Review: Nikkai Barebone Twin Tuner Freeview DTR digital video recorder

Digital video recorders, or DVRs, have recently made the move from expensive luxury products to affordable devices that are well under £100.

Nikkai has come up with a new and rather unusual version, though: this is a PVR that you have to finish yourself.

The name Barebone might remind some of the fiddly process of putting together many small form factor PCs, but in fact this recorder is a cinch to assemble.

After opening the access hatch, it’s simply a case of screwing a 3.5in IDE hard disk into place, connecting two cables and then closing the case.

After that, simply plug in your aerial, along with the rather strange external jumper that links the two TV tuners, and you’re ready to record.

The on-screen menus aren’t particularly pretty and the remote control is small and fiddly, but it does work reasonably well.

We managed to quickly pull up the electronic programme guide (EPG), choose a show to watch then set another to record.

The interface isn’t anywhere near as slick as that of Sky+, for example, but it will suffice for occasional TV viewers.

There are, however, two significant problems with this device. The first is noise: many desktop hard disks are noisy, and its slim case does little to dampen this.

When not in standby mode, the hard disk is always spinning, even if it’s not recording at the time. We also found that the constant high-pitched hum of our hard disk was enough to put us off watching TV. If you want to use it in the living room, you’ll need to carefully select a quiet hard disk.

What’s more, it’s not particularly good value. By the time you’ve added a hard disk you might as well simply take the easy route and buy Thompson’s Top-Up-TV Plus recorder for around £90.