Here’s another Freeview HD box, the Philips DTR5520. This is another of the ones that I’ll be looking at for Reg Hardware – keep an eye out for the roundup in a week or so.
Notable about this box is that though it bears the Philips brand name, it’s actually been designed by Pace, who are one of the UK’s longest established makers of set top boxes. In fact, so important is that as a brand, that the top of the box – as you can see in the photos – actually says “Designed by Pace.”
So, on with the photos. First, the pack shot; I’ll be coming back to this in a separate post soon, for various reasons.
That co-axial audio output is a lot more useful than the digital audio outputs on many Freeview HD boxes. I’ll be explaining why later this week.
And now, some of the screens you’ll see
Bought a Philips by Pace PVR the at the end of last year expecting it to be good quality. It turned out to be appalling, very slow through all menus, buggy, kept freezing and generally required about seven button presses to carry out the most basic functions.
I’d rather in the EPG you can still view the channel in a small picture. Often the time I go into the EPG is when waiting for something else to start or while watching/listening to the news, so having the picture in the EPG is quite useful.