TV Recorder HDD - mobile (Xvid or DivX)

[Spanamana]

Now I really don't know whether this exists, but here goes.

I have a Freecom 350 network streamer / hard drive which allows me to playback movies, audio and photo's either by streaming or from its own HDD. It's an awesome piece of equipment; however it does not record.

I have two DVD recorders (one Medion, the other Liteon) which work adequately. However, I have tried creating Xvids and / or DivXs from them but without success. I've used DVD Region + CSS free and various ripping tools but without success. What am I doing wrong?

The main question is: is there a portable hard disk solution available that I can use to record television programmes from the SCART socket on a Freeview or Sky box in Xvid or DivX format. Ideally it must have a timer function.

Told you it was a tall order. Anything out there?

G

[dave87]

Archos do what you want, model number varies by screen size & hard disk capacity, but they do a dock which fits all of their range, and does exactly what you want

[Zak33]

yup....Archos is ther kiddy for you

[Spanamana]

Just thought I'd update ypu people. i had a look around the internet and found this:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Zengo-Drive-...134632-0382347

I think this does what I need, as I don't need the playback facilities that the Archos gives and saves me some money.

I'll update this thread once I've had time to evaluate it.

G

[clown]

I look forward to your review. I see you can buy the device without hard disk for £60 so a very good price.

[Spanamana]

As I have said in my earlier posts I have now purchased a Zengo drive with a 400Gb hard drive. I have to confess that this box seemed too good to be true, but I went ahead with the purchase because a colleague had already bought one (nothing like using someone else for testing .

The box arrived and I opened it with great interest. The box contained the drive, power supply, remote control, instructions,two sets of video leads (3.5 inch plug one end and 3 phono's the other) and a USB lead. As a result, my next trip was down to ASDA who are selling phono to scart adapters at a third of the price of Argos.

Set up the box with the input coming from a Freeview box; just hit the record button and off it goes. Played it back and it was perfect; be aware though that this box will only record in 640 x 480, but thats fine for non hi-def recording. Hooked the box up to my laptop and the files played back via Windows Media Player without a problem (I use the ffdshow codec set for xvid).

I then tried recording using the timer. Having read the instructions and thrown them away as I couldn't read them due to the tears runiing down my face from laughing, I set about winging it. The first attempt result ended with a failure due to a peculiar input error. Tried a second time, same result. Mmm. At this point my wife had a brilliant idea, "perhaps it's because the USB cable is still connected to the laptop?". So I unplugged the USB cable and tried again and, yes you guessed it, it worked perfectly.

I have to say, in summary, that I'm very pleased with this little unit. It records well and plays back in a standard Xvid format. If your record is longer than an hour the machine uses multiple files to save the information. There is no way of naming the files in advance unfortunately, so it can be a bit confusing. The acquisition of some freeware file splitters and joiners solves this issue and also gives rudimentary editing options. This box is a lot cheaper than purchasing a Archos, but of course it does not have the convenience of a built in screen - but I don't need that anyway.

I would give this product 4 out of 5 because it is so badly let down by its manual, but apart from that, excellent value.

G