There is a noticeable amount of block and mosquito noise in the picture, which gives it a slightly shimmery, smeary quality at times, but it's no worse than any other Freeview receiver we've tested. What's more, the HDMI output and 1080p upscaling make the image look just a touch sharper than it does from the RGB Scart output.

The LG does a great job of capturing these images on the hard disk or DVD, and in XP mode there's no difference between live and recorded pictures. In fact there isn't a great deal of difference in SP mode either; it's only when you hit LP that recordings start to look soft and noisy but far from unwatchable.

The HT399H also turns in a solid performance with pre-recorded DVDs, giving films a pleasingly cinematic look with healthy levels of colour, detail and contrast, but as it's not a dedicated DVD player, some of the artefacts on display are only to be expected.

Audio finesse

The LG performs its basic sonic tasks without any flaws.

Freeview audio is recorded in stereo Dolby Digital and sounds crisp when played through TV speakers, despite the compression used to encode it.

It also gets stuck into CDs with more finesse than you'd expect from a recorder, and multichannel movie soundtracks sound scintillating through a decent system.

Great value DVD deck

On balance, you actually get a lot for your money.

The LG RHT399H ticks all the basic boxes: a large hard disk, multi-format DVD recording, Freeview+, versatile editing features – but throws in a few spicy extras such as 1080p upscaling and hard disk multimedia playback that are the sort of extras you'd find on pricier decks from Panasonic and Pioneer.

Only the LG's occasionally clumsy operating system prevents it from reaching the same standard as its illustrious rivals.