What prevents TVs having a built-in PVR (programmable video recorder)?

[peter-h]

I wonder if there is a programme copyright reason for this, but one would not expect many firms apart from Sony to worry about that.

I have a Humax which works great, but the TV is the obvious place to put one.

One can add a hard disk to TVs but that is only for stuff like pausing (which implies recording the current programme) or maybe recording the current programme to a USB stick.

[Halcyon]

I don't think there is anything that "prevents" it, I know you used to get TVs with built-in recorders, but they weren't common, probably because most people don't want them or already have a STB capable of recording? I really don't know anyone that watches FTA TV here anymore (apart from older people). I haven't watched "television" for over 25 years.

I think JVC and Akai used to make some models, but whether they do anymore is another story.

[scottapotamas]

There isn't anything stopping them. My LG OLED supports it.

It's a feature very few people probably use, so the integrated storage isn't sized to be usable. But hang a stick/drive off one of the USB ports and it'll happily accept recording schedules and automatic 'series' recording based on the EPG.
Files are normal formats without any protection.

[jc101]

The set top boxes often have multiple decoders, so can record multiple things at once. Some TV's have a couple of decoders, and you can plug a USB memory stick in to activate the recorder - though details of support can be buried in the specs/manuals. Quite a few TV's support a pause function with a USB memory stick, which can be very handy.

The Virgin Media cable TV boxes have 6 decoders, so you can record up to 6 things at once. Which is actually handy, as program start and stop times overlap. Generally recording starts a few minutes before the scheduled time, and up to 5 to 10 minutes after - in case of minor scheduling slips.

[peter-h]

A lot of people rarely watch real time TV and record "whole series" etc on their PVR, watching the episodes when they get around to it...

Yes indeed PVRs have >= 2 receivers so you can watch one channel while recording another, which is something TVs don't (normally?) have.

The LG OLED has a built-in PVR where you can bring up a programme schedule and select "record entire series"?? What model is it? I have been to any number of TV shops and all salesmen say there is no such TV.

Virgin Media stuff is a bit different; I know somebody who was on it until recently and while some is offline (stored on a hard drive in their box) much of the function is online. I doubt they have six Freeview tuners in the box. When you terminate the Virgin sub, you can watch your HD recordings. Not for long because they demand the box returned

I've never seen anything in a TV which is even remotely as good as my Humax.

BTW, Humax Freeview recordings are encrypted. They arrive encrypted on the air, the Humax does not decrypt them, but the TV does, when you play them, using the mpeg "secret key" which every mpeg playback device contains (which is how the key leaked, many years ago, from a software PC player app, PowerDVD, which somebody disassembled). However, there is a custom firmware available for the Humax which presents a web browser interface (the Humax has an ETH port) which has a Decrypt function, and then you can convert the TV recordings into normal mp4 files. I used that for a while and it was handy a few times but I do not currently have it. It would be really interesting if any TV records programmes as mp4 files!

[Rafiki]

All Panasonic TVs I know can easily do that. I usually plug into an external USB HDD.

But as said TVs usually only have one DVB-x receiver so you can't record the same time while watching something on another transponder. For such is a settop box like Dreambox much better. Moreover TVs store files in encrypted and proprietary format. While f.i. Dreambox stores it decoded in the standard linux file system. You can even stream it to other TVs or PCs.

[peter-h]

With just one tuner, it is poor, because if you record say a series, the thing will "blow up" if you are watching channel X and it wants to record something on channel Y. But it is interesting the capability exists at all. Does it display a programme schedule and offer to record a "whole series"?

I would expect any PC (software) version of a PVR to store the files as mp4, unencrypted, because it needs to decode them to display them, so it would be dumb to do otherwise. But I would expect any "appliance" sold on the retail scene to store files encrypted. They need to purchase the mpeg license, AIUI.

[themadhippy]

All Panasonic TVs I know can easily do that.

yep,even better my ole panny is dual receiver with both   freesat and freeview so can record from one whilst watching the other

[SteveThackery]

All Panasonic TVs I know can easily do that.

yep,even better my ole panny is dual receiver with both   freesat and freeview so can record from one whilst watching the other

Ditto. Just plug a hard drive in.

[peter-h]

Which models of TVs are these and how old?

I've never seen this here in the UK.

[dave j]

Which models of TVs are these and how old?

I've never seen this here in the UK.

My 12+ year old Samsung UE40ES5500 supports recording to USB device. It's pretty limited though and the recordings are encrypted to only play back on that specific TV. The latter is probably a 'stop the copyright owners objecting too much' feature.

For a PVR, I use a Raspberry Pi with a TV hat and tvheadend/Kodi for the PVR backend/frontend.

[themadhippy]

Which models of TVs are these and how old?

not sure of the model number,and i aint ripping it off the wall to find out,but its one of there first dual tuner 32" models from around 2010

[Red Squirrel]

I feel once VCRs became obsolete we took a big step back in terms of being able to preserve TV broadcasts. Now days every cable provider has their own standard in how they broadcast so you're pretty much stuck using their box and it's a black box that you don't have much control over. My dad has always been big on recording hockey games and other stuff and preserving it and now they make it really hard to do that easily. There are devices where you can use a HDMI splitter to send a signal to it, and then when you push the button it will record the signal to a file, so that's probably the closest thing to a VCR I guess. That gives you a file that you can then store and playback anywhere.

