BT vision box as cheap PVR?

A question about : BT vision box as cheap PVR?

My daughter has just moved into a new rental and, although she has a new TV licence and a cardless Sky box for TV reception, she has no way of recording programmes.

A friend has offered her a working BT Vision box and I was wondering whether she could just connect that up (it appears to have 2 scart sockets so connection to the Sky box and TV would not be a problem) to enable her to record.

Best answers:

• There are a few tricks to the Vision boxes, but I think it should be fine for viewing and recording Freeview, as long as it's connected to a working aerial. Test it! Give it a retune when you connect it up too.
  Don't expect any on-demand stuff to work.
• Thanks allmillar and blisteringblue.
  The Freeview reception part is the problem - which is why the cardless Sky box is used.
  I know that, despite receiving from a main transmitter (Belmont), her terrestrial aerial produces broken reception on most non-PSB channels (I assume that's because UHF 22, 25, 28, 30-, 53 and 60- are used and most of the commercial channels use the higher UHF channels and her aerial's an old low-band type).
  Nevertheless, it sound like it might be worth a try - she might be able to record from the 'main' channels.
• If she has a decent unmetered internet connection she might get by with a NowTV box, as long as you get into the habit of watching stuff as it appears on demand.
• Heinz - if you're in a good reception zone but getting bad reception - sort the aerial out. It may just be slightly misaligned, free fix (if you can reach it!). No Freeview box can overcome this!