Sony have come up with a great entry level Blu-ray player which is a great way for someone new to Blu-ray who wants to try a box at the budget end of the market. The BDP-S360 may not have the extended features of a more expensive player but the sound and vision that is on offer makes up for this.

The player doesn’t look anything remarkable on the outside. It comes in an all black finish with a blue light which look ok. It’s quite slim and only a few buttons on the front keep it clutter free. On the rear are an array of sockets which are fairly basic with this being an entry model. You get the important HDMI socket and with it being a version 1.3 socket you get the HD audio bitstreams, Deep Colour and x.v.Colour support. Component and composite ports offer further video output options should they be required. For audio the best option is the HDMI output which will play Dolby True HD and DTS HD Master Audio bitstreams as well as the standard Dolby Digital and DTS soundtrack. If you do not have HDMI then  also available are and optical and coaxial output which allow Dolby Digital and DTS output.

Unfortunately because of the limited options on this player the only web connectivity is via an ethernet port and this will also require at least a 1Gb flash USB drive connected to the USB port to store any movies downloaded. Speaking of the USB port this is only used for the DB Live Storage and cannot therefore be used to playback other digital forms such as MP3 and JPEG. The only option to play these is via the CD, DVD and Blu-ray discs.

With these limitations aside this Blu-ray player does offer some good options. It offers 1080/24p output, DVD upscaling to 720p, 1080i and 1080p. It also offers BRAVIA sync if you have a Sony Bravia television. Another neat feature is the Precision Drive which can handle scratched or damaged discs much better than other Blu-ray players.

The operating system and menu controls are some of the best around and are based on the same operating system for the PS3. It’s intuitive and graphical which again for an entry level player make it appealing. The main menu system is horizontal with drop downs for sub menus using big icons. There are some sound and vision options available to change the modes for different environments. There are 3 available for video, Standard, Brighter Room or Theatre Room and on the Audio side there are 3 noise reduction modes. To compliment the easy to use menus there is an easy to use remote control. The buttons are sensibly positioned.

The Sony has two boot up modes, Standard which takes around 22 seconds and Quick Start which takes just 6 seconds to boot although the power consumption is higher when in this mode.

The Good
For an entry level box the Sony BDP-S360 offers great sound and vision which gives a good feel of the quality Blu-ray can offer. The operating system and ease of use is great for those looking for an entry to the Blu-ray market. There are some neat options and the remote control make the BDP-S360 easy to use.

The Bad
The lack of connections let this great product down a bit. The lack of wireless and reliance of Ethernet and USB to download and store movies are disappointing especially as the PS3 offers this so would have been good even on entry level. Although the boot up time is good the time taken to load discs can be slow to get to the initial menu screen.

Conclusion
This is a great product for those looking for their first Blu-ray player. For the money it offers good quality sound and vision and whereas compared to more expensive products the spec is basic, in the lack of WiFi, built in memory and USB media playback, for the price you can’t expect these features to be standard. We think this product is great for those on a budget and Sony do know who to do great quality audio and visual.

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Want access to satellite TV and a Sky+ type system but don’t want to pay a monthly subscription. Then Freesat and the Humax Foxsat-HDR is the solution. This offering from Humax is the only hard disk recorder on the market for Freesat. The only other option is to record to DVD or VHS in conjunction with another Freesat receiver. Freesat is a free to air satellite system giving you access to satellite channels and HD channels. So if you are in a poor reception area and cannot receive Freeview then this is one answer if you don’t want to pay the monthly subscription to Sky.

The Humax Foxsat-HDR box is a slim stylish box with a blue LCD window on the front. It is well built and contains a 32oGb hard disk enabling you to store about 20 hours of HD programmes or up to 200 hours of standard definition (SD) programmes.

The Foxsat-HDR box comes with a good range of sockets including an HDMI to connect to a HD ready television for watching the HD channels. A digital optical audio socket also enables Dolby Digital sound connections to you surround sound system. Two LNB inputs are also available meaning you can record one channel while watching another or record 2 channels while watching programmes recorded on the disk already. There is an Ethernet port which although not used at the moment could be used in the future to connect IPTV facilities such as BBC iPlayer. There are two USB sockets, one on the back and one on the front which means the recorder can also be used as a media hub at some point in the future.

