FUSION DIGIFUSION FVRT100 40GB HD REVIEW

It's now unusual to actually watch anything "live" any more and on the occasions that we do (assuming on a commercial channel) we tend to pause the channel, finish whatever else we were doing then sit down to watch about 5-10 minutes behind the live broadcast which means that when you get to the advert breaks you just fast forward (x32 or even x64) across them so you never have to watch an advert ever again.

Equally the ability to simply "pause" what you are watching when the mother-in-law calls at the crucial point in a crime thriller is just great, or rewind to hear that important clue again.

Then having two tuners so you can record and watch (including pause/rewind) or make two concurrent recordings is just so much better than the old VCR it makes it look like it was powered by steam!

The ONLY negative things I can think to say against the FVRT100 are:

1) the remote control is cheap, plasticky and inaccurate (and very directional)

2) the (non changeable) menu background is too gaudy. They should have given a choice (or just plain)

3) the 40GB in the "100" simply isn't enough. I mainly record 1.5 .. 2.5 hour films and you can only hold about 10 in the box (steer clear of compression modes it's well known to cause problems!). I archive the films out to DVD-R (in a Panasonic E55) but this involves manually starting playback as the Fusion has no "timed archive" function. The FVRT150 with 80GB (at Argos) is probably the better box these days as you'd really benefit from double the capacity (esp. if going on 2 weeks holiday!)

All in all, after years of buying every concievable gadget and piece of consumer electronics I can say without a doubt that the Fusion is simply the best piece of consumer electronics I've ever bought. In fact it was so good that in early February I got another one to give to my parents as a combined birthday present.

Can't recommend this highly enough.

If it were possible to award 6 stars I would!