3view HD Digital TV Recorder With 500GB HDD Set Top Box

The description for this PVR is misleading - currently there is no BBC iPlayer, Sky player or TV widgets. The box frequently crashes and locks up. The Freeview EPG can get corrupted so recordings can't be set. Scanning for channels can take 20 minutes or more or several rescans before finding the channels.

More seriously there seems to be a hardware issue which stops it receiving the Freeview HD channels from the Winter Hill transmitter - possibly because the box is made from plastic and there is no metal shielding around the tuners or the box.

Brilliant box if it worked like it should,constant crashing,constant freezing,time keeping out,either 1 hr slow or fast but never right,so when you want to record it records the programme before or after the one you want,epg wrong most of the time,none of the extras it says it has,i player,widgets ect,No Manual so work it out yourself,
SHAME as i had high hopes for this pvr and if worked as it should it would be with out doubt the best on the market,Just not right now.

Having looked at several other HD boxes available i decided to plump for the 3 view HD box after reading the T3 article which awarded it the Editors choice. Im not particularly tech savvy so the glowing review in T3 really gave me confidence in what i found to be a very complicated decision. I have to say that i am very impressed with my purchase. The set up was extremely easy, a simple plug and play with a set up wizard. The channels took about 3 mins to tune in and the picture quality is amazing. The Epg took a little bit of getting used to as i have been a sky customer for many years but its just because its a different layout. Once i was used to it i have found it simple to navigate and much more user friendly than the sky epg and record and playback settings are very simple..
The one difficulty i had was launching the bbc 1 player, however on calling the customer helpline i have been informed that the BBC introduced some additional amendments to the player just prior to launch which required some additional software development, and this should be online very soon.
Overall i am extremely happy with the product. My installation experience has been excellent, the picture quality and functionality is amazing and so far the customer support from 3 view has been re assuring.
Recommended.

Don't confuse this with a standard HD PVR. It is so much more, and the reason I purchased. It is a streaming media player (from NAS/PC), as well built-in I-Player, which is incredible-absolutely superb. It also has built in web-browser, unfortunately not flash enabled, but I understand they are working on their own version. This is a new BRITISH product, far more advanced than other similar products. Regular firmware upgrades have improved stability / performance dramatically. There are lots of other features also, some of which are useful, some of which not so (i.e. BBC news feeds, great, but a calculator? :) )It does not have built in Wi-Fi, but to be honest, this is not the best way to connect this type of HD streaming device anyway. I use Belkin Gb Powerlines - rock solid! The Sky-Player is due to be released shortly, which I eagerly await (enables Sky Anytime streaming subject to subscibed package) Highly recommended

There's no denying that there are still some issues to be resolved with this box, but for the time being it is doing nearly everything that I wanted in a reliable way.
As other reviewers have pointed out, viewers from Winter Hill (myself included) are having problems getting HD pictures - I know (from personal emails from their technical team) that this is something they will fix in an imminent firmware update. On the digitalspy forum viewers from other areas have perfect HD reception on the box, so it appears localised to Winter Hill. I'm confident they'll sort it out, though it would have been nice for this to have worked in the first place!!
Issues with corrupting EPGs have now been fixed (due to the Freeview EPG changing recently).
What I love about the box:-
- as a media hub, watching files on my TV across the network works perfectly (networked via a set of "home plugs")
- "wishlists" mean I'll never miss an F1 recording again!
- PVR interface handles conflicting programmes very well
- youtube works nicely
- picture quality is as expected
- all recordings have been perfect

What I know they're working on:-
- HD reception for Winter Hill
- bug with BST / GMT!
- iPlayer isn't yet released
- widgets aren't yet fully available

What I want them to work on / implement:-
- series linking via CRIDs rather than just trying to match the programme descriptions

Overall I'm happy with the box, and I know it will improve. I don't buy the fact that the box is made of plastic as being an issue - it means it fits better with my high gloss TV! And as far as the shielding of tuners is concerned, that certainly hasn't presented any actual issues to me that I'm aware of.

Matt