Conclusion

The RJTech PVR1100 offers a little something for nearly everyone who wants a no-frills budget personal video recorder and player. After using it for the better part of six weeks I must say that it lived up to all of my expectations and then some with its relative ease-of-use and its ability to accept an incredibly large variety of storage mediums. While people looking for a high-end PVR with a built-in tuner will be left out in the cold, the majority of consumers will be perfectly happy using this unit to transfer their movies to a format which they can easily watch on their iPod, PSP or any other portable device. Recording TV shows is a breeze and my parents (who are extremely wary of anything replacing their vaunted VCR) warmed to it like ducks to water. User friendliness is the name of the game here and even though the menus look like some retro Nintendo wannabe, they are quite easy to navigate once you get over the fact that the remote is a generic lump of nothingness. The one thing that we appreciated the most was this unit’s ability to play back an amazing assortment of video formats (XviD, AVI, DivX, etc.) with hardly any issues and always good picture quality considering the composite output.

While we can rave all day about the things we liked about the PVR1100, there are a few significant things holding it back from becoming an outright recommendation from us. First and foremost among these issues is the general flakiness of the controls in both the menus and when controlling the video playback or recording. There is sometimes a significant lag time between the time you press a button and the action shows up on the screen. The same goes for fast forwarding, rewinding and pausing during video playback; I found myself constantly mashing my fingers on the remote trying to get it to react. Also, while it is very easy to get used to the lack of a built-in TV tuner, I constantly found myself wishing for one instead of having to rely on the tuner from my DVD recorder in order to record programs. Yet, for making copies of home movies and transferring DVDs so they can play on a portable device it works perfectly. It should also be noted that these issues are apparent now but since RJTech has included a quick and painless firmware upgrade tool, these issues may be fixed in sort order.

The real brilliance in this player lies in the way it stores files. Using CF, Memory Stick, SD and a ton of other removable storage options in order to save files is nothing short of a dream come true since many of these are simply dirt cheap these days. A good 2GB SD card can now be found for around $10 Canadian which gives you a great opportunity to buy a couple, use them for the PVR1100 and since they are so versatile, use them in your digital camera when you aren’t using them to record anything. The only thing I would ask to be added to this unit in terms of storage options would be a USB 2.0 port for flash drives.

With the PVR 1100, RJTech isn’t reinventing the wheel. Rather, they are taking a couple of great concepts and melding them into a product that works very well for its intended purposes and is sure to appeal to a broad range of customers. While it may not be without quirks, this product is innovative and thus gives us the opportunity for us to christen our brand new award: the Dam Innovative Award.


Pros:

- Easy to use
- Good picture quality
- Quick setup
- Reads nearly every video type
- Good recording capabilities


Cons:

- Wonky remote
- No tuner
- Only composite out connectors