Installation is quick with the cables from the satellite dish just needing to be connected up. If you haven’t got a satellite connection already then you will need to get this installed buy a professional company to install the satellite, line it up and lay the cabling needed to where the box will reside. Once installed the setup is simple and intuitive to give you access to all TV and radio channels.

The menu system is easy to use and the EPG guide is easy to navigate making it easy to select the programmes you want to record. It comes with series link so you won’t miss any episodes of your favourite programmes. You can easily search for programmes if you are unsure when it is broadcast. It is easy to organize programs into folders manually or TV programs will automatically be stored in a folder with the programmes name.

Playback is straightforward and you can fast forward or rewind at speeds of x2 , x4, x8, x16, x32, x64, x1/2, x1/4 and x1/8 normal speed making skipping adverts easy. We also really like the option to resume playing from the last watched point. So if you decide to finish watching a film another time rather than start the beginning and fast forward you can just resume playing. A very nice feature.

The Good
The Foxsat-HDR is well built and stylish meaning it fits well under any television. The range of options are great with some really nice features such as the resume playback option. The EPG is easy to use and the menu is straight forward enough.

The Bad
The only slight downside is that the box can take 30 seconds to boot up but to be honest this is just us being picky in the day and age of instant availability.

Conclusion
A great offering from Humax for the Freesat market. Rivals Sky+ and without the need to subscribe monthly to Sky. with the popularity of Freesat increasing there will be more and more channels added in the future but already the range of channels is great.

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The LG22LH2000 is a great HD ready digital television very much suited to a smaller room. With a 22inch screen it is ideal for a bedroom or a kitchen. Being HD ready you can receive the new high quality and sound from the latest HD ready channels offering you more quality and higher resolution from your picture.

This offering from LG also comes with Freeview built in so you can receive channels including ITV2, E4, BBC3, and Film4, plus 24 digital radio stations, with no contract and no satellite dish and no additional set top box.

Sound wise the 22LH2000 has a front bezel that works as a speaker, replacing the normal speaker grill. With the Invisible Speaker System, the speakers are embedded in strategic spots underneath and around the front bezel which means they enhance the audio by increasing the ‘sweet spot’ to give a wider and richer sound field. This speaker system provides a clean and fashionable design compared with traditional side or bottom speaker designs.

It also comes with Clear Voice 2 Technology which adjusts the sound balance to emphasise voices and reduce background noise. This is particularly useful when watching films where it is difficult to hear voices over the background sound such as in an action sequence.

This television is also low energy sufficient and is part of the Energy Saving Recommended scheme. To access this scheme products have to meet strict criteria to ensure that they are amongst the most efficient in the market place

Connection wise the television comes with 1 HDMI connection, 2 SCART sockets, a PC input socket as well as Composite and Headphone sockets.

The Good
The television is easy to use and install, has a great picture quality for its size and good sound quality. It is ideal for a kitchen work surface or bedroom as a smaller TV suited to those rooms. There are ample connections.

The Bad
The build quality isn’t the best but at the price you pay this is still a good television for the price.

Conclusion
Not a bad offering from LG. While on the budget side, you can get a better television but expect to pay more. As previously stated would suit a kitchen or bedroom.

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We managed to lay our hands on what appears to be a very popular LCD TV, the Toshiba Regza 37RV635D. This model is selling like hot cakes at the moment so we were eager to have a look see and find out what all the fuss is about. Read on for our full report ..

The Good

From pulling the 37RV635D out of the box to having it up and running took us a grand total of 10 minutes, attaching the unit to the stand, hooking up the cables and running through the on-screen setup was both very easy and well documented so full marks to Toshiba for that.

Toshiba have touted their new resolution+ technology to anyone who wil listen, but until now we haven’t had the oppurtunity to try it out. Resolution+ upscaling takes everyday standard definition content and instantly enhances it to virtually high definition picture quality by improving edge detail and texture.

We started off testing with a standard definition SKY box and DVD player, and were blown away by the picture quality, running side by side with another similar specced LCD TV you could really tell the difference, the picture looked crisper with a great colour depth, and this was with only a standard def input. Playing HD content and the 37RV635D shone through you could tell it was a full 1080p TV.

The 37RV635D also comes packed with an Auto-view feature that automatically adjusts picture settings depending on not only the room lighting, which is common feature on quality LCD TVs these days, but also the content shown on screen. This feature eliminates the need to constantly have to adjust the backlight brightness and colour settings in order to find the best viewing experience in all environments. We tried this out by increasing and decreasing the lighting in the room and it did work very well, providing a near perfect picture in all situations.