[Someone]

All Panasonic TVs I know can easily do that.

yep,even better my ole panny is dual receiver with both freesat and freeview so can record from one whilst watching the other

"freeview" being one of the keywords here. In Australia it was an industry stitch up where the freeview branding (and advertising in general) was linked to consumer unfriendly requirements such as:
restrictions in seek/skip speeds and not allowed to have add skipping/muting features
storage of the recorded media had to be encrypted to the device (no moving drives between devices or copying)
could not view anything from the past in the program guide
not providing their standards/requirements publicly

[NiHaoMike]

Traditional TV is simply mostly obsolete. Not a whole lot on it worth watching.

[peter-h]

I googled the UE40ES5500 (circa 2012) and it does not contain what one might call a PVR.

Yes most currently broadcast TV material is crap, intended for thickoes, but that's not the point Interspersed within it is some good stuff, though usually not when you are around to watch it.

[dave j]

I googled the UE40ES5500 (circa 2012) and it does not contain what one might call a PVR.

Hence me describing it as pretty limited and mentioning that I use a Pi with TV hat instead.

[wilfred]

TV's with a PVR unless they are a "good" brand can have a few surprises. One being the recording may not have the subtitles. Another is if you want to keep a library of programs just because you like to have the option of watching it again sometime, you better hope you don't need a new motherboard anytime. A new motherboard is a different TV and the encrypted recordings won't play.

I use a cheapo Android 6.0 STB and I can copy the programs to a computer, extract the subtitles with CCextract and then encode them with Handbrake. I get a nicer font than the klunky old Teletext one.

Another problem with TV's is watching Youtube on them means you get all the advertising. You can ditch those with a suitable App like Smarttube.

[jonovid]

the TV inbuilt DVR is encrypted so ripping  free-to-air television video its not possible. however there are settop box DVR are not encrypted.
unfortunately most free-to-air is bland & boring.
there is a lot of design improvements that can be made to your average TV set like- twin remote controls. so if one is lost you still have one.
backlit rubber buttons with a rechargeable battery. so you can see it in the dark.
picture in picture from any two video inputs. and an inbuilt DVR that lets you save to a USB drive on the front of the TV set.
detachable speakers so the TV sound can have better stereo separation. a TV carry handles so your less lightly to crack the screen when moving it. 
a clock as a screensaver.   a music visualizer for audio only mode.  replaceable screen bezels in black , white or woodgrain.

[peter-h]

TVs with apps for Youtube and Iplayer etc are a liability because those apps go out of date and usually cannot be updated. But that's a different topic. My Humax has such apps, none of them work now, but it doesn't change its usability.

Currently I use an HDMI-connected laptop for all that stuff.

[factory]

All Panasonic TVs I know can easily do that.

yep,even better my ole panny is dual receiver with both freesat and freeview so can record from one whilst watching the other

"freeview" being one of the keywords here. In Australia it was an industry stitch up where the freeview branding (and advertising in general) was linked to consumer unfriendly requirements such as:
restrictions in seek/skip speeds and not allowed to have add skipping/muting features
storage of the recorded media had to be encrypted to the device (no moving drives between devices or copying)
could not view anything from the past in the program guide
not providing their standards/requirements publicly

That explains why Dave left that Topfield freeview box in the dumpster in a recent video, it looks almost identical to the one I have (now quite ancient), but UK ones had no stupid restrictions and files could be transferred to a PC via a quite slow USB connection. They quit the PVR market here years ago, no idea why, not that I care as I watch almost no TV these days.

David

[tom66]

I had a Panasonic plasma TV made in 2011 that could do this for the Freeview HD input.  ISTR it couldn't do it off Freesat HD, possibly due to licencing reasons.  You had to add your own storage, by means of a USB HDD or memory stick, and it was quite fussy about the speed of the storage device and would test it beforehand.  Files were saved in an encrypted MPEG2TS format, with each TV having a unique key so files can't be easily decrypted, though I'm sure anyone with some free time could figure out the algorithm, it's probably just a basic stream cipher.

I believe the LG OLED we have can do it too, but not bothered since it isn't connected to a TV antenna any more (we do not have a TV licence).

[Haenk]

I wonder if there is a programme copyright reason for this, but one would not expect many firms apart from Sony to worry about that.

No, and kind of "yes".
There is a legally required payment for devices being able to record or used to store content - in the EU at least (and presumably in the UK as well, likely in other countries of the world, too).
For Germany, a TV set with recording requires a payment of fixed 12 EUR (plus tax) - so that's a whopping 15 EUR of the retail price.
If interested: https://www.bitkom.org/sites/main/files/2019-08/gesamtvertrag-unterhaltungselektronik.pdf
That's a *huge* amount, considering the fight over fraction of cents during manufacturing.
Now the sales/manufacturing is mostly done by dividing teh world into geographical areas - UK falls into EU territory (sales area) - so the manufacturers decide to just disable the recording functions on the cheaper models, even though there is no technical reason for that. Simply because the do not know in advance, if the device is sold in UK or EU or being moved across countries.

[peter-h]

Tha explains why not a single TV in any shop here in the UK contains a PVR function.

[Ranayna]

Note that at least we in germany, pay this fee for about *anything* that has storage.
In german law, we have the right to make a private copy of copyrighted material, soley for our own use, as long as no copy protection mechanism is circumvented.
To compensate the copyright holders - so the law says - we pay a flat fee for any storage medium.
Usb-sticks and burnable optical media for example, but also for any harddisk or SSD. I'm not sure if LTO tapes are affected.
This also includes any devices containing storage, thus PVR enabled TVs, but also smartphones and computers.
Oh, and of course printers. 

Of course nowadays almost anything is copy protected, so the copyright fee is quite pointless.