He was talking about a freeview dvd recorder, not a PVR as far as i understood. Yes: you can edit from the recorder itself, it's time consuming and little accurate, but doable nonetheless. But yeah, even without a hdd you can edit (using DVD+RW's or RAM's only). Sony, Panasonic and Pioneer are quite user friendly. The easiest has got to be Philips, but their recorders are absolute crap.