In article .com, Mike
Pepper writes
I really like the idea of a hard disk - no more hunting round for a

blank tape with enough free space left; no more hunting round for
that
tape with the final episode of '24', which I know is there
somewhere -
but have some concerns...

I very much like the sound of the hard disk based systems too, but one
critiscm I have read is of excessive noise from the units, (presumably
fan noise and noise from the HDD itself). - Has anyone who owns such a
unit got any comments on this?


What you really, really, want is a head end that tunes the sat/
terrestrial signals whatever, that has an output over 10/100 ethernet
which puts all the necessary data on the "server" in the "racks room"
elsewhere in your house, then you can dump all the stuff you want to
record timeshift on there.

Then you "edit" what you want to archive, share etc, and burn that onto
a DVD which all in all gives you the best of both worlds. We've been
using a Manhattan Starlight 5900 satellite receiver for some non UK
programmes and this has a built in HD and the quality easily exceeds
VHS. The 160 G/B drive in that offers some 60 odd hours of video and or
sound and very nice is that too.

However this unit can't get the signal off the drive and thats where
some of the newer receivers are quite good such as IIRC the Keon or
similar sounding units from Germany that have the 10/100 streaming
connection. IIRC too the dreambox has this on, but all in all I think
that "architecture" of radio/TV viewing is about to develop along these
lines.

We have a 10/100 network here and we use that to distribute audio around
the house, the big server outside in the garage/shed carries all the
CD's and other audio which is just picked off as and when needed by
other user PC's round the gaff) Very similar as to how a local radio
station/studio works these days.....
--
Tony Sayer