Digifusion: FVRT100

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Joy, Norwich on April 9th, 2008
I have had a FVRT100 for a few years and absolutely love it compared to VCR except like most people it regularly seems to have so many glitches. The latest is that it has wiped my library but it now shows programmes which were recorded in November 2006 and have long since been deleted! The programmes aren't actually there but the library lists them as if they are. This is the weirdest glitch so far. Anyone else experienced this?

Dave, Gateshead on March 4th, 2008
best thing i ever bought replaced power unit apart from that not apick of bother over 3yrs old now

Alan, Tewkesbury on December 6th, 2007
Had been wondering why this machine was getting so much critical comment - until the dreaded Hold appeared on mine after 2 years. Changed power supply, etc but can't get it to respond. Shame because, apart from small capacity of disk and the occasional annoyingly loud "pop" when it is switched on, it has been great up to now....

Chris, Croydon, Surrey on August 8th, 2007
Had my FVRT100 for 3 years now. Initial problems were solved by overnight software upgrades and getting Digidave power supply. Now works perfectly, an absolute dream to use. Will be getting one for my girlfriend. Will probably upgrade hard drive in mine to 120 Gb - easy to do.

Heather, Lancs on July 20th, 2007
Lasted about a year... kept crashing then blew up... good when it works then the world's most annoying thing.

Chris, Scotland on July 14th, 2007
Don't buy - even the refurbished units being sold today still have the freezing problem and eventually cannot be reset. I've had to return two units with the same problem and have now asked for a full refund.

C Jones, Warrington on April 23rd, 2007
Mine kept crashing and freezing. I keep getting the EP9 error everyday and need to power on and off before I can get started. Total waste of time and money.

Stuart A, Drongan on April 10th, 2007
Many thanks to those who contributed to this site. I have had a FVRT100 for about 14 months. From new, I got the EP9 message, and was advised that this was a software problem exacerbated if the machine was trying to compress a recording when the EPG was being broadcast (approx 3am) as the unit records on SP then takes up to 3 hours to compress the recording to LP. I was advised that this would be cured with an imminent software upgrade. As the problem persisted after the software upgrade, I was then advised that the problem was my aerial as the machine needs a signal greater than 50% and preferably more than 60%. My signal strength through a high gain aerial is 65%, but I checked out the aerial anyway. I found a faulty connecter at the aerial splitter/amplifier which when fixed made no difference to the signal strength, but cured the "freezing" that was present on our 3 other Freeview receivers. The EP9 persisted and progressed from a couple of times a month to the point where it occurred almost every day. To get rid of this and get working again the machine needed unplugging and reconnecting. Finally the machine would not restart and the hold message appeared on the display. I followed Digifusions advice of holding the two right buttons (programme down and on/off) for 15 seconds then waiting ten minutes. This worked about three times then the set died. Following advice seen on this site, I powered up using my golf trolley battery, and (touch wood) the set appears to be working again and so far no EP9.

Glen, Northumberland on April 10th, 2007
"Hold", "hold", "hold" - do you like this word? If not, don't buy one of these. This word is forever appearing on the control panel of mine. No mention at all of this in the manual. Found this site & purchased a new updated PSU, which helped for a while, but today, we are back to the old problem of a locked system, no T.V and the dreaded word "Hold" seemingly permanently on the display. The usual only way out of this is to unplug & restart the whole thing. Today, even that’s not working! It’s a shame as when it's working it is a good system and we like it, but if I never see the word "Hold" again, it will be a blessing. The machine seems to do some defragging/self maintenance in the early hours 9wakes you up if you've dozed off on the setee), and its then that it seems to occasionally confuse itself and get stuck on "Hold". All is fine when you go to bed, but when you get up in the morning, no T.V.

Austin, Stirling on March 6th, 2007
Bought mine for £80 off eBay and had it for around 2 years now. Replaced the power supply soon after purchase. Have to say that it's been reliable and heavily used. Locked up twice in the time I've had it which is much less than the Sky+ I had previously. Would buy another DigiFusion product.

