"Keith G" wrote in message
...
"Keith G" wrote
I can feel and 'online purchase' coming on....
Done! Now, we'll see....
Meant to add the 49.99 price included shipping!
(Can't be bad! :-)
OK, bottom line is - it isn't! Not at the price, if you have a spare
(IDE) HDD kicking about - and less face it, who doesn't?
Initial impression is that it's plenty OK appearancewise for the money
and comes as a nice little bundle that even includes the screws to mount
the HDD which you will have to provide for it to become anything other
than a simple Digital STB. Fitting the HDD is a breeze but involves 10
screws altogether - making quick drive-swapping impossible. In the
unlikely event that someone would want to swap hard disks on a regular
basis (they are not recognised by my PC, at least) it would pay to let
the drive 'dangle' - possibly on extended leads.
I was disappointed at first how the thing worked - it is nothing like as
clever as the Tommy I had been used to using; the Nikkai is a simple
twin tuner device with one dedicated to PVR work, while the other
provides a TV signal. This means you can watch TV and 'pause/navigate'
the programme or you can record a programme and 'chase play' it (watch
while the prog is still recording) with full navigation options, but not
both - if you are recording one channel and watching another, you will
not really be able to do anything with the channel you are watching
other than pause it and lose time.
Once you (me) get into it a bit you find that it's not so bad - picture
and sound are quite impressive (picture is excellent) and the
menus/remote control pretty intuitive. The EPG is OK and onscreen info
isn't at all bad, but one PITA is that you have name your recordings
yourself (with a 'soft', onscreen keypad) otherwise it will only give
you station, date and time info. One signal advantage that I haven't
seen on another machine (or at least, have never yet discovered) is that
a button on the remote will allow you to toggle between 'DTV' and 'VCR'
which is effectively 'AV In' - this allows you to watch another source
(DVD or Tape) *through* the Nikkai which has to be on but which can be
doing other stuff like recording at the same time (I think) - very handy
for people whose telly has only the one scart, like mine!
Biggest ****er? - You can record/playback the radio stations just fine
but you can only pause them - you can't run backwards or forwards
(FF/REW) through the programme! Other niggles are minor (lurid,
single-colour orange display for example) but the fatal flaw, for me, is
that I can't pull the recordings off the HDD; that will have to continue
to be done from the Toppy we have here - whether or not the Nikkai gets
added to the heap of other Bright Ideas that I don't use after the
'honeymoon period' (and will eventually give away) remains to be seen!
Inasmuch as the Triumph petrol tank pic is coming from a DVDR in the
Pioneer, the whole story is pictographically depicted here, really - if
anyone is interested:
http://www.apah69.dsl.pipex.com/show/Nikkai-01.JPG
http://www.apah69.dsl.pipex.com/show/Nikkai-02.JPG
http://www.apah69.dsl.pipex.com/show/Nikkai-03.JPG
http://www.apah69.dsl.pipex.com/show/Nikkai-04.JPG
http://www.apah69.dsl.pipex.com/show/Nikkai-05.JPG
http://www.apah69.dsl.pipex.com/show/Nikkai-06.JPG
http://www.apah69.dsl.pipex.com/show/Nikkai-07.JPG
http://www.apah69.dsl.pipex.com/show/Nikkai-08.JPG
http://www.apah69.dsl.pipex.com/show/Nikkai-09.JPG
Now, who do I see at Maplins for my commission?