Comprehensive EPG

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 files and JPEG images from flash drives inserted in the USB port, giving the HD 100 the edge on other HD zappers.

We had no trouble playing files 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 files.

Smooth HD images

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.