A Campb, UK on February 27th, 2007
Having used this product for 12 months, I would not make another purchase from Fusion Digitech. I have had one or two small problems but the main one has been with the actual power supply. In a period of 12 months, the power supply unit has burnt out twice. Having contacted the company yet again, I was told that the unit was only guaranteed for a period of 3 months. On making a third purchase and finding it to be faulty, I returned the product to the company, who would not send out a replacement until they had received it. It did not arrive! After getting really frustrated I decided to go elsewhere. The company would not refund my money. They stated that the product was not faulty and were trying to charge me £10 for putting the part back into their system. I had no alternative but to pay postage yet again and accept a third part.

Steve, Reading on February 16th, 2007
I would like to upgrade the hard disk on my FVRT150, can anybody tell me if you need to format the new disk before installing?

Les, Cleveland on February 5th, 2007
Reliability is terrible - one broke after 15 months and a reconditioned model (£50) lasted less than 9 months - but the concept is brilliant and my wife is lost without it. Its the one video recorder she can actually operate successfully.

Martin, Plymouth on February 5th, 2007
Had an FVRT100 since Dec 2004. Had one power supply failure but now the box has ceased to work at all. The display said oHD when it died and i suspect that the hard drive has gone. Does anyone know if i can just replace the HDD??

Chris Gibbs, St Albans on February 2nd, 2007
I have had an FVTR100 for about 18 months and thought I was alone with my problems. I lost my original receipt so could not return to makers when it first started crashing, consequently I have stuck with buying a new £40 power supply and constant resets. Despite the same problems as everyone else it's a great machine - some of the time! It can easily be upgraded with a new hard drive (7200rpm ATA133 160Gb £37) and the addition of a new fan on the hard drive and an extra heat sink and fan (£7.99) on the large square processor has radically reduced the lock-up problems caused by constant overheating. It's now more reliable but needs the occasional reset - don’t really know why?

Malc, TV on January 28th, 2007
Had two of these, neither of which outlasted the warranty period. When they worked thay were ok, but the odd freeze turned to crashing then to complete lockup. Now have a Goodmans which is quicker, has simpler and better organised menus, twice the disk space and was 20% cheaper

Lazz, Nottm on January 12th, 2007
I have this unit and have had it replaced within a few months of purchase. Not a very good picture and keeps freezing and having to be re set, the replacement does the same, don’t recommend this box to anyone.

Frankie, Durham City on January 11th, 2007
Remote control buttons rubbery & sometimes unresponsive. Power supply unit failed after 9 months, symptoms are box sometimes not starting up + box freezes (the one supplied is only 2 watts) Got a 3 watt one from Maplin and all ok now. Good picture even with poor aerial signal. Overall does a good job.

Steve, Sittingbourne on January 9th, 2007
bought fvrt100 after reading reviews in whathifi magazine draded hold came up 13months after purchase contacted digifussion anything upto 18 months old they will replace with a referbished model (plenty of them around) as long as you have receipt.hope this one is more reliable. check out sonys new pvr.

Geoff Townley - Fareham on January 8th, 2007
A must for anyone serious about PVR's

Andy Jones, Staffs on January 3rd, 2007
I've had a FVRT 150 for a little over a year, before that I had a FVRT 100 which was returned due to the ever present software issues. I've just experienced the power supply problem and after reading this forum yesterday and successfully phoning the help line, I managed to get the unit powered up last night. I used a motorcycle battery linked to a battery charger and a multimeter to measure the current. For those techies amongst you I measured between 2.5 and 3.6 Amps during normal operation and each time I went into standby this dropped by just 0.2 Amps. Digifusion have offered me a free replacement power supply rated at 2Amps if I can provide a receipt - even if outside warranty. However they recommend that if I can't find the receipt I buy a replacement rated at 5 Amps! That say's it all to me - they know there is a problem, and I suspect that it will cost them a lot to up spec the transformers on new units. I conclusion - I love this unit! I've tried the competion when my FVRT100 first went down and I could find no other unit that had the same ease of recording for the price. My advice to you if you are thinking about buying one of these units is to start by buying the more powerful supply available on line and don't risk any damage by using the power supply delivered with the unit. Incidentally, when my power supply went down on 29th Dec 2006 it tripped my house fuse box whixh in turn turned of my freezer so when I got home on New Years day just imagine the chaos!

