Freesat Recordable 4K TV Box 1TB

This unit connects to a Satellite dish (traditional or broadband) and lets you record a programme and potentially watch or record something else at the same time (Requires 2 cables from the traditional dish - otherwise of course it's one thing at a time) I already have a TV that 'can' receive and record Freesat but when it's recording you are often unable to change to or watch another TV channel. I bought this so that recording could go on separately from the family 'channel hopping' around as usual. Compared to the TV the Box HD output quality is as good as the original programme on the TV and recordings don't show any quality loss. Signal quality levels reported from the dish were also fine and similar to those on the TV's own signal meter Audio output on HDMI or Optical can each be selected as Stereo or Surround (although the latter is only going to be noticed if a surround track is being broadcast Otherwise you just get Stereo but its all managed seamlessly and works well). The box remote has its own volume control which can get confusing if someone turned it right down - I just leave it on full volume and use the normal TV volume as everyone knows where that is The unit as delivered had 2 year old firmware and operation (while fully functional ) did seem a bit clunky/slow sometimes in the guides/menus. The Manual had nothng to say on updating this manually but I had connected it to a wired internet network connection, left it in standby overnight, and next day it had updated itself to the latest 2023 firmware. This may have included a few menu improvements but the main difference was there were now no unreasonable hesitations when moving around menus and functions. Timed recordings started and stopped as expected and where available captured both the surround and stereo tracks so you can (re)select what you want to listen to after the recording which is nice. SO generally this would be great for providing improved FreeSat 'box functionality to a TV that doesn't include it or (as in my case) to provide a 'child proof' stand alone free-satellite dish recording capability. With the latest firmware installed there is nothing to complain about and operation is easy and quality is great.

Fed up with paying nearly £80 a month to Sky, realising I rarely watch any of their own programmes, and wouldn’t really miss those that I do. Easy to install; unplug the Sky box and plug this one in. Follow basic instructions on screen and it’s done. Bewildering long list of programmes, but now set up so that it lists my favourites as priority. Little bit slower booting up than the Sky box was, but only by 30 seconds or so.

Fabulous, fabulous, fabulous. Don’t listen to the naysayers, this box is near perfect. Early adopters got the bugs which are now all sorted. It gave the best initial user experience out of all the boxes I’ve ever had including Sky, BT and Freeview. If some of you are still experiencing bugs then they must be associated with your individual box and you should arrange a replacement under the terms of the guarantee. Why move to Freesat? Well, in the STV area they recently rejigged the transmitter frequencies and despite three aerial visits by Freeview they were unable to facilitate a reliable signal. They would leave it working but in the days following all the HD channels would intermittently disappear and some SD channels occasionally got pixellated. Apparently it had to do with nearby wind turbine interference. Some pros of the box are that it is quiet, fast, has a quality remote which is responsive, is relatively cool running, has a small footprint and a good choice of energy management settings. Other reviewers have criticised the guide as being outdated but I love it because actions are clearly explained in logical steps. One reviewer complained about excessive clicks to delete a recording but I prefer that to the instant delete on Freeview - will likely lead to fewer mistakes. The only improvement which comes to mind is the registration process on the box to obtain a Freeview account. This is slightly confusing. A couple of subsidiary comments that may help. During setup I tested the record function but it wouldn’t let me record and view at the same time. I checked in settings and it declared only one cable despite my having fitted two. Examining the cables I saw one had got loose which I fixed and retested but still no joy. I fiddled for half an hour, repeatedly swapping cables, was about to send it back as faulty but a quick Google search led to the word RESCAN and bingo two cables were declared and the record function then worked properly. The other point is about picture quality. All in the household mentioned that the picture was a “bit garish” which hadn’t manifest itself on Freeview. That was fixed by going into my Panasonic TV settings and deselecting “Dynamic” mode in the picture section. This is variously known as “Vivid”, “Movie”, “Pro”, or something similar. Of course some people prefer a vivid setting but I don’t and after this adjustment the Freesat picture is now perfect for my mid-range equipment. The picture is deep, rich, focused and a smidgeon better than Freeview! All that’s now left to do is to replace the LNB with a wideband one so that I will be able to record up to 4 programmes at the same time.

After a nightmare of a time trying to extract myself from the clutches of SKY I turned to this Freesat box. So glad I did and it is something I should have done years ago! I opted for this as the recordable version and as I already had a wideband dish it was a simple matter to just plug in, let it tune itself then away to go with all the available Freesat channels, some in HD. I find the features excellent - watching and recording is easy, the remote is very good (not tiny like some) and the unit itself is surprisingly compact. Onscreen display is straightforward and it didn't take long to identify all the available features. There are options for viewing "on demand" services like iPlayer although if you have a smart TV you may not need these. I paid just over £209 for a Freesat-refurbished unit that is as good as new. As a one-off payment I will recoup the cost in a short time by saving on over-priced subscriptions. All in all I am very happy with this box and have had no issues so far.

