Grundig GUFSAT01HD Freesat HD Digital Set Top Box With BBC iPlayer

We've just bought this box and was surprised by the quality. First, they supply the HDMI lead for high def viewing. Easy to install, and after plugging in the power, dish, HDMI and optical sound for 5.1 surround it was a simple 6 step set-up to get the channels set up that revolved around waiting for it to scan and then press OK and telling then my post code.

Picture quality is great, even when upscaling SD programmes to 1080 resolution. The HD picture is crisp and clear as you'd expect. I haven't seen a single blemish or pixel in the picture yet and no signal problems like with my old freeview box.

Sound is clear and crisp. The 5.1 works really well and can't really be faulted. Some of the older shows don't play in surround but that is only to be expected.

The channel selection is much bigger than freeview and took only 30 seconds to find 137 TV channels and close to 100 radio stations on top of that.

Overall, this is an excellent box and you definitely seem to get more than you pay for. Very highly recommended as a half way point between freeview and sky or virgin.

So, I had this box a week and I was quite impressed with the BBC HD channels. The Rubgy and Football look especially crisp compared to that of Standard definition on sky. Even the Standard def channels on the the box look decent.

Quite easy to set up. Stick in your postcode, autotune in about 3 mins and you have a stack of channels.

The reasons I bought this box included the BBC iplayer functionality. I plugged this into my network and it would not pick up an IP address or you couldn't even hard code it meaning that there was no possibility of getting iplayer or the future promised ITV player.

A trawl around google and a quick call to the Grundig support site confirmed that this was old stock I 'd been given and the iplayer was not supported. Date code on the box was 2008/07 and it needs to be at least 2010 for the iplayer to work. Grundig offer a replacement for the box for 15 punds if you are stuck with the same problem but I am returning my machine to play to see if I can get a newer machine.

Two quick ways of spotting if you have old stock....the firmware is stuck on version 1.9.1 and channel 4 HD stutters really badly. As I say....its a good quality machine if you get the newer kit.

Already had this box in sd so easy to set up, good picture on hd (this woman on BBC breakfast looks sweaty) and I player is cool.

Just remember to check you have spare hdmi slots on your tv- cos mines a couple of years old and only has one! So need to buy a switch.