Alba STB8 - Freeview Digital Set Top Box - Quick 2 View
Alba STB8 - Freeview Digital Set Top Box - Quick 2 View
Customer Review: Good, cheap and reliable
Desperately wanted to get a freeview box, stumbled upon this. unpacked and installed easily enough - although it had no SCART cable.
installation of channels took less than 5mins, and everything is fine!!
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Geniatech PC/Laptop USB Hybrid Freeview HDTV & Analogue TV Receiver - Support Windows Vista 
This Geniatech USB hybrid freeview and analogue TV receiver enables you to watch over 30 Freeview channels, listen to over 20 digital radio stations, record your favourite TV programmes on your hard drive with instant, time-shifting and schedule recording modes. It comes with a user friendly software, a portable TV antenna and remote control. All you need to do is to plug the device into a USB port of your computer, insert the CD and install the software by following the instructions. Your computer will start working as a portable high-definition TV and DVD recorder. It is compatible with the latest Windows Vista, comes with sleek and compact design and high quality finish. There may be difficulty to receive freeview TV signal by the included portable antenna in some areas where the signal is not sufficiently strong. This is due to that the freeview service (www.freeview.co.uk) in the UK is not fully operating yet. The reception will be improving along with the progress of Digital Switchover Program. A signal amplifier or booster may improve reception capability in regions where the signal is marginally strong. (please note that reception capability may also be affected by various factors such as proximity to freeview TV/digital radio transmitters, tall building structures, thick walls, ceilings and etc.). A rooftop TV aerial may be required to watch freeview channels in regions where the signal is insufficient for a portable antenna. The analogue TV receiver
Sony Bravia KDL46X2000U - 46″ Widescreen 1080p Full HD LCD TV - With Freeview 
Full HD Ready TruSurround XT and BBE digital surround sound
Amazon Price: ?1,999.00
Used Price: ?1,599.99
Customer Review: Its not cheap but …….
Second best decision I ever made was to get a PS3 ( first one was to divorce my whinging first wife !). PS3 is superb, but I wanted a HD telly to go with it. I had heard of the new X range but was all set to get W range telly, but the day I went to get it I bottled it and didn’t get it. What an escape that was. Next week, I went to the Sony shop, and they had the above telly, with the RDR-HXD860 DVD player, playing Toy Story 2. The film was not Blu Ray, just normal DVD, and I was amazed at how good the picture was, and that it was not even HD. So that was that got it ! Got the telly home. Do not under estimate just how big this telly is. Its HUGE!. The picture on the PS3 running at 1080p, is without a doubt mid blowingly good. The detail from just inches away is amazing, and sat in my chair playing games its truly awesome. On the W series the PS3 still had a slight gainy look about it, but with the X running at 1080p that has gone just to leave perfect pictures. It does a good job of normal analogue TV. I don’t have Sky HD, as we don’t watch much TV, but even that is watchable. I bought the above DVD player too, as it upscales, and the picture quality with the 2 combined is excellent. So although expensive, you get what you pay for and I wanted a good picture for the PS3 and my DVD collection. What I got was way beyond my expectation, and even normal standard definition poictures are watchable. If I got Sky HD, then that would be excellent. I watched Revenge of the Sith, which it upscales to 1080i, and that for non Blu Ray was superb. Light off, some pop corn, its like you were at the cinema. !
Customer Review: Staggering
We treated ourselves to one of these after Christmas, to replace an ageing 32″ CRT. Connecting it up was pleasantly simple. Two new HDMI devices (Sky HD and a DVD player), worked perfectlythough we haven’t yet worked out how to connect our (previous generation Sony) HD Recorder to it properly via SCART. There’s a helpline number provided with the set which we’ll get round to calling sooner or later. As with most flatscreens, you have to adjust the default settings to get the best picture. We used a THX setup feature (available on most THX-coded DVDs) to adjust the picture settings. The colour capability is astonishing. THX uses 4 slightly different white patches to help you set the contrast - the Bravia could separate them across the whoile rangeo contrast levels. The first thing that strikes you when watching is just how large it is. We have enough room that we can sit over 3m from the TV, but it still shocks you at first when a close-up is delivered at greater than life size. Make sure you have space to do it justice… Once you’ve acclimatised to that, you sit and stare at the detail it’s able to resolve. Even from ordinary TV broadcasts, it lets you see individual hairs on people’s heads, and gives a real sense of depth to the picture. Sky HD broadcasts are even more stunning; you can almost feel the texture of whatever you’re watching. It’s also a very good TV receiver. Our television reception is dire (I had to chain two aerial boosters to watch terrestrial with the old telly) but the Sony’s freeview digital pictures are noticeably better than regular Sky (though SKY HD tops them both, as you might expect). Even the analogue signal is watchable. There’s a workable menu system and a classy remote, and the sound is good enough that we only feel the need to use our home cinema setup for movies and live sports. Oh, and it’s got full 1080p capability, so it will keep up with the eventual winner of the BluRay / HD-DVD showdown. You won’t need to upgrade for a long time. What does it lack? They could have built in an HD recorder. Given that it has a timer function (so you can set it to pipe the right picture to an external recorder), it would have been fairly cheap to include and a nice touch. And it can’t solve Sky’s dodgy signal and rather cheeky revelation that you need two aerial feeds to make Sky+ (and by extension Sky HD) work properly. But that’s not the Sony’s problem. But overall, it thoroughly deserves 5 stars. I expected a lot and have not been disappointed.
