Freeview HD

[Gre]

Hello to the techy people of efests! Question time again.

I rather fancy a freeview HD box for the world cup. The main options are;

- Ferguson box from Comet for £99 (not a brilliant manufacturer?)

- Humax box from Amazon/richersounds for £140

- A box that records for somewhere in the region of £250 - £300.

I'm leaning towards buying the cheaper box, and then replacing it with a recorder when my existing (SD) recorder finally conks out - hopefully the tech will have matured a bit by then. But the boxes do fancy things like iplayer and I'm a bit of a magpie....

Any opinions, anyone?

[oafc0000]

Buy the cheapest box possible... The quality of image / sound will be the same regardless...

Edited May 21, 2010 by oafc0000

[t8yman]

I went with the freesat HD option, but you need a dish. freeview is ok, but the channels on freesat are slightly different.

I have my doubts about how well HD can be broadcast without a dish, knowing how poor my freeview picture was before I jumped ship to freesat, I very much doubt the bitrate would be high enough for most people through a freeview aerial for HD broadcasts.

I you happen to have a dual lnb sky dish up, you can just connect the wires to the back of the freesat foxsat humax box and away you go.

I would ask around your local area to see what the freeview reception is like before committing personally. If you need an aerial upgrade, its likely to cost £80+, for which you could probably get a dual lnb sat fitted.

[Greeny_Musicchild]

The tech int he box is generally not that much different and Fergurson aren't that bad. They made some decent TVs when i worked for Currys.

I'm with Oaf, cheap as possible and i'm sure you won't see that much difference if any.

[t8yman]

anyway, if you are deffo going freesat, I'd get the humax, or a topfield.

toppy.org is great, its the online community for toppy boxes - they are amazing pieces of kit.

I had this one here and it was great. there is a newer model out, but it didnt have the kind of support available when I changed. its a 250gb hdd recorder too.

[t8yman]

I completely disagree with the "go cheap" points above. If you are talking about a HD reciever and a possible HDDR, you dont want a dodgy disc drive losing all of your recordings, and you will probably lose input/output/firmware upgrade possibilities on a cheap box. as well as reliability issues.

[t8yman]

oops, sorry - the toppy box above isnt HiDef, completely lost my train of thought there.

[oafc0000]

I completely disagree with the "go cheap" points above. If you are talking about a HD reciever and a possible HDDR, you dont want a dodgy disc drive losing all of your recordings, and you will probably lose input/output/firmware upgrade possibilities on a cheap box. as well as reliability issues.

[t8yman]

http://www.dvb-shop24.net/product_info.php...-7700-HSCI.html

[eFestivals]

I've been looking into freeview HD for before the WC, and the problem at the moment is that none of the places that advertise kit at under £100 actually have the kit they're advertising (that was my experience last week with every place I tried, anyhow).

I suspect there's currently a ship sailing from china stacked full of new boxes, and that the moment it arrives the prices will start to plummet.

(At one time, standard freeview boxes were well over £100, and now cost less than £20).

The worry with that tho is that if it doesn't arrive before the start of the WC, then all the boxes that are currently on shelves will have disappeared.

So I can't decide to buy now or hold out for the cheapies.

[Gre]

I'm definitely looking at freeview & not freesat here; I rent my house at the moment and really can't be bothered with the cost/hassle of getting a dish put in. Plug and play is what I'm after Good point about the aerial though... we have perfect freeview reception at the mo though, so hopefully its OK. That's why I'd like to get it from a real shop tbh - somewhere to take it if it doesn't work.

I've been looking into freeview HD for before the WC, and the problem at the moment is that none of the places that advertise kit at under £100 actually have the kit they're advertising (that was my experience last week with every place I tried, anyhow).

[eFestivals]

That is weird - i stuck in a random Bristol postcode I found on Comet's website and you're right, the 3 nearest ones don't have any stock. Yet the 3 closest Comet's to me as the crow flies (2 Blackpool and Southport) both have them in.

Bristol doesn't have them cos Bristol has Freeview HD working in this area, for about the last 6 weeks. Not all areas have it as yet.

