First thing you'll notice about the Vantage HD-8000S is that no hard drive is supplied.

But rather than relying on external storage, the HD8000S flagship accepts an internal SATA (Serial ATA) drive. We successfully tried a 750GB model, but we've been told that 1TB drives will also work.

The other key addition, twin tuners apart, is hardware blind search – which is superior to the software-driven equivalent of the 7100S.

Solid build

In most respects the HD8000S is a dead ringer for its smaller brother. The styling is a case in point.

We're impressed with the glossy piano-black finish, informative 13-character fluorescent display and plenty of blue (rather than red) illumination. Behind the swing-down front-panel, you'll find a USB 2.0 socket, two CI and two card slots capable of emulating various CAMs.

The receiver's control buttons – standby, menu-access, volume and channel- change – can be operated whether the front panel is up or down.

The remote is solidly built and its buttons have a positively tactile feel. Learning from its mistakes of the past, Vantage has 'coloured in' the four buttons (known as the 'fast-text' buttons, for historical reasons) that are frequently used for sub-menu access and other functions.

Dual USBs

Each tuner has independent LNB inputs and outputs; these could be fed from a dual-LNB or separate dishes. An alternative is to 'loop' the output from one tuner to the input of the second, although this decreases flexibility (you're stuck with one satellite and channels of the same polarity).

There are two rear-panel USB 2.0 ports. One is for external HDDs, while the other allows the HD8000S's internal hard drive to be seen by a PC. Transfers via the latter would be considerably faster than using the Ethernet port, although the PC needs to be in the same room as the receiver.

You can also back up and restore channel databases to and from USB storage devices, which is helpful when upgrading firmware. The HDMI port and component ports are complemented by Scarts for TV and VCR, plus composite/S-video outputs and analogue/digital audio outputs.

Thankfully, HDMI and standard-def Scart video can be output simultaneously.

Speedy setup

Turn on the receiver for the first time and a series of wizards take you through language, tuner setting (independent dishes/looped-through/dual-LNB) and scanning. The latter is fine if you're using fixed dishes, but if you have a freshly installed motorised system additional setup is required.

And so to the main menus. Borrowed from the 7100S, the menu that configures DiSEqC (1.3/USALS and 1.2 mounts and positioners are supported, in addition to 1.0/1.1 'switchboxes') seems less than intuitive at first. But you'll soon realise its potential and find that sequentially finding and storing satellites is quite fast.

You'll find it in the 'installation' menu, where you'll configure your LNB/dish settings and scan for channels – manually, automatically or 'blindly'. Up to 20,000 channels can be stored.

Channel scanning

For auto-scanning you can specify all or just FTA channels – network searches are also permitted. A wide variety of C and Ku-band transponders are pre- programmed into the receiver's internal database.

If you choose manual searching entry of frequency/polarity/symbol rate is possible, as is the ability to specify PIDs. Less than intuitively, the latter has to be selected from the manual search's 'scan mode' option.

To find everything, especially on a new and unfamiliar satellite, the blind search is the best option. Blind search steps through the band, hunting out signals as it does so. The frequency interval can be modified between 1MHz and 5MHz in 1MHz increments. You're more likely to find obscure signals with the 1MHz setting, but searches are slow. Blind searches will find HD/H.264 channels.

System configuration

Searching multiple satellites is also possible, motorised dishes automatically-moving to the next satellite in the list. Sensibly, scanning doesn't start until the dish has arrived at the relevant satellite, ensuring that nothing is missed.

Unfortunately, blind searching is not allowed in this automated mode – a lost opportunity, as it was with the 7100S. Other submenus deal with system configuration, channel organisation, parental lock, two games, the conditional-access hardware and 'multimedia' (including USB/HDD and network configuration).

Within the system configuration group are language options, AV settings (TV system, aspect ratio and time- shifting), the clock and timer. From the channel organiser, radio and TV services can be deleted or edited – favourites can also be defined from here. Nine favourite groups are available, although they're not presented in list form.

Streaming capabilities

The Ethernet port has been provided mainly for firmware upgrades – an FTP option accesses the Vantage server.

It should also allow transferring recordings to a PC, or the streaming of TV channels to compatible devices (including other networkable Vantage receivers). Fortunately, the DHCP (auto network-configuration) settings of the review sample worked. The firmware upgrade option also proved reliable.