David, Worthing on January 2nd, 2007
When it was working the FVRT 100 was fine - no problems with recording or playback. But it froze from time to time and eventually the adapter plug burned out. Reading this forum I discovered this was common because the supplied adapter was under-powered, so bought a new one from Digidave (excellent service - quick and cheap) since the warranty was out. It's gone on for another three months but now has the permanent hold message and even the specialised instructions from Digifusion haven't fixed it (Power off at mains, hold in the two buttons to the right on the front of the machine for ten seconds after turning the mains back on). I'm going to get a different box. The sheer volume of these faults, as shown on this board, is shameful. I will never buy another Digifusion product.

Joe Wilson on December 26th, 2006
My son's FVRT 200 started locking up over Christmas. Being competent sort of person I took it in bits and found a lot of dust stuck to the underside of the hard disk, blown onto it by the fan, I hoovered it of and hey presto it works. Hope this helps someone.

Eric Julian Leeds on December 19th, 2006
Yes kept freezing repower then ok for a while, one day appeared not to respond to handset, it was just slow, up to 4 minutes to respond to a command, Library showed no recordings, managed to get into(slowly!)Menu > Setup > Technical Information, and pressed Red button to reformat Hard disk, it then searched for stations and worked fine, AN APPARENT DEAD LOCKUP COULD JUST BE A SLOW RESPONSE Cured by a Reformat of the HDD

michael cooper on December 3rd, 2006
My digifusion fvrt100 was found to have the hold message in the display after going on the internet & googled it informed me it could be the power supply ordered a new one tried it out still the digibox stayed on hold any helpers? or is it time to move to another box?

Alice, Oxon on November 14th, 2006
Had the Digifusion FVRT 100 for some months now and have been very pleased with it. However, I fiddled with the scart lead in order to connect the DVD player, and now cannot get a colour picture. Everything works as well as ever, but the picture is in shades of grey with touches of the opposite colour, eg green blood! I remember reading somewhere that the solution is to switch it off overnight, but this hasn't had any effect. Any suggestions?

Dom, Berkhamsted on November 11th, 2006
I've had no problems since a power supply change from Digifusion...2.3v to 5v or similar but does anybody know what spec of hard dive I can get cause I want to upgrade and store more stuff.

Steve, BEDFORD on October 29th, 2006
My DVT100 has been reliable for over a year. Occasionally freezes but a power cycle reboot fixes it. The only gripe is why can’t techie users download the recorded programs through the Serial port? What is the internal OS is it Linux based?

tony, london on October 24th, 2006
great convenience let down by poor reliability

Charlie, Essex on October 5th, 2006
Have had a 100 for a while (two years), and it's been dead for most of that time. I read elsewhere about the power supply issue and tested mine and can confirm 2A draw. I replaced the original with a proper £36 5A capable supply from RS and Lo, it lives... Haven't had a library loss since changing the supply, and all my previous recordings have emerged from the gloom. The user interface is awful. The reliability is awful. The remote is awful. But the idea is essentially good; shame about the execution.

Dave H, Southampton on September 23rd, 2006
My daughter has one of these Digifusion FVRT 100 gizmo's. The unit locked up and refused to boot, displaying 'hold' for several days then went 'dead'!. I deduced that the switch mode PSU had become US... only measuring .6 of a volt! I repowered the unit with a commercial engineers test PSU sporting a volt and ampmeter. This enabled the device to reboot after I held the two left panel buttons on power up for 10 seconds. To my suprise this unit draws 2 amps (current) @ 12 volts. This is quite a considerable amount of current for a domestic device and indicates a poor electronic design! I noticed the supplied PSU was rated at 12v 2A. So the supplied PSU was working near its rated threshold anyhow. PSU's to have any survival rating need some headroom! I would recommend at least 50%... so therefore a 3Amp PSU (12v) is probably desirable for this box! The unit works ok now, but we will have to source an uprated PSU. All you guys with problems with these units should start off by replacing the crappy supplied PSU... or as a test obtain a charged 12v car battery and try rebooting with that. Make sure you get the polarity right... Positive (+) to the centre pin on the power socket. I reckon a good PSU (power source) would fix 90% of the problems with these units.