We then hooked up a PS3 via HDMI to test Toshiba’s ‘Game Mode’ feature which automatically picks the best aspect ratio amongst other things and it did the job perfectly, nothing was lopped off the edges and the picture clarity was amazing to say the least.

The built-in freeview guide was possibly one of the best we have seen, being both intuitive and easy to use, showing at a glance a full timeline of programs and times. The freeview reciever itself seemed to pick up more channels on setup than a lot of other tellys and produced a great quality picture.

The sound quality from the Regza 37RV635D’s onboard speakers was surprisingly quite good considering their size, don’t get us wrong it won’t rattle your fillings but it was better than most of the TV’s in it’s category, with enough options to have you fiddling for hours fine tuning it.

External connections include 4, yes 4! HDMI connectors, 2 Scart inputs, S-Video and component connectors, a CAM module slot, an Optical digital output socket, headphone connector, USB JPeg viewer, a D type PC input and an audio from PC socket, which is enough to suit just about any household.

Also the remote is well laid out, with fairly large buttons and the functions printed a good size too so that you can actually read it without squinting.

The Bad

We struggled to pick fault with the 37RV635D, it really is that good, but in the interests of keeping this review impartial then this is the best we could do, the Toshiba logo is lit up on this model and may prove a distraction to some, although it can be easily switched off via the options.

Conclusion

Toshba have come up trumps with the Regza 37RV635D, it represents excellent value for money over other 1080p TVs. Its aesthetically pleasing on the eye and feature rich, for the money you can’t go wrong. If you have one of these on your shortlist then just buy it, you certainly won’t be disappointed.

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If you are lacking shelf space on your TV stand then the latest 3 in 1 combi from Toshiba could be just the solution you are looking for. The RD-XV59DT integrates both DVD and VHS recorders as well as a Freeview recorder, but is it any good? Read our full review below to find out if Toshiba have managed to maintain their long run of quality electrical goods.

The Good

Whatever media type you are looking to play the RD-XV59DT can just about do it all, when we first got our hands on the machine it took a little while to get to grips with it, mainly because it is so feature packed, but we were soon using it to it’s full potential and boy does it have lots of that.

Initial Set up is quick, just a matter of waiting while it searched for available freeview channels etc, and then it was good to go. We managed to acquire a few VHS tapes to test out the 6 head player/recorder and found it to be excellent on playback and recording you can even record an old VHS onto the internal hard drive and from there burn it onto DVD so backing up that old wedding video is really made a breeze.

The RD-XV59DT also has a DV input which allows you connect up your camcorder and transfer videos directly, once loaded onto the hard drive you can then edit the video to your hearts content before burning onto disc, completely bypassing the need to use your computer.

DVD playback provided great picture quality with it’s ability to upscale standard definition DVDs to 720p, 1080i and 1080p, you can even simultaneously play and record, allowing you to watch a DVD, while recording to the HDD all which is done simply at the press of a few buttons. It was able to record onto every type of disc we put in, including DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R, DVD+RW. The Toshiba RD-XV59DT was also able to play all varieties of CD, we tried a SVCD, VideoCD and even divx all of which played without a problem.

The Freeview portion of this unit is possibly one of the best we have seen in a Freeview recorder, the menu is well laid out so you can effortlessly watch and record your favourtie programs, at the touch of a button the live TV recorder will start and then allow you to pause and rewind just in case you are interrupted. One very nifty feature we found was that if you set a program to record and it clashes with another you have already set up it will then actively seek an alternative viewing time and suggest that to you, eg a later showing of Emmerdale on ITV2.

The conector options on the Toshiba RD-XV59DT include 2 scarts sockets and an HDMI located at the rear, aerial in and of course the DV input.

The Bad

The manual even though comprehensive, suffers from the usual Japanese to English problems we have seen so often, it’s not ineligable just hard work, but we figured it out in the end and are now using the Toshiba RD-XV59DT effortlessly.

Conclusion

Over all an excellent bit of kit, if you are looking for something to bridge the gap between technologies then this one fits the bill brilliantly. With it’s closest rivals being nearly twice the price of this little beauty you can’t go far wrong.

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We put the Samsung LE32B450C4 to the test and give you the low-down on what’s good and not so good. The name Samsung is renound with top quality products, so does this puppy carry on that tradition, read on to find out.

