We've got Sky, but decided yesterday to get a Freeview box to get the additional Kids channel plus more importantly at the moment - to get the extra Olympic channel.
The other benefit of getting Freeview HD is that we'd finally be able to make use of the HD capability of our Sony Bravia V-Series tv.
I have to admit that I didn't spend a lot of time researching the options, but the Zinwell ZMT-620HD @ $399 seemed a reasonable deal. For a short time I contemplated putting a card into my media PC, but I wanted something that "just goes" versus something that *may* involve updating drivers, upgrading my PC (because it may be underpowered) etc. etc.
Overall, I'm impressed with the ease of setup.
Plugged it in, selected the auto-scan option and was running within 2 minutes.
The clarity is amazing - although as somebody mentioned on TV recently, the problem is now that you see what people (eg presenters) really look like (flaws and all) - which may not be a good thing in some cases!
The Electronic Program Guide (EPG) is very good, although I have had a few issues where I couldn't get it to come up (might be bad batteries in the remote).
Note: We already had an appropriate antenna, so all I needed to do was unplug the antenna cable from the TV, plug it into the Freeview box, then use another cable from the Freeview back to the TV.
My only gripe would have to be the lack of HDMI cable with the box!
Kinda makes sense that if you're buying an HD Freeview box that you want HDMI??
They included component and composite, but no HDMI.
I asked at the store that I got the Freeview box from about HDMI cables and got the usual "Oh, you'll need the $90 HDMI cable then". From what I've read (after googling "HDMI cable scam"), it appears this is common around New Zealand.
Personally, I went to Dragon PC (www.dragonpc.co.nz) and grabbed a 3m HDMI cable with Lifetime warranty manufactured by Dynamix - for the grand total of around $23!
Now back to the olympics....
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