Are you sure it's actually operational in the areas where they have stock? I wouldn't be surprised to find they're in the areas where there's not yet working Freeview HD.

[Haggis]

Humax have announced their Freeview HD PVR wont be out until AFTER the WC. Which kinds of makes my decision for me, I'm going for the Philips one here - http://www.comet.co.uk/shopcomet/product/6...PHILIPS_HDT8520

[gedrulz]

Shames you can't wait until project canvas boxes have been released.

[eFestivals]

Shames you can't wait until project canvas boxes have been released.

is that the thing with iPlayer & ITVPlayer & 4Player (and more?) links built-in along with net access, that Sky has been kicking off about as 'unfair' with their normal anti-BBC irrationality?

[modey]

Get yourself a dreambox 800hd, its freesat in a way and you get ALL the HD channels, you can pick a clone up, which is what I've got for about £160.

Or I've got a sky HD box I'm selling if that's allowed in here?

[modey]

You've got my attention ... please explain!

[WS_Jack_III]

i have freesatHD and i think the picture is great on all the channels. Its great having bbc hd and itv hd for the footy but when are c4 gonna go hd on freesat. wish they would hurry up.

Edited May 21, 2010 by III

[Billy09]

i have freesatHD and i think the picture is great on all the channels. Its great having bbc hd and itv hd for the footy but when are c4 gonna go hd on freesat. wish they would hurry up.

[Gre]

Bristol doesn't have them cos Bristol has Freeview HD working in this area, for about the last 6 weeks. Not all areas have it as yet.

Are you sure it's actually operational in the areas where they have stock? I wouldn't be surprised to find they're in the areas where there's not yet working Freeview HD.

[eFestivals]

Did you typo and mean to say that bristol has had freeview HD for the last 6 weeks (in which case they should have stock?), or that Bristol doesn't have HD? Anyway, the freeview site says BS4 had it back in April.

I dunno about anywhere else, but HD is definitely active in the Granada region - so the stocks here aren't false, they are actually usable!

It wasn't a typo but how I wrote it wasn't very clear, apologies. I'll try again.....

It's precisely because Bristol now has working Freeview HD that there's no stock round here of freeview HD boxes (that's what I'm presuming, anyway) - because the boxes now have a use, people have gone out and bought them, and so the shelves are empty of them.

They'd of course get in replacement stock if they could, but it seems to be the case that - for the cheaper boxes at least - there's very limited availability of them. I guess that imports so far have been fairly small because the HD service wasn't available anywhere until fairly recently, and now the service is up and running, demand has rocketed, and there isn't the stock in the country to meet the demand.

[Gre]

It wasn't a typo but how I wrote it wasn't very clear, apologies. I'll try again.....

It's precisely because Bristol now has working Freeview HD that there's no stock round here of freeview HD boxes (that's what I'm presuming, anyway) - because the boxes now have a use, people have gone out and bought them, and so the shelves are empty of them.

They'd of course get in replacement stock if they could, but it seems to be the case that - for the cheaper boxes at least - there's very limited availability of them. I guess that imports so far have been fairly small because the HD service wasn't available anywhere until fairly recently, and now the service is up and running, demand has rocketed, and there isn't the stock in the country to meet the demand.

[Gre]

Just thought I'd say that I ended up getting the Ferguson one from Comet - £99

Pros;

- HD looks wonderful, we've compared freeviewHD to freeviewSD & skySD and there is a notable difference. Eurovision was even more spangly than usual

- The box looks a lot better than the picture - its got a black front panel instead of that horrible grey

- BBC1 HD was announced today, so hopefully (long shot) Bernie will pull his finger out and get the F1 in HD

Cons;

- The box takes 10~15 seconds to start up from STANDBY. I have absolutely no idea why.

- Its got a bloody massive ugly red LED when it is on standby (reminds us to unplug though)

- I do miss being able to pause/rewind/record at a touch of a button. Definitely getting a recorder when they become economic.

- Now I want to spend the money for a 5.1 system

[dakyras]

We got the Freesat Humax HDR, about £230. The DVR is the best I've ever seen, far superior to Sky or any of that gobshite.

[dan666]

Sky HD is where its at.