The Good

Initially setting up the LE32B450C4 is a breeze and couldn’t be easier, run through a couple of questions it then scurries off to find all the Freeview channels it can with it’s built in receiver and then you’re good to go, 5 minutes and job done.

Picture quality is clear and crisp when viewing freeview and it just gets better if you are able to hook up Sky, we were unable to tell the difference between this TV and a higher end 1080p model in terms of picture. Hooking up a Xbox 360 really brought the Samsung LE32B450C4 out of it’s self, with it’s ‘high contrast game mode’ feature our games looked amazingly sharp, and yes, we were only playing for research purposes, honest.

On screen options are plentiful, with the ability to fine tune the picture and sound so that you can get it just as you want it. The Freeview interface was nicely laid out and easy to navigate, enabling you to quickly find that programme you’re after.

The SRS Trusurround HD feature on the LE32B450C4 produced a great sound from it’s 2 built-in speakers, completing the viewing experience nicely, but of course as with any TV if you want the very best in sound you will invest in a home cinema kit to run along side it.

Connections on the TV include one scart socket, two HDMI connectors at the back and another on the side of the unit and component connections at the rear.

The supplied remote is well laid out and easy to use, not cluttered like some these days.

Specs:

The Bad

Only having 1 Scart socket may present a problem for some with more than one old style DVD or even VCR player that only have a Scart option, but if you are seriously considering this TV then what better excuse to upgrade them as well! Once you have seen the difference in picture quality you won’t want to go back.

Conclusion

Samsung have produced a top quality TV which is also excellent value for money, we cannot fault the picture quality and usability at all. Provided the scart limitation doesn’t affect you then you can’t go far wrong purchasing the Samsung LE32B450C4

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We got our hands on a Toshiba SD290EKB as we had heard some good things about this low budget model. Toshiba are renound for their quality products so we were exciting to give this DVD player a test run.

The Good

Pulling the SD290EKB out of the box we were pleased to see it was a proper full size unit, unlike some of the others at the low budget end of the market which are dinky little boxes. One of the first things we noticed was the USB connector on the front which allows connection of an external hard drive or memory stick, which when combined with the SD290EKB’s built in Divx playback capabilities allows you to transfer divx movies from your computer onto your memory stick and play them directly without the need to burn any discs at all, very nifty for a DVD player in this price range in our opinion!

It played every single recordable disc we threw at it without any problems, DVDR/W +/- CDR/W. The SD290EKB also has the ability to play MP3 and JPEG files, while we don’t particularly use these features very much there are probably many that do and it’s nice to have as a free extra. Dolby digital support is also included as well DTS.

Picture quality is excellent, it even blew our Sony PS3 out of the water in terms of clarity on divx playback. It also supports multi region playback, if you want to make the SD290EKB fully region free we managed to find the following way to unlock it:

“First of all turn on the dvd player, open the disc tray and then enter 98790. It will now change to region 0 making it able to watch all regions.”

The Bad

More of a little gripe really but there is no HDMI connector on this model, even though there are some stores quoting that there is, so if that’s your only option for hooking the unit up to your telly then the SD290EKB isn’t much use to you.

Conclusion

The Toshiba SD290EKB is almost perfect for the amount of money it costs, very simple to use and supports pretty much everything as long as you don’t need a HDMI connection. It has a multitude of features that a lot of the more expensive models have at a fraction of the price. An absolute bargain.

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If you are on the market for an affordable HDMI upscaling DVD player then the latest offering from Technika may well be the one for you, it may not be the belle of the ball when it comes to looks but it more than makes up for it in functionality.

For those who have a modern HDTV the HDMISS09 has a HDMI output positioned at the rear and will upscale the picure to 1080p HD quality ensuring you get the best clarity from those old DVDs, it also has a standard scart connector so no matter what type of TV you have you can rest assured that Technika’s latest offering will work for you.

The Technika HDMISS09 has the ability to playback numerous types of media, CD/R/RW, DVD/-R/+R/-RW and is MP3, JPEG, MPEG-4, Xvid compatible. So really makes life easy without the need to do any of that pesky converting before burning your discs off. It also plays both NTSC and PAL without any problems.

Even though it isn’t the prettiest standalone we have ever seen, it is reasonably small and lightweight, plus with it’s price tag and features it will be hard to beat.

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