mm wrote:
The reason I care is the opposite of that. There are only two
DVDR-with-harddrives for sale in the US, and one is cheaper than the
one I have, which itself is inferior in design. The other may be
better or not. However there are other models for sale in Australia,
and probably other parts of the world. I want to buy one from
Australia and use it here.


What exactly do you want? Here in Israel you can buy a DVB-T set top
box for 300 NIS ($75 US) with one having been on sale a few weeks ago for
99 NIS.

It has a USB port, but no storage, which allows you to plug in a disk drive
or USB memory stick, and record off the air. If your program provider uses
the EPG (electronic programing guide) material, you can use it to set the
device to record the programs.

The recordings are raw MPEG TS (transport streams) files. Which you can
use a PC to convert to something useful. You have to unplug the drive from
the unit and plug it into your PC, there is no PC to device connection.

I think the devices are single threaded, you can only watch one program,
or record one program, or play one recording at a time.

You can also buy a USB tuner stick for 99 NIS that plugs into a PC and
lets you use the PC as a TV set or PVR. They all come with included software,
which IMHO sucks, you can buy a program off the internet called DVBViewer
which is pretty good for 15 euros. Note that you will need around a 2.6 gHz
(or the equivilant multi core) PC to properly decode and record 720P or better
video.

You just need to be careful that the device you are buying supports the
compression standard used for the video, besides the transmission standard.
Israel's service is very new, so they decided to use H.264 video encoding
and AAC (aka MP4a) audio encoding. Not all of the boxes on the market could
decode them nor some of the programs for the USB sticks.

Geoff.

--
Geoffrey S. Mendelson N3OWJ/4X1GM
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to misquote it.