Review: Inverto IDL-7000T PVR

The Inverto IDL-7000T is a new twin-tuner Freeview PVR (Personal Video Recorder) that's been eagerly anticipated over recent weeks. Find out if the wait's been worth it in the world's first review!

Firstly though, let me lay my cards on the table: I have been a TiVo owner for nearly 3 years, and I set up this web site as a result of them stopping selling the units in the UK. I knew that one day my TiVo would fail, and I wanted an alternative. In my opinion, the TiVo software, packed with useful features yet at the same time superbly easy to use, is the benchmark against which all new-comers need to be measured. The advent of digital TV with it's higher quality pictures and extra channels has meant I ideally wanted something that could record two channels in the original broadcast quality (the TiVo has a single analogue TV tuner, and although it can accept an external input such as a Freeview/cable/satellite tuner, it is an analogue recording and loses some of the quality in the conversion process). Also, I pay TiVo 10 pounds a month subscription to receive the EPG (Electronic Programme Guide), without which it just becomes a plain digital video recorder, requiring me to set the times for recording manually. As Freeview transmits an EPG free of charge, a Freeview-based PVR should save me 120 pounds a year - not to be sniffed at!

The looks: The Inverto goes for a bold look: it's a plain white box with a black, rubberised panel on the top with "Inverto" on it in raised letters. It actually works far better than I had expected, with many people commenting on it's Apple Mac/iPodish feel. Sat in amongst my other gear, it doesn't look out of place. It has a standby button that's backlit in red when recording (quite funky!) and a large VFD (Vacuum Flourescent Display), with letters big enough to read from across the room while I am sat on the sofa. This VFD is well utilised, giving plenty of feedback. While watching live TV it displays the channel name. rewind through the live buffer or pause and resume playing live TV and it shows "Live - 23" if you are 23 minutes behind the live broadcast. If it's in standby and recording a programme for you, it scrolls "Recording:Desperate Housewives" (or whatever you are recording) across the display. At all times it lets you know what's going on.

The noise: When I first powered up the Inverto, I was met with fan noise, but after a few seconds the fan turned off and the unit has been near silent in operation since. The fan is turned on only if the temperature gets above it's normal operating temperature. I'm not sure what this magic number is, but in my house with the central heating on, it has never needed to run the fan. The only slight noise I have been able to discern is the hard disk while recording, and that's only by crouching down with my ear by the box - not a position I find myself in normally :) It's much, much quieter than the hard disk in my PC, and I can't hear a thing from across a silent living room. This is one of my vital criteria for a PVR, I just can't stand noisy equipment, and the Inverto passed with flying colours!

The connections: As you can see from the rear of the IDL-7000, it's a well-connected beast. We have (from left to right) the aerial connections (the external aerial cable goes into the first tuner, then a provided short patch cable takes it through to the second tuner, then you can feed the signal on to other devices), RS-232 data interface for updates etc., digital audio outputs (both coax and optical), video out (RGB + CVBS, composite, FBAS), audio outputs (L/R), S-VHS, TV Scart, VCR Scart and mains.

The features: The Inverto offers 40 hours of recording at Standard Play, 60 at Long Play and the feature set you would expect from a PVR.

Pause and rewind live TV (you can vary the size of the buffer up to 60 minutes). The playback speed can be from 1/4 to 64 times normal.

You can record two programmes while watching another you've already recorded, or record one while watching live TV.

Choose programmes from the in-built TV guide to record. The EPG is well layed out and while looking at a full evenings' listings on a channel, you can flip across the channels using the left/right arrow keys. The guide stays on the same time, so you can easily work out your evenings' entertainment. The guide is responsive and there are no noticeable pauses unless you go across the midnight boundary - in itself only noticeable because it's so quick the rest of the time. I have used some Freeview EPGs that are sluggish and a pain to use - not this one. Move the cursor onto your programme on the guide and press the record button - a red blob appears beside it and it gets added to your Record List. One thing here - this only schedules the Inverto to record this programme the one time; in order to make it record the programme weekly, you need to go into the Record List screen and change it from single to weekly. It would be nice to have the options available at the point you hit the record button.

You can set up the Inverto to add extra minutes on the front and back of recordings, to take account of programmes starting or finishing early. If you do this then it will default to adding these extra minutes to all your recordings. Alternatively, you can modify the recording start/end time on a per recording basis in the Record List Screen.

