What the user manual says:

"To expend the available recording capacity, simply purchase an external 
USB harddrive or flash drive and connect it to the USB socket at the 
back of the device."

What you actually have to do:

1. Purchase a USB HD.
2. Connect it to a computer running Linux.
3. Create a partition.
4. Format it with ext3.
5. Create at least one empty folder.
6. Connect it to the device.

Note, in particular, that if you do not possess a computer, then you 
*cannot* expend the recording capacity of your device. Just back up and 
think about that for a moment. We're talking about a set-top box for a 
TV. You plug it into a power source, a TV and an aerial, and it lets you 
watch digital TV. It also lets you record and play back TV. Now why IN 
THE NAME OF GOD should you need to possess a computer just to upgrade 
the storage capacity?

Seriously. You should be able to just plug in a HD and the device itself 
should format it. Why the hell do you need a computer to do that?

Another thing. Technically you don't need to use Linux. The device 
supports FAT16 and FAT32 as well. But apparently none of those go up to 
the size necessary to make expansion worth the effort. Only ext3 seems 
to support really big filesystems.

(Notice that's ext3. The device does not support ext2 or ext4. Only 
ext3. Please get it right when formatting!)

Also, even if you format the drive, the set-top box still acts as if 
it's read-only until you create at least one empty folder. At that 
point, suddenly it works just fine. WTF?

Don't even get me started on the infelicities of *using* the external 
storage.

1. Copying a file to the external HD allows you to keep watching TV, but 
disables all controls. (E.g., you cannot change channel.) Mercifully 
there's a cancel button. But cancel is the only operation you can 
perform while the copy is in progress.

2. When you copy a file, it gives you a progress bar. When you copy 
multiple files, it gives you a progress bar FOR THE CURRENT FILE. It 
provides no indication whatsoever of overall progress. And when a large 
copy operation takes several hours, that's a problem.

3. You cannot copy folders, only files. To copy a folder, you must 
manually create the destination folder, open the source folder and 
destination folder, select-all and copy. If a folder contains folders, 
you must select-all and manually unselect any folders.

Still, what do you expect for several hundred pounds worth of hardware? 
Oh, wait...

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