If you have to purchase via the Panasonic website, then surely it is more practical to shop elsewhere on the web and save a few hundred pounds on the official price.

Besides, it doesn’t appear that Panasonic shops are that committed to selling Freesat recorders – or that there isn’t sufficient demand to warrant stocking them.

At anything more, just not worth it for me to get a slight improvement on the SD picture quality. I’ll be sticking with the Humax HDR for the foreseeable future failing a further serious price drop.

With the advent of hard disc recorders with USB -PVR out connections I have found it much cheaper (and reliable) just to use 2.5 inch HDD on a plug and play basic.

I have brought HDD of 160 GB for £39 that can be used over and over that can store up to 15 HD movies.

The only advantage that disc based system has is its ability to take a copy of a movie/programme and give it to someone else for viewing which is technically illegal.

Of course, the Oz unit works out rather pricier, but that often seems to be the case with some of their kit. A lot of people in the UK do tend to want things incredibly cheap (but with excellent quality); we’ve been spoiled by equipment subsidies historically. Look at the price of a twin satellite PVR from European stores, for example, or the unsubsidised list price of a Sky+ HD. Not that cheap, in fact. The Humax iCord ranges between €380 and just over €500 with a 250Gb hard drive – that’s over £320 starting price, for a box that’s then customised specifically for a smaller market with dedicated software, and actually sold for a fair bit less in the UK.

Of course I’d like things to be cheaper – but simply wishing that were so won’t make it the case. Some of these things do actually cost a fair bit to make, and surprisingly (as in the case of the iCord and some other kit) we actually already get them cheaper here than in many other countries. Freeview PVRs are cheap because they use an old technology (DVB-T, Mpeg2) that’s had over a decade to recover development costs, and lower licensing fees.

I’m also curious why Derek things rave reviews are “obligatory”

However the marketplace is again down to £790 – the price appears to move above and below £800 to no obvious pattern.

Sorry, can’t help the people who want it for £400…….

I would have thought that it would make more sense to price them below £799 (the old commercial trick of making it sound less), but perhaps someone does not like the discounting.

I particularly like the dealer on the marketplace who has them for £1047. I imagine the queue must be down the street.