Buying advice

Set-top boxes are a cost effective choice that is easy to set up and use. However, a combined receiving and recording device is even easier to use (as you don’t need to set up and co-ordinate as many products) and means that you have one less box next to your TV.

We put all six products through our usual rigorous technical and user tests. All were remarkably easy to set up, you simply plug them in and they automatically tune in to all available stations. They even download software upgrades overnight keeping the product up to date!

We were impressed by the good Freeview reception on all the products and by the new EPG. We were also pleased to see that they all displayed subtitles and had a subtitle button on their remote control units. The subtitles were easy to select on all products and appeared swiftly when changing channels. All the recording products would record digital subtitles if selected. Even more impressive was that the PVRs recorded the subtitles in closed format (subtitles which you can turn on or off) – something we have long been encouraging manufacturers to do.

We assessed the recording quality of the products and found that they all looked exactly the same as the live television. The Digifusion and Sony recorders were tested in standard play mode, but both allow you to change the recording quality (lower quality increases the recording time available). With the Humax and Sony recording products, information on your recordings is displayed in text. The Digifusion also uses text but gives you a number of scene images too, making it even easier to identify the recording and to navigate through it.

Of the set-top boxes, both the Humax and Sony performed very well and would be very good buys.

We were very impressed by the convenience, performance and value for money of both of the PVR products we tested. However, our recommendation would be the Humax PVR-8000T80 because it performed very well and was particularly easy to use. If having twin digital tuners is important to you, then the Digifusion is your only choice at present, but we are sure that other products will soon be available.

We weren’t impressed by the Sony Freeview DVD recorder because it wasn’t easy to use, was expensive to buy and there is still some confusion surrounding recordable DVD formats.
 
There is one other product which you may wish to consider, the Daewoo SV900 Freeview video recorder which we reviewed in December 2003.

All of these products are available from major high street electrical retailers and online retailers. The Humax PVR-800T80 and Daewoo SV900 are available from our online shop.

Finally, if none of these products seem ideal to you then there will soon be products available with two Freeview digital TV tuners, a hard drive and DVD recorder all built-in. What’s more, they are likely to be affordably priced.