World Cup special: Best DVD recorders and PVRs

Capture the pain and the passion of this year's World Cup with a high-definition PVR

By Chris Jager

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World Cup Special: Best DVD recorders and PVRs

In just 10 short days, the 2010 FIFA World Cup will kick off in Johannesburg, South Africa, bringing joy and euphoric agony to every corner of the globe. For Australian football fans in the southern hemisphere, this means a fortnight of broken sleep, bleary eyes and botched workflows. By the end of the tournament, half the bleedin' country will resemble a pitiless herd of shambling, brain-dead zombies. The things we do for love of the game, eh?

But it doesn’t actually have to be this way.

Armed with a PVR or DVD/Blu-ray recorder, you can schedule recordings of every World Cup match and then watch the action in the morning. Sure, it won’t be ‘live’, but neither is the original broadcast (there’s a five second time delay, natch). You’ll also be chronicling all the highlights for future posterity -- from the very first kick-off to the inevitable and deeply anticlimactic shootout finale.

Being helpful chaps, we’ve assembled a list of the best personal video recorders currently troubling store shelves. All of these babies come with HD tuners; which means you can record and watch the World Cup in glorious high-definition (provided you have a HD TV). Many also provide oodles of storage space, so you don’t have to faff about with external HDDs or thumb drives.

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