Freeview HD TV Set Top Box Recorder - August DVB400 - Watch Live, Schedule Over 8 Recordings, Play Pause Rewind in 1080p HDMI High Definition - Black

I bought this little box to watch the world cup matches in HD on my older 40 inch TV in the kitchen. I have to say installation was quick and easy and the quality of the HD pictures were excellent. The box is very small, only a little larger and fatter than an apple TV so I have it sat on top of my set (which is wall mounted). It shipped with the latest firmware (3.7) so no issues with lip sync. Also changing channels is snappy.I briefly tried out the time shift feature after plugging in a usb dongle, so I could pause and rewind live TV which works fine but there is a progress bar along the bottom of the screen while in this mode. I have not fully tested the record mode as yetThis item was ordered Friday and I requested Sunday delivery and it arrived on Sunday, so great service.I recommend this item if you want to get HD free view pictures. Some previous reviewers have mentioned the remote, which although is small it is perfectly functional. I have ordered a One For All Essence 3 remote so I only have one remote for my three devices (TV,August and Roku LT)At £34 this is great value and I highly recommend++updateOk so I have now tested the record feature. I set up to record the football on BBC1 HD for two hours and then record the news on BBC1 HD directly following. This worked perfectly, but my observation was that between recordings there is about a 10 sec gap while it ends the first recording and then counts down to start up the next. I have to say the recording quality is excellent and when played back on my TV and then on my iMac the image is superb. I should point out I used a usb hard drive for this test. I then put in a usb dongle and did test recordings with similar results, although over a shorter period of time due to the capacity on the usb dongle. To give you an idea of how much storage is used in HD recordings, the 2 hour 5 min recording came to 7.59 gigs. It was recorded as a single file with the file name BBC_ONE_HD-06182014-1959.mts. I should also point out that when recording has started you cannot adjust or add further recordings without stopping the current one. Considering this device is around £30 I think it is an outstanding piece of kit, all you need is a usb dongle or usb drive and you have a fully featured PVR, but for me I am happy to just use it for the excellent HD channels

I REALLY wish I could give this a 0 star rating! This is an awful little product, it is sluggish, needs to be retuned every week and the record function is embarrassing!I bought this for my grandma who still hasn’t got the internet or satellite TV! She already had a free view box that she could record programmes and set reminders from but this still worked off the SCART connection on her TV, I thought I’d get her one that she could could utilise her HDMI connection with, but I want to emphasise the fact that THIS BOX IS THE WORST THING IVE EVER BOUGHT FROM ANYWHERE!Just to summarise why...1) It took 2 attempts to programme the box initially, the first time it found 8 channels!2) When I finally got the channels to install, it takes the EPG (programme guide) around 5 minutes to load the channels3) The EPG itself is less advanced than a free view box I had 10 years ago, you have to change the channel to see what is on that particular channel4) The lag is ridiculous, this alone makes the box a waste of time, you press a button and nothing happens, press it again, still nothing, so you press again, this time after a few seconds it receives all 3 commands at the same time and you’ve skipped 3 channels; and so the process starts again...5) The ‘record’ function! This is not a function that this box should have! It hardly has the CPU power to run the EPG, try running the box while it records another programme! WASTE OF TIME!6) Just to top it off and to to put the final nail in the coffin for the box, it randomly decides to factory restore itself every week (the only thing that it does consistently!) meaning that you need to go through the whole process of retuning!These are only the 6 most frustrating things about this box! I will be returning!Don’t waste your money and I would strongly recommend that you disregard all reviews of this product that praise its performance.DO NOT BUY!!!!!

I find this to be a very useful product which works very well for me.I use it as a backup device to record channels in HD and SD which it does without any problem.However I must add that when I first bought the product I experienced what a couple of other people have mentioned here. I occasionally got that jittering stuttering effect on one or two HD channels. It tended to happen with text scrolling across the screen, and anything with fast motion in a highly detailed scene, which suggests an issue with high bitrates. However, that was when I first bought it. It's been fine since then. No problem at all since then and I've had it for over a year.Maybe it was a condensation problem due to setting it up straight after it was delivered? Maybe I needed to wear it in a bit? These are probably ill informed suggestions, but I have no idea. It would be nice to know what the original problem was so that other potential buyers would be better informed. But it's been working fine for me for over a year so I'm not complaining now.The HD image is very good. It records HD just fine too. However for best results when recording I'd advise using a high write speed memory stick or hard drive to record to.It could also be a better build too. It's a cheap and plasticky box with no airs and graces. But it's cheap. For what it is it's good value compared to other freeview HD recorders out there.The EPG isn't great either, that definitely needs to be improved upon. But as I said before, it's cheap, and on balance I'd say that you get more than what you pay for.I find it very useful backup device in my personal TV setup, however there is a newer model out now, the DVB 500 which may be worth looking at before deciding to purchase this one.