Thomson DTI 6300-16

When it comes to Freeview boxes Thomson's DTI6300 (or Top Up TV Kit as its otherwise called) has to be the Porsche of the set top box world. Like many Freeview boxes it gives you the ability to record TV shows directly to your hard drive, what this little set up does that others don't so well is that it gives you the greatest amount of space and one of the few with a hard disc drive that can be adapted to work with Top Up TV and other potential future pay services.

The box itself is slightly larger than the majority of standard set top boxes, in fact in respect of size it's on a par with Satellite and Cable boxes. Size is everything here because this box does so much, it actually has one of the largest Hard Drive capacities for a Freeview box on the market with the ability to store up to 120 hours of visual entertainment on it.

When it comes to channels as a basic unit you have about 40 visual channels, and a similar about of radio stations. When it comes to TV you get BBC 1, BBC 2, BBC 3, BBC 4, BBC Parliament, ITV 1, ITV 2, ITV 3, ITV 4, Channel 4, and Five which form the basic structure that most are familiar with; but you also get some lesser known reasonable quality channels which include Sky Three, Dave, Virgin 1, and Channel Four and Five's catalogue of channels. Now if you have only had experience of normal terrestrial TV you'll feel like all your Christmas' have come altogether, however if you have had Sky or Virgin you might find the variety a little limited. On the plus side if your exterior aerial is installed properly you might be pleased by what seems like improved quality from Sky, Virgin, or basic Aerial reception pictures.

In honesty one Freeview box to another are all pretty similar, however let's focus on the bonus element and that the ability to record to built in hard disc, and even pause or rewind live TV. The nice touch here is that unlike Sky, Virgin and similar product TiVo (so popular in the US but incredibly unpopular here) there is no charge to use this facility. In order to record shows simply bring up the 14 day programme guide (also worth a mention because Sky and Virgin only offer 7 day guides) find the programmes you want and push the red R button (R for record), if your recording a TV series the box will ask you if you want to record the whole series, a simple flick of the green button and every episode will automatically record. Now here is the thing that might get some enthusiasm, not only can you record one channel, but you can record two separate channels at the same time; handy for that once in a blue moon occasion that there are two things on at the same time you might like to watch. Once you have recorded the programmes you want simply push the library button to see what you have recorded and watch at your leisure.

Now let's talk live TV or rather pausing live TV, your sat down at night to watch the next episode of Celebrity Chainsaw Massacre and your Auntie Doris rings, chances are by the time you have got her off the phone all the celebrities you wanted to see carved up already have been. The bonus here is that you can either pause your show or continue watching as you talk but rewind after the phone call has finished; whichever you choose you have up to an hour to get back to viewing your show. In a similar vein you can also select a programme to record, and start watching it after it has started; to elaborate on this we frequently watch shows on channels that are filled with adverts, we usually start actually watching the show 15-30 minutes after it has started and fast forwarding through the adverts, chances are you're watching the end of the show around the same time it should actually finish.

OK so there is the rundown of the basic facilities, before I go onto the final reason that makes this box different to the others I'll just go over the functionality of the product.

The remote control is incredibly simple to work out and laid out in a similar way to Sky's remote controls. The Thomson remote is very distinctive and certainly stands out against other controllers, so if you have occasional lapses of memory you won't get confused by this remote a combination of black and silver case, with a splash of bright coloured buttons to make it more distinctive.
The onscreen options are fairly straight forward, but confusing if you have experience of either Virgin or Sky. On the plus side fast forward and rewind go at up to 64 times the speed of standard viewing at least double the speed of either Virgin or Sky, an advert block last literally about 7 seconds.

The Thomson DTI6300 allows you to access more than just Freeview, Top Up TV is a entry level package to pay TV. Giving you access to about 16 further channels including Hallmark, Disney, Nickelodeon, UK TV Gold, Living, Eurosport, Turner Classic Movies (or TCM) and Picture Box to highlight the best offerings. This additional package will cost you either £9.99 or £14.99 per month depending on whether you want Picture Box (Paramount and Universals film channel) or not. In theory this might seem like a good deal, especially when you combine this with the words ON DEMAND. The box that the Freeview receiver comes with offers up to 500 TV shows On Demand each month, sounds great don't you think? But there is a nasty sting in the tail here, and many might feel as though they have been ripped off. In reality all you actually are getting is On Demand, the channels as such don't really exist. UK TV Gold and Eurosport both offer limited channel viewing between 6-10 hours a day, but the other channels on offer are not available as such. Basically space on Freeview is limited, as a result when certain channels close for the night Top Up TV uses there signal to send programmes to your Hard Drive, these programmes are apparently the best the channel has to offer. This really is a hollow gift although Picture Box does what it claims to do fair and square so to speak, to think you're getting a channel but in reality getting as little as 0 programmes from this channel in a 24 hour period can be annoying. Last night 11 features recorded to my box, and only 1 was something I might debate watching. The reason why only 11 shows came down was because Dr Zchivago (with a runtime of over 3 hours) stored to the Freeview box (downloads only seem to come down between 12am and 6am). The next big catch is that if you are recording shows yourself during the night, you might not get any On Demand services at all, because only 2 programmes at a time can be recorded.

As a Freeview box goes the DTI6300 is amazing, with all the features you might want. But if you're considering Top Up TV I urge you to reconsider, thank goodness you get a 30 day trial because if it were not for that I think thousands of people would feel severely ripped off by the distinct lack of visual offering.

I mentioned Picture Box which I'd like to point out does what it says on the tin, each night a film is downloaded to your box, this movie could be aged anywhere between 6 months and 75 years old; each week you get roughly 3 classics, 3 more recent movies, and one pre DVD release movie. These features store onto your set top box and after 7 days delete from it. For the £5 a month Picture Box offers a decent film package of good movies for all the family.

One further point to mention is that when you use Top Up TV and its "On Demand" services your hard disc space is reduced, this could be really annoying if you end up missing something really good because Top Up TV have decided to send you Dora The Explorer.

The DTI6300 is available for £99 from Argos, and forgetting the Top Up TV, compare this to similar boxes and this is tremendous value.