Certain channels exhibit higher levels of block noise than others, but the LG DRT389H valiantly manages to make them all look fairly watchable, particularly with the upscaling set to 1080p. That said, we won't lay all the blame at the feet of Freeview, as we have seen better digital TV picture quality on other DVD recorders.

Detailed recordings

As for recordings, the LG DRT389H captures the bold colours, fine detail and clean edges of the source broadcasts perfectly in the top-quality XP mode, but inevitably picks up all the broadcast's block and mosquito noise, too. The two-hour SP mode is useful for movies and a recording of King Kong from ITV2 onto a DVD+R DL disc looked very watchable indeed and not too dissimilar to XP quality.

Using the hideous MLP mode is a complete waste of time, however, despite luring you in with the promise of 21hr of recording time on DVD+R DL.

We recorded some material from VHS tape in XP via Scart and the resulting recordings seem stable and clean.

Pre-recorded DVDs scrub up nicely when upscaled to 1080p and viewed on a full HD set, exhibited crisp detail, deep blacks and pure, natural colour tones.

Impressive CD playback

The LG DRT389H isn't designed to replace your CD player, but its music playback doesn't disappoint.

MP3 and WMA files also sound dynamic, while multichannel movie playback is great, but it does depend on the quality of your sound system. There are no problems with Dolby Digital-encoded sound with recordings from any source.

With features such as Freeview+, dual-layer recording and a USB port on board you can't begrudge paying over £100 for the LG DRT389H.

We could wish for a better translation of the Freeview+ features, though. However, it carries out its variety of tasks with a slickness missing from some similarly priced rivals.