We have the Panasonic Freesat TV, it's great picture quality support.

Now I just need some way of recording the Freesat signal, especially the high definition image. Humax are the only people who have a freesat recorder and it's out of stock everywhere. Panasonic are not bringing a recorder out until there is more HD material.

Plasma only, like Panasonic, they cant sell enough plasma since lcd's got good. and have huge plasma factories which need to be used for the next 10 years to return thier investment.

Then when OLED becomes big they will add features to the LCD's as they will need to recoup that investment also...

Innovation is fine as long as it fits with the business plan...

As long as the fool/customer and his money are easily parted, and the customers are not demanding what they want and just buy what is on the shelf, Business will continue to deliberatley stiffle innovation. afterall the world is driven by money.

If you want a Freesat or freeview+ LCD stop spending dont buy what they offer..

and while its DVR+DVD and not DVR+BD Im not buying a bluray! and im not buying a Standard deffinition DVR either.. Well done to Humax for actually making a true HD Freesat recorder!

Manufactures are you listening? perhaps a period of low sales will shake them into producing what we want!

When the hell are Channel 4 going to broadcast in HD on Freesat? They only broadcast HD material on SKy right now.

According to wiki, Alba flogged their half of Grundig to Beko in 2007.

It explains why Grundig, Goodmans and Bush stuff was all equally crap...

but they don't offer a 100Hz set with the Freesat tuner built in, so ended up buying the Humax HDR separately. It was in stock at Argos a week ago Anonymous Coward, and is a bloody brilliant bit of kit.

The Panasonic TV is very nice as well, the picture quality is worth spending 2x the price of a brand you've never heard of. Night and day compared to my 37" Logik set, I really didn't expect the difference to be that big.

TFT/LCD never got good, it just got cheap enough for the chavs to afford. Most of these people have never seen a plasma, so don't know what they are missing out on.

" not least because right now it only has five big names on its books,"

That's because Freesat only allowed those five to manufacture Freesat equipment from the start.

The Topfield TF7710 records freesat perfectly well if you can't wait for a Humax

At the prices those Humaxs and Toppys are going for BYO is looking like even better value than ever for HD

Really?! My Humax cost me >£300. Show me how I can BMO with twin tuners and 320GB HDD for that price....

And that's even accepting the fact it won't be half as easy to use and well integrated.

We want one box and one box now. At least my mom does. I'll do with MythTV and do very nicely thank you.

@ Sam

Off the Google shelf

Mobo £45 (Asus P5N - also a v nice Gigabyte available)

CPU £40 (E2160 £35 - you can probably get some P4s cheap too if you don't mind the extra cooling)

Twin tuner £50 - (i.e. Hauppage DVB-T 500)

500 GB HDD £45 (i.e. Hitachi E7K - but honestly - get the SP1 750)

DDR2 2*1GB £25 (Corsair PC2-5300) (twice as much as you would really need)

Case & PSU £60 (Antect minuet 350 slimline case and 350w PSU)

Mythbuntu Free

£270

Upgrade box to Lian-li c36 for an extra £90 for the best looking box you'll ever shove under your tv.

Personally I would also splash out for XP so that I could use GBPVR which has a better interface than any pre-built box I have used and is very stable (reboots for system upgrades only), HDMI interface with tv, full remote control, access to local network shares, daily tv guide updates that don't interfere with operability and DVD playback. Season recording (3 different options) configurable start and end buffer zones (default and per recording) and transcoding options for various standards including DivX, MPEG4, ts.

GBPVR also has the added advantage that as its win only the user forums aren't full of willy-waving pingus.

Can be quite a lot of work initiallly but I wouldn't go back to a box again given the lack of flexibility that even the best of them suffer from.

Next project - a Mythbuntu box

Alright lads - I'm going in - full speed ahead and don't spare the penguins

Why do you need a company for free to air television? If your stations would have normal DVB-EPG you could get rid of all that freesat nonsense and just get free to air satellite recievers like everyone else does.

I bought the humax very early from comets before it was in their shop.

it had to come from ther main warehouse, and i still got thirty pounds discount when i asked

for it, it came for £265.

Not bad eh, it works beautiful.