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While recording TV has never been more popular, there are now so many different ways to do it. Sony wants you to use Freeview HD, which makes sense, because it sells Freeview HD PVRs. To this end, the company offers up two new models, the HDT500 and the HDT1000.
The two machines have the ability to record one channel while watching another, and series link for recording every episode of your favourite shows — neither of which are particularly Earth-shattering. As you would expect, the PVRs can also output 1080p, which will be upscaled from either 1080i or standard definition.
It may seem illogical, but the HDT500 has a 500GB hard drive. You won’t believe this, but the HDT1000 has a 1TB drive! Sony says the larger of the two models can record as much as 600 hours of standard-definition video or 250 hours of HD television. The lower capacity machine can record half as much — astonishing stuff.
Both PVRs have another trick up their sleeve too, if their capacious drives fill up, and you can’t get any more Big Fat Gypsy Weddings to fit, you can simply attach a USB storage device and make backups of your recordings. To watch them at a later date, connect the drive to the Sony again, and Bob’s your uncle. For reasons of preventing naughty piracy, those recordings won’t be viewable on your laptop or mobile phone.
To help you come to terms with this annoying rights management, Sony has included a photo slideshow feature. Simply pop your favourite snaps on an external USB memory stick and the PVRs will show them on your big-screen TV. And who doesn’t love photo slideshows? Certainly in the CNET UK offices barely a minute can go by without us throwing up a selection of photos we took on random nights out. Look! Rich has fallen over again!
Play.com suggests the 1TB model will cost £400 when it’s available in May. If that is the price, we suggest you might like to let out a disgruntled noise of some sort, because it seems very expensive. The same site also reckons the HDT1000 will have access to BBC iPlayer, however, which is much better news.
