A bit more info.
Apparently, a very early firmware version of the 8100 had a working PVR, however since it requires FAT32 HDD format, it only recorded like 4GB, which isn't enough for most HD. Later firmware versions allowed it to record multiple 4GB files that could be played as one, however there was a serious bug in playback that resulted in either severe freezes or in my case caused a reboot. Ie it recorded fine, but couldn't play back. However the most recent firmware versions have apparently fixed that. The files are recorded as .TP0 files, which are transport streams that can be converted to .mpg via VideoReDo.
Re good/bad points of the 8100, in previous post I didn't mention this because it's probably the same for the 8000, however there are several annoying defficiencies.
One problem is that you can only define 31 satellites at a time. Ie if you want to scan a sat, that sat has to be on a list of 31 sats that are selected from a much larger list of satellites. I found that this wasn't nearly enough if you want to define both C and Ku satellites.
Another issue, which in related to the above, and to some extent helps with the above issue, is that saved channels are not relative to saved transponders. What I mean is that say you have a universal lnbf, and scan in 20 channels on a satellite, then switch to a standard lnbf. With most receivers, you just change the LO settings in the satellite/transponder setup and you can now use the previously saved channels. With the 8100, you can't do that, because the satellite/transponder data is stored as part of the channel data. If you now do a rescan of the satellite, you will get 20 new channels, and have 20 channels that work, and 20 channels that don't work, which you'll have to delete. The good thing about this, is that it helps to some extent with respect to the 31 satellite limit, because you can save channels that are independent of your list of satellites to some extent... just hope that you don't have to change parameters.
Related to the above, if you have a bunch of sats, transponders and channels saved, and want to update your firmware, or need to reset to factory conditions for some reason, and you try to save your channel data to restore later, you can save the channel data, and that data will include the channels, and a list of favorite 31 satellites, but all the sat/transponder parameters will be lost, so before you can scan in any new sats, you'll have to redo all the sat parameters, basically re-define your 31 sats, etc, etc. Basically it is impossible to restore the receiver to a previously saved state. You can restore the channels themselves, but it gets very mixed up when you try to select these channels from a list of satellites that now doesn't exist, etc, etc. I found that I had to just delete the restored memory and start over from scratch each time I've tried to restore satellites or changed firmware.
The above is probably the reason why there is no channel editor for this receiver. Ie it would be useless, unless you use the default satellites and sat parameters.
THere are some other problems, such as selecting audio streams, defining AC3 or MPEG4 on manually created channels, and I think I've forgotten a few other problems but the above are the major ones I think.
You'd think that after all the above, I would hate the receiver, however despite the pain it is to set up, once set up, it is a really convenient receiver to use. The OTA ATSC works great, and the channels are seemlessly integrated in with your satellite channels, making it one of the few receivers I've had that was user friendly enough for my wife to actually use.
I really like the 8100, and I'll probably give it the PVR another try soon, because my Diamond doesn't seem to work on the channels I want to record, whereas the Coolsat worked fine back when I did use the PVR. The 8100 has a very sensitive tuner, and locks transponders that my TT3200 doesn't lock.
The lack of blind scan is unfortunate, however I think I've only heard of one DVB-S2 receiver that did blind scan (can't remember which one that is), and there were other problems with that receiver. I think overall, the 8100 is the best DVB-S2 receiver out there at this point, at least out of the box, without adding modules, etc.
