Philips HDT8520 500GB PVR Freeview HD Digital Terrestrial Recorder

I personally think this is the best looking Freeview HD box on the market, it was what initially drawn me to it.After reading the mixed reviews I held back for a while, then started to find that the latest firmware has made this a very nice HD box.The things I like are:- Build quality and finish is 'A' Class.- Great panel display unit- Looks like a very high quality product- Huge capacity hard disk- Easy to use, menu's and and display are quite good and it's relatively easy to view everything with ease.- FunctionalityOnly negatives:- Volume on the remote doesn't work (Needs TV remote to operate Volume and I have a Philips TV)- No iplayer if you wanted it, although it has full Networking features.- No programme reminder option.

Philips HDT8520 500GB PVR Freeview HD Digital Terrestrial RecorderI have had one of these sets since 2010,and the sound and picture quality are outstanding,as is the reliability.This set was bought to compliment a new Philips TV without a T2 tuner on the understanding that Pace,the makers of this set would implement a series of updates including HDMI CEC,"Philips Easylink".They never have,and in several communications with both Philips and Pace,the "Easylink" facility is still greyed out on the menu.Pace flatly refuse to carry out their promise to offer an update to this set for HDMI CEC,therefore,I can't recommend this set to anyone with a modern T.V.who would find this feature vital.Look for another make because the HDT 8530 doesn't have this feature either.Hope this helps,nimrod 229

Had to return this within days, how very sad that such poor products as this are being pushed out as completed products. It problems included regular system crashes, very poor menu system, not at all user friendly, very noisy hard drive (Silent - yea right). Sorry but I can't find anythig good to say about this product. I have an 4 year old Goodmans Freeview PVR that I was hoping to replace with this product, but the apart from having a smaller hard drive the Goodmans product wins hands down in every other way. The whole feel of the product is of something that is only in production and should never have made it out to the public. The seller however was brilliant and could not be more helpfull.

Just purchased a refurbished model today. The setup was easy and the box found over 10 channels my freeview tv could not see. The picture quality on the HD channels is excellent and the same goes for the SD channels too. Have already had a chance to try the recording feature and it worked flawlessly, started right and the beginning of the program, recorded all the way to the end credits without any problems and I might add I couldn't even hear a hum from the box while recording really is silent.Only 2 reasons for 4 stars and not 5 is 1. looking at the Philips website it doesn't seem Philips/Pace are supporting this model with firmware updates since may 2011 and 1 feature I would of liked to seen changed with a firmware update is my second reason for 4 stars.2. You can't view the program guide while still watching your existing channel, it just cuts the channel off and takes you to the program guide.Apart from those 2 reasons which aren't a big deal to me I am extremely happy with this box. I can only think that people having all these issues are running on outdated firmware and need to update.Overall I think it's a great little sleek looking box that does its job brilliantly.

Chose this unit at the time for its write ups, have found the volume isn't very good and need to increase the volume on the TV rather than controlling it from this box. Also find that if link to HDMI splitter it affects the other units. So make sure it has it's own HDMI slot on your TV. Overall please with what this unit does and would recommend even with its faults.

Bit of a love hate affair. The unit went through a some rough patches when it became pretty much unusable, but later updates to the software have made it functional again, if not brilliant.

Being made by Pace I was expecting more from this product, the problem starts with the manual which really only gives the basics of recording programs, as it has two decoders it should be able to record two channels as long as you are not watching one but the manual does not explain this at all.Then there is the box itself, very good look but the the menu system has problems if you set it to record a program it will record that program again and again if repeated on other channels and then there are the lockups which need a reboot the problems is that it can take about 20 minutes before you can successfully reboot as trying to before brings even more problems.So all in all a very nice machine but with real prblems with function.

Excellent product. Simple to use and does everything it is described to do. These comments are based on mine which I bought over a year ago. Unfortunately I bought an identical one for my Mom recently which I received that had damaged packaging, something loose rattling round in it and didn't work. I've since brought a Panasonic from Curry's!