Introduction

Freeview is the free-to-air terrestrial digital TV service which you can receive through your normal rooftop aerial, no need for a satellite dish or cable service. It allows you to watch more than 40 television channels – from BBC3 to Teachers TV – and listen to more than 30 digital radio stations, as well as access digital interactive services. But for deaf and hard of hearing people, the main advantage of digital television is that it’s so easy to receive and record digital subtitles, when they are available. Remember, digital subtitles are transmitted in a different way to 888 subtitles and many consider them much easier to read.

The government recently announced the timetable for digital TV switchover, with some regions completely changing to digital as early as 2008 and with the last region, the Channel Islands, switching over by 2012. So we will all need to start thinking about moving over to digital TV within the next few years.

For this review we have looked at products that receive Freeview and are either set-top boxes (small products that sit beside your TV and allow it to receive Freeview) or recording devices (products that let you watch and record Freeview digital TV and subtitles). All have convenient features such as a subtitle button on the remote control, access to the Freeview Electronic Programme Guide (EPG) and two SCART sockets.

Further details on set-top boxes and recording devices can be found in 'Questions'.