Once programmes are recorded, they appear in your Library. This is a listing of the programmes, and it automatically generates a series of thumbnails across the bottom of the screen at 5 minute intervals, so you scroll up and down the programmes, and left/right across the program thumbnails. It's a fancy feature that looks neat - I'm not sure how useful it is though! Note: I have found a use for this, although it's really because of a shortcoming that I need it. When watching a programme on my TiVo, I can back out at any time, and it remembers where I was in the programme. Next time I go to watch it, I can resume from the point I left off. The Inverto doesn't remember where I was, and I have to start from the beginning and manually forward to the point I was at. Hence the usefulness of the thumbnails every 5 minutes.

A correction to an earlier version of the review: chase play IS supported. It works differently from TiVo/Sky+ and the documentation I received didn't mention it. I was expecting the recording to appear in the Library as soon as it started, allowing it to be viewed before it was finished, however it doesn't appear there until the programme is complete. To view a recording in chase play mode, you just switch to the channel it is on and press the reverse button - the programme jumps from live to the beginning of the recording, and you can watch it from the start while it is still recording.

The Inverto also supports "retrospective" recording. i.e. if you have had one of the tuners on a particular channel, and hit the record button, it will retrieve as much of the programme as it has in it's buffer.

The Libray allows you to change a programme to Long Play (around 60 hours of Long Play recordings can be stored). This happens in the background while the Inverto is getting on with other things. The quality isn't noticeably different from Short Play. It would have been nice if you could set the SP/LP mode at the time you schedule the recording, as that would have saved another step to remember to do. One point to note is that the Inverto can record subtitles, but you can only convert non-subtitled programmes to Long Play. You can choose whether to record subtitles from one of the setup menus.

You can also choose to archive programmes from the Library screen. This simply plays the program back to your VCR so you can tape it. You can schedule this to happen any time, so set it up to work in the middle of the night if you like - another neat touch. On modern VCRs, the Inverto can use the SCART socket to turn the VCRs recording on and off.

One thing to mention - the picture quality is excellent. I normally use a Goodmans GDB3 Freeview tuner, and it's noticeably better than that. The Tuner screen is showing a Signal Strength of around 60% and a Signal Quality of around 80%.

The Inverto has PIP (Picture-In-Picture), so you can leave the current channel in a corner while you flip around the others. I'm not much of a channel flipper myself, but I know plenty of people who like to do this while the ads are on, and they would love to be able to see when their programme comes back on.

Inverto have said that they will issue any updates/upgrades via the Freeview OTA (Over The Air) broadcast system. i.e. they can send updates via the Freeview signal, and even if your box is in Standby it will turn on, download the updated software and restart itself. As easy a way of doing this as is possible, I think.

The manual (pre-release) that I currently have has obviously been written prior to the current software. There are quite a few features available that aren't covered. Speaking to Inverto, they are doing a complete re-write for the UK launch, and going by the effort I have seen them make so far, I would expect it to be well thought out and comprehensive. I shall be getting an updated one soon, and will let you know how it is.

Conclusion: The Inverto IDL-7000T is the best twin-tuner Freeview PVR I have seen. It was totally reliable in operation, with no lock-ups or missed recordings. Both the hardware and the software are well designed. However, the software isn't quite up to the useability standards of my TiVo. The really big thing that I miss is Season Passes (Series Links in Sky+ terms). On my TiVo, I can choose a programme by name, and the TiVo does the hard work of finding and recording it whenever it is on. I can also choose to ignore repeats. This is a liberating feature to have, as it means that it will record new series of that programme whenever they come on, something I can easily miss otherwise. Freeview PVRs cannot do this yet, as it requires extra information in the EPG that TiVo and Sky put in, that Freeview apparently does not carry, so the Inverto is no worse than all the other Freeview PVRs in this respect. It does try to make things as easy as possible within the limits of the Freeview EPG though, so thumbs up for trying. Now that hard disks are cheap, the Inverto gives you a useful capacity of 40 hours in standard play, and the responsiveness of the menus and EPG make it a pleasure to use.

The bottom line - would I say goodbye to my TiVo and have an Inverto? It's a very close call, but if I can discipline myself to look at what's coming up on TV instead of leaving it to my TiVo, yes, I could. As well as being able to record two channels of digital quality TV at once, I can save myself 120 pounds subscription a year. I will live with my Inverto IDL-7000T exclusively for the next couple of weeks and let you know how I get on. If it's a success, look out on ebay for my TiVo.

Screenshots of the Inverto IDL-7000T user interface are available here.

The Inverto is being listed for around £219.

If you want to know anything I haven't covered, or have any other questions, just add them here and I will do my best to answer you. I'll add some screenshots of the menus later today.