Great value

When I first bought this item, it worked a treat. The Amazon return date came and went and all was well. Since then, the number of issues I have encountered have grown weekly... Extraordinarily long boot times, with nothing to see except an animated FreeSat logo. I once gave up after 30 minutes of this. Unable to use many "on demand" functions because the on demand menu does not clear when selecting a player. Recordings will play 0.5 seconds before returning to the recordings menu. Often unable to pause or rewind live TV and recordings. Often boots to a black screen which, I have found, can only be resolved by moving up or down a channel. Often there is no sound, requiring a reboot or two to resolve. I raised these issues with FreeSat who advised me to contact the seller. This was Amazon who told me to contact the manufacturer. FreeSat said it seemed the box was faulty, so I asked to return it. I was then asked a number of questions about the fault, most of which I had already answered. At the time of writing, I haven't heard back from FreeSat for ten days after last contacting them. I'm really getting to the end of my tether with this. Having a faulty device is one thing, I fully understand that these things happen, but the tardiness of customer services in resolving my issues takes things to a different level. UPDATE - Jan 2021 Two days after this review was first published, the third-party company that handles FreeSat's customer services contacted me with instructions to return the box for a replacement, which arrived three weeks later (to be fair, Christmas was in the middle of this). After setting it up, the first thing I noticed was that when the TV guide was closed, the screen stayed black with just a small picture in the corner as if the guide was still open. A second press of the exit button was required to go back to live TV. Let's see how this goes. I'll want my money back if this is a dud too.

There are a only a couple of good things about this box, but unfortunately compared to my Humax 1100s, which broke down, there are too many bad points when compared to the Humax, that should have been in this box. The good points then. It starts quicker, it seems more responsive and the picture quality may be marginally better than the Humax. It has an AV button on the remote as well as Netflix, etc. Also, if you have Sky Q, or LNB and the cables that it uses, then you can also record four things at once, something that I never do anyway. Finally it's 4k but this is superfluous considering that the only places you can get 4K content is Netflix, if you have the right number of screens, or YouTube. The bad points then. The power adaptor is huge - in my house my cables are hidden underneath my unit where there's a removable 4" kick plate. The one for this box couldn't fit this under there whilst connected to the extension block so I had a rewire things just to get it to work. I realise that this is a local issue that concerns me but really, it pointlessly huge. The real problems are these. Firstly, it does not have skip forward or back buttons on the remote, and so obviously unlike one can on the Humax, one cannot programme the skip function to skip a specified length of time. And when you consider how many adverts there are forced into our programming this is a necessity these days. A little bit about adberts and the rules/law being flouted: There are supposed to be only eight minutes of advertising per hour during primetime television. But public service channels including those run by ITV and Channel 4, can increase to up to 12 minutes. Other commercial channels are allowed to broadcast nine minutes of advertising each hour. Now we know we get a lot more than that don't we? Take the maximum 12 minutes per hour, that makes 4 breaks with 3 minutes of adverts each, well we all know that we get at least 5 minutes in each and on top of that, a lovely loophole; they advertise their own programming. We get about 6-7 minutes worth and sometimes five sets an hour. So, bearing this in mind, buy one of these boxes and one is left with the awkward and basically useless ff and rew options. Secondly, Another necessity, again because of the pure quantity of ads, is the ability to add time to both the beginning and end of anything you record. Poor people who use this box are at some point going to miss the end of something they've been avidly watching. My Humax did not have that issue as I could add time. Finally, and this is the icing on the cake, although the Freesat app found this box, and although I sucessfully logged into my account and it paired with this box, and although the app remote would control this box, and although when choosing the 'active' standby option, it will not accept record instructions to be sent from the app. Ever. Simply acts as if it never even knows the app exists. The app will show them as 'planned', the box never does and never puts them in the scheduled section and NEVER records them. Te Freesat website says that it only supports the Humax HDR-1100s boxes for this feature. So. Unless you are content to sit there watching adverts, or using the hit and miss fast forwarding option through them, and content to have to enter recordings from in front of the box and prepared to miss some programmes you'd have liked to have seen, but cannot because you are out and will not get home in time to see them, then this box is for you. You'll have a nice picture though, you will be able to record four things at a time, you'll probably miss the end of a few of them because of adverts and over-running schedules, but the picture will be nice. Mine was connected for less than an hour, I'm going back to a Humax.

Had this box a week and so far really impressed. Works with my existing wide band LNB supplied with Sky Q with no problems - in fact reception is better than it was with my Sky box which had been having problems recently. Set up was a breeze and I was up and running with TV and wifi in a few minutes. Picture quality is great and the pause/recording capability works fine. Sound quality is good also - I have a Sonos surround system so that is important. One gripe/bug. If you choose surround sound rather than stereo you get good Dolby surround sound BUT when you put the box into standby and then switch back on there is no sound and you have to re-boot the box. So if you watch a movie with Dolby surround you have to remember to switch back to stereo before switching off. Knocked a star off for that otherwise would have been 5 stars