Ian, Leicester on September 19th, 2006
after a tetchy first couple of weeks, the box is absolutly fine. (ive now had it for 11 months) it hasnt had any problems, other than you have to un plug and then plug it back in if you fast forward and rewind to much, and then it frezes. it you treat it with respect it will reward you with brilliant recordings. getting any pvr is brilliant, but this one is extremly good. a reccomended buy (although there are much newer ones out there now, but if you dont have the budget, get this one!!!)

T Ahonen, London on September 12th, 2006
Totally changed my TV viewing. Love it. But box has lots of little bugs. Over past 18 months replaced power supply already twice. Recently been having the EPG upgrade hassles (won't recover from nightly EPG without reconnecting the power supply). Also recently - last two months or so - random recordings produce scenes that are blurs on the library, but the recordings themselves are fine. Agree remote is well below average for a gadget of this type. Incidentially - for future development, most important request from me - the bizarre operation of the scene management. Why do we get to block scenes from the library view, which then play fully in the actual display of the recording ! It SEEMS like the scene is removed, but in playing the recording, the scene still plays. So what's the point of this whole feature as its so badly designed. If I want to remove ads from the middle of a movie or some boring scenes from my fave TV show, it looks like they're gone from the library version, but when I play the recording, all the removed scenes play. Bad design, Digiview, please make this feature work as anyone would expect. Still, I'd definitely recommend the device. Will see what future versions introduce (zoom perhaps? and A-B scene replay like in most DVD players? and fix that editing feature)

Bob on August 1st, 2006
If this was a car it would be a lancia. Great idea, cheap crap components, unit bust after 1 year, would never ever buy this brand again. Let's hope they go bust, they should do with such shabby products. Would love to shove the box up the digifusion chairman's behind!

Keith, Kent on July 17th, 2006
Hi all you FVRT100 (non)users... I too was one of the first of the few to buy, so impressed, I bought another. Lucky I did, as, sure enough after ten, very happy, months our relationship was put on HOLD. Unit two has now gone into limbo...HOLD. Has anybody tried hooking them up to a PC via the rear contector, is that a RS 323? Hey, lets have a convention every year, where we all get on just fine for half the day then... suddenly freeze, staring blankly into space for the remainder of the day? Bought a HUMAX 9200, watch this space.

Martin, Worcester on July 6th, 2006
I like the box a lot. Just wish it didn't lock up the way it does.

Maureen, Walsall, West Midlands on June 12th, 2006
We bought our Digifusion FVRT 200 in October 2005. We thought it was a wonderful machine and fell in love with it. Then after about a month it crashed and we lost the Library. I got the blame and my husband kept the remote control away from me. We reprogrammed it in and it was fine for a while. It crashed again and I wasn't to blame this time. Decided that it was a faulty machine. Phoned help desk. We were asked to re format the drive. This we did. Seemed fine for a while, so we thought problem was cured. Saturday 10th June 2006 it crashed again lost all of the library once again. Turned it off and put it on, but it was having none of it. It froze with a message "pls wait", so we waited and waited. It was still the same on Sunday. Decided to format the drive once again, but it allowed us to and then it crashed once again. It is now saying 'pls wait' once again. Curry's say that they do not repair machines but we will have to choose another.

David, Edinburgh on June 12th, 2006
Had a FVRT100 for about 18 months now. Been very happy with it - very occasionally freezes but switching on/off resolves it. Great features and easy to use. One hitch last week - power supply unit packed up. After seeing other feedback on same thing, bought one from DigiDave - all back working again. If you get a reliable one, difficult to beat.

Christopher Woodhouse on June 6th, 2006
Purchased FVRT 200 3 months ago very pleased with it, its fast and really not all that noisy, Pictures are superb sound is good never had a problem with it so far. Great buy could do with a software update to sort out minor operating problems but one is due soon here's hoping this is a money well spent.

Phil, Morecambe on May 23rd, 2006
Bought FVRT100 last november lasted a month before the first freeze ups and hold messages, this was over christmas so couldn't take it back. January the 1st after threatening it for a week it fixed itself! Two day ago it's done it again, bought a power supply. Booted up in a nano second and lasted less than an hour.