as part of the deal. So far I've tried Humax (Freesat and Freeview) & the Panasonic but their interfaces and their usability are very poor in comparison to Sky. If you want a better deal, do what BigH47 suggests. Works for me too.