Some years ago we bought this PVR. It works with the UK Freeview which is a digital terrestrial system, i.e. not satellite. It handles HD and has two tuners so you could record two things at once. The 500GB drive would record plenty of shows. It's a Digital Stream DH8205U. Not a well known brand, but it has a loyal on-line following. Unfortunately it started playing up lately. It would take ages to turn on and then wouldn't always record. I guessed it could be an issue with the drive.
It's way out of warranty, so I had no qualms about slicing through this sticker.
The inside is pretty dusty, but that shouldn't affect how it works unless it overheats. It's good to see it uses a fairly standard SATA hard drive. Some devices use 2.5" drive that cost more. It is an AV drive that is designed for smooth streaming. I had a quick look on-line and found one for around £25. That's a lot less than a new PVR. They don't seem to have gotten much cheaper and don't even have much more storage.
When opening any mains powered device be careful around the power supply (on the right here). Capacitors can retain enough charge to give you a shock.
I had a previous PVR that used a 2.5" drive. It came with 20GB and I later upgraded it to 80GB! I think that gave us 40 hours of recording. I think we gave up on it as there were changes to Freeview that it didn't support. We have plenty to watch with the 100+ channels. We also have Netflix and other on-demand services now via the TV. The Digital Stream box doesn't do 'smart' TV. You can plug other drives into it to play media and back up recordings.
It does make me laugh when the images on Amazon show an open drive. It wouldn't last long without the cover.
I'll update you on how it goes with the new drive. Even if it's something else wrong it hasn't cost me much to try this.
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