January 2009 What Satellite & Digital TV 103
Test
SATELLITE
buttons. It has a few too many similarly sized pads
organised in neat rows to be considered intuitive,
although they are reasonably easy to see in the dark.
Setup and use
Freesat channels are tuned automatically after punching
in your postcode to gauge which region you’re in, and
therefore which version of BBC One and Two should sit at
101 and 102 in the EPG (you can choose alternatives
afterwards). This took two minutes.
Or you can use the manual setup. Here you can opt to
scan transponders from a list, by NIT, or scan an entire
satellite. Yes, you can scan other satellites but this can be
slow (a full Astra 2/Eurobird scan took 22.5 mins), you
can’t specify FTA only, and there’s no DiSEqC.
The single list of FTA and scrambled channels can be
sorted A-Z, Z-A into SD and HD channels, or by network
You can also put channels into groups labelled Movie,
Music, Sports, Shopping, Guide, News, Scramble FTA and
favourites 1 or 2 and pin-lock them.
Navigation and features
The menu system looks great and is easy to navigate.
The quickest way to call up channels is to press the list
button, while pressing Info or Up on the remote calls up
the programme information banner. This includes details
and a progress bar for the current programme, and it can
be expanded to view synopses.
Pressing the left and right menu buttons lets you scan
ahead to see what’s coming up on the current channel,
but this proved rather erratic with some SD channels.
Browsing info for Five, for example, we found
occasional gaps in information ranging from three to 12
hours, suggesting that a few bugs still needed attention.
LNB loopthrough
The Freesat EPG looks a little prettier and more hi-res
than that found on Freesat zappers from the Alba group.
Nevertheless, it functions in pretty much the same way.
You can bring up a guide for all channels or choose to
view only data for channels that conform to a certain
genre, such as news or movies.
Information is displayed as a smoothly scrolling
full-screen grid of up to seven channels at a time which
can be skipped in periods of 24 hours up to seven days in
advance with synopses shown at the top.
From here, you can schedule timer events with once,
daily and weekly repeat options.
Non-Freesat channels get a programme banner and
their own EPG. This shows a list of data for the selected
channel only, which can be browsed day by day, while
the selected channel is shown on the right in a window.
You can also play MP3 fi les and JPEG images from
fl ash drives inserted in the USB port, giving the HD 100
the edge on other HD zappers.
We had no trouble playing fi les in these formats,
although the receiver had a tendency to automatically
re-size images in an odd fashion. It will also play MPEG-2
video fi les.
Performance
Available picture output settings are PAL, 576p, 720p and
1080i, although SD is not upscaled.
There’s an array of picture-tweaking options available,
including sharpness and hue and even a noise-reduction
option (if your television set doesn’t have one already,
that is).
Predictably, it’s the HDMI output that wins in the
picture stakes, delivering smooth and natural-looking
results from SD channels while those from BBC HD look
as sharp as you’d expect.
Unfortunately, RGB Scart pictures tend to look pale
– especially skintones – something that is not fully
overcome by altering the picture settings.
Stepping down, as expected S-video and composite
pictures show another slight dip in quality.
Sound quality is reasonably crisp, however, especially
when pumped through the optical output
■
Grant
Rennell
12V power
supply
TV Scart (composite/
S-video/RGB
VCR Scart (S-video/
composite)
Features
No. LNB inputs:
1
LNB loopthrough:
Yes
DiSEqC:
N/A
No. channels:
200
Selectable FEC:
No
Symbol rate:
2-45Ms/s
CAM:
None
Common interface:
None
Teletext:
DVB decoded
EPG:
DVB now-and-next/Freesat
7-day
Timer:
7 days
UHF modulator tuning:
N/A
Software upgrade:
USB, OTA
Data ports:
Ethernet, USB
SD out:
TV Scart (composite/S-video/
RGB), VCR Scart (S-video/composite)
HD out:
HDMI (576p, 720p or 1080i)
Audio out:
Optical digital audio
(Dolby Digital bitstream-compatible)
Tech Data
Freesat only scan:
2m 0s
Full scan, Astra 2/Eurobird:
22.5m
Power consumption:
In use: 24W
Standby: 3W
Common interface supports:
N/A
0
25 mins
0
5 mins
Verdict
The Sat HD 100 won’t tempt enthusiasts away
from the Humax Foxsat-HD, but on its own merits it
performs reasonably well. Multimedia playback is a
nice touch in particular.
Perhaps the forthcoming PVR will be Metronic’s ace
in the hole.
Ratings
PLUS
■
HD and SD pictures via HDMI
■
Multimedia playback
■
Easy navigation
MINUS
■
Slow scans
■
Scart pictures could be better
Build
★★★★★★★
★★★
Setup
★★★★★★★★
★★
Searching
★★★★★★
★★★★
Navigation
★★★★★★★★
★★
Performance
★★★★★★★
★★★
Features
★★★★★★★★
★★
Value
★★★★★★★
★★★
75
%
S/PDIF output with
Dolby support
Ethernet port
(not used)
HDMI output
USB port for updates/
multimedia
WST270.metronichd100 103
1/12/08 5:01:39 pm
