Looking for a cheap digi box in Sainsburys last night they seem to range from

Not sure about the difference between the boxes itself, but you could run any device through the vcr one on the digibox. It just acts like a passthrough. My cable box has the same thing. Also if you have more things to plug in check out the multi scart boxes. These allow you to plug more then one thing into your scart socket. i have one that takes 3 scart leads to one socket. If you do get one make sure it has switches for changing between each input as the one I had that autoswitched soon gave up the ghost and almost took my video with it.

I had heard that there can be differences in processor speed; my parents have an old On Digital Nokia box and that can take literally minutes to change channel or load a text page. I bought the Sony one which is very fast, so much so they bought the same Sony one. Don't have any specific experience with these cheap ones though, sorry.

Looking for a cheap digi box in Sainsburys last night they seem to range from

we got the Sagem on from Argos for my daughter its pretty good but IIR only has one scart hole.

Many vcrs and cheap DVD players don't have RGB outputs so if you run your freeview box in RGB to your tv also set for RGB, the picture from the VCR/DVD via the freeview box passthrough will be B/W

Many vcrs and cheap DVD players don't have RGB outputs so if you run your freeview box in RGB to your tv also set for RGB, the picture from the VCR/DVD via the freeview box passthrough will be B/W

indeed I forgot about this. should be ok for normal scart connections though. thats why I ended up buying a scart switcher from argos for my consoles to plug into.

There is a remote control hack for the nokia to put into residential mode not install mode that will speed up channel changes

Googleing for it returns a number of hits.

As for boxes the difeernece in price is due to the quality of the reciever inside the box.

You pay more, your box can hang onto weaker/noisier signals.

Thats about it plus minus a few features such as 7 day EPG etc

Well we went for the £45 Philips model and discovered that - it is exactly the same unit as the in-laws £20 Alba unit!

The software front end looks a bit prettier on the Philips with highlighted edges etc. on buttons but other than that they are the same. Even the remote controls work on the "wrong" units.

However, the Philips one keeps crashing :( just freezes, gives a balck screen and requires a power-off. Its going back to Sainsburys this week to be replaced by an Alba one from Asda

Some of the parts will not be the same in those boxes, however some will be.

Eg the control will be the same but IIRC the tuner circuit itself is different.

To be honest if a box works for you then thats the main thing

To be honest if a box works for you then thats the main thing

Sadly the Philips one refuses to work for anyone

most cherap boxes crash full stop.

If you want it to work go for Topfield or Humax.

But you move to £200+ twintuner 160gb hdd units. You get what you pay for.

It is purely a short term thing that will be replaced by an LCD screen with integrated tuner sometime soon.

Sorry but avoid humax like the plague..

I know people get through 3 a year then throw it when warenty runs out.

I have a sony after sticking with a nokia for ages.

Just purchased an ALBA digibox from Sainsburys for

Excellent I was looking for a spare cheap one for a bedroom

How big is the box, fairly compact i assume?

The ALBA one was out of stock in our local Sainsburys :(

When using a portable aerial with 2 long extending bits, push them right the way in so they're about 5" long - I got a better digital signal like that than I did with them fully extended.