Set Top Boxes

Panasonic DMR-PWT520 PVR/Blu-ray player

The Panasonic DMR-PWT520 sits squarely in the middle of Panasonic’s set-top box line-up, flanked by the more basic DMR-HW220 and the premium DMR-BWT820. It’s got a Blu-ray player (but not a recorder) as well as a 500GB hard drive and Panasonic’s latest PVR user interface. Twin digital TV tuners means you can record one program while still channel-surfing.

Panasonic DMR-HW220 set top box

The Panasonic DMR-HW220 is basically a DMR-BWT820 Blu-ray recorder with the Blu-ray drive cut out. It’s much cheaper, and retains the high quality internal TV tuners and simple interface that we liked about the BWT820.

Panasonic DMR-BWT820 3D Blu-ray recorder

If you’ve just bought a shiny new TV, odds are you’ve thrown out the VCR with the old telly. Recording TV these days is a job best served by a personal video recorder, and the best format for watching movies is Blu-ray.

Topfield TRF-7170 PVR

The Topfield TRF-7170 is a unit that specialises in digital TV recording. It has two tuners and a 1TB hard drive, and it can record up to 4 program streams from two channels simultaneously. It's also one of the first units on the Australian market to support what Topfield calls "Intelligent Recording", which allows you to record an entire series with one simple recording action.

Humax HDR-7500T digital set-top box and PVR (500GB)

The Humax HDR-7500T is well worth your consideration if you're a TV tragic and video hoarder. It's a jack-of-all-trades set-top box and PVR device that allows you to watch and record free-to-air digital TV, as well as access content from YouTube and iView, and it can also stream content from servers on your network. Not only that, it will play content from USB hard drives and can even allow you to transfer recorded files onto external hard drives.

Panasonic DMR-PWT500 Blu-ray recorder

The Panasonic DMR-PWT500 fits a Blu-ray and DVD player into a personal video recorder with a HD tuner -- it’s like the Samsung BD-C8900, except with twin tuners. Like the BD-C8900 it’s quite stylish and has some nifty extra features, but you’re paying a premium for the convenience of having several functions in the one device.

Bush Freeview High Definition Set Top Box

The Bush Freeview High Definition Set Top Box is a digital TV receiver -- you hook it up to your old analog TV to receive digital TV broadcasts, so you don’t have to buy an entire new TV when analog TV switches off around Australia.

Grundig Freeview HD Set Top Box

The Grundig Freeview High Definition Set Top Box works quickly and is easy to use even for digital TV newcomers. It's simple and doesn't have any recording abilities since there's no USB host port or internal hard drive, so we think it's a little expensive. However, it's a foolproof way to upgrade your old TV to receive digital television now and in the future.

Topfield TRF-2400 Masterpiece HD PVR

The Topfield TRF-2400 Masterpiece HD PVR set-top box is almost identical to the Topfield TRF-2460 Masterpiece HD, except that it has a smaller capacity hard drive and it doesn't ship with a wireless dongle. All of the other features of the 2400 are the same as the 2460: it has two MPEG4 tuners, networking and streaming, and it can record up to four TV programs at once.

Grundig GSTB3111BR set top box with Blu-ray player

The Grundig GSTB3111BR set top box is a competent digital TV receiver that also incorporates a Blu-ray disc player and USB-based media player. It's reasonably cheap but doesn't have any significant flaws we could find -- for watching digital TV, playing Blu-ray movies and viewing the occasional photo or playing back a song it works just as advertised.