Wintal Wonderland

Whisk this chic number off to the bedroom, writes Peter Familari

“The personal video recorder we'd take to the bedroom or living room has to be Wintal's ultra-compact PVR-X10 model.

The chic Wintal is a standard-definition digital set-top box and 80GB hard drive recorder.

The Wonder is how Wintal has crammed so much heady technology into such a small budget-priced package.

Indeed, the $399 PVR-X10 is about the size of a well-written paperback novel, neither too thin nor too large to be used in a bedroom, den or living room.

The core technology of the latest Wintal is software developed in Germany and customised to work without a glitch with Australian digital TV transmissions.

The built-in 80Gb hard drive is good for 28 hours of recording and is leap years ahead of a VCR in terms of user-friendliness and access speed.

Parking your favourite programs on the PVR-X10 is about as easy as pressing the single record button. That's it. And it's just as easy to simultaneously record and play back any program of your choice - great news for sports fans.

Other features carried by this PVR are 16:9 widescreen viewing, S-video via SCART, and S/PDIF digital audio for TV programs carrying 5.1 Dolby Digital surround sound.
The PVR-X10 also supports closed caption and Teletext and stores stations in a logical order.

Other natty features include "following" recording mode. Simply press a button to find out what's on telly next. When you know what's coming up, you can set the timer to automatically record that program when you're not there."

- Peter Familari