The Nikkai Barebones Digital TV Recorder (PVR)

Yesterday, I finally decided to get a digital Freeview box, not only because of Christmas, and all the great programming associated with it, but also due to the impending UK Digital Switchover, and that, despite living in Central London, the analog TV signal to my apartment is pretty dreadful. To this end I succumbed to the charms of the selection of cheap digital tuners at Maplin Electronics.

Having originally seen the cheap £17.99 Nikkai single digital tuner & scart box in the shop window, I went in to grab that, and some other technological bits and pieces. In the end, I came out with, amongst other things, the Nikkai Barebones Digital TV Recorder (Model A52HF) for £39.99.

A Cheap Barebones Digital TV Recorder

At roughly twice the price of Nikkai’s simple, single scart, single digital tuner model, it comes with a lot more bells and whistles. For one, it has 2 tuners, so you can record and watch at the same time, it has 2 scart sockets so you can use the device in a chain of other devices, such as a DVD player and/or VCR. It benefits from digital audio output and serial data socket. And last but not least it benefits from an underbelly spot to slot in an IDE HD of up to 500GB for some 200 or so recording hours, but with or without which it will work.

The box itself s a sleek silver metal, with black plastic frontage and silver buttons. For anyone with other silver DVD and other media player cases, it will fit right in perfectly. For me it sits nicely next to a Nintendo Wii on top of a DVD/VCR Samsung box. What really sold the device, despite my better judgment to pre-read any reviews on the item, was that it was both cheap, and expandable. I loved the idea that I could grab a 200-300GB IDE drive that I have knocking about on my shelves and slot it in, and make use of an effectively obsolete device, merely switching it out with others when it is full, as well as the possibility of being able to access the recorded TV with VLC or some other media player on my Mac.

Great In Concept, Short on UI, Thought & Design

I had the device out of the box and set up in about 5 minutes. Needless to say, the construction and layout of sockets et al, are all as you would expect. and grabbing the drive and sticking it in was also as easy as pi.

That being said, once I sat down and pulled out the manual for a better understanding of the remote control and its various functions, I knew it was downhill from there.  Referring to the program schedule as an EPG might be manna from heaven to a programmers ears, but flies in the face of standard terminology.  The manual itself is nothing more than a few photocopied page slapped together (with care mind you), but beyond that, despite covering most details properly, they also miss out parts.

Overall, I find the layout of screens and the design of them, plus the processes via which to actually set up recordings and other functions a little amateurish, and the lack of some basic functionality, such as the ability to resume recorded programs where you left off, is just a little annoying, but this as it says on the box, a bare bones system, and it does as it says, if not just a little bit more.

Other things the A52HF by Nikkai lacks includes features such as a “series record” option to be able to record multiple episodes in the same series, the ability to record from anything other than the digital tuners it has onboard, the ability to transfer data off without taking out the HD and putting it into an external HD case, and last but no least, no HDMI socket for HD enabled screens.

Conclusion: By Programmers for Programmers

The Nikkei PVR is a great little package, even if it does have some serious flaws which would be enough to put others off. In my case though, for someone who watches little TV and needs a some flexibility, without expense, it does the trick, As previously said, if nothing else, it does what it says on the tin.

If you don’t mind bare bones and cheap, with little polish, and you have a spare 200-250GB IDE knocking about, I would recommend it. But if you have more money to spend and want a well polished product with more advanced features that are better laid out and polished up, then I would suggest you look elsewhere.

For more reviews, check out this review of the Nikkai A52HF Barebones PVR at Ciao, alterntively to see product specifications and more head over to the Nikkai product page at maplin.co.uk.