UPC HD Digital+ : Almost perfect

I must say, I’m loving the new UPC HD. The picture quality is simply stunning – even found myself watching under 17’s football on Eurosport HD and I normally have to be bribed to stay in the room when soccer is on. It’s an unbelievable difference and we could even see moths and flies buzzing around the pitch near the players. Quite literally, I was watching two flies walking up a screen

I’ve been fiddling around with the different settings and can confirm that 1080i provides a marginally better picture than 720 but that leaving it on 1080i causes problems when you turn the box on. I don’t know what the problem is but the HDMI connection won’t pick up the signal from the box if the channel is not one of the HD ones (telly is a Sony Bravia Picture Frame 32” – about a year old). Anyway, 1080i was too much hassle for not very much so I’ve left the setting at 720. Leaving it on auto is a disaster as it switches from 1080i, to 720, to 576 depending on the channel and that was really annoying. However, leaving it at 720 still provides stunning picture quality. Still can’t believe we’re able to see things so clearly without noise or pixelling. It’s fantastic.

I am a bit bummed about two things though. First, is the loss of the analogue service – I know but let me explain. The telly was capable of picking up a few channels on its digital setting, for example; RTE 1, Setanta, Comedy, Living. We didn’t need the STB for this. It could be recording two things at once and we’d still have a few digital channels, all the analogue ones plus all the radio stations. That’s what I really miss. I know you can get the radio through the STB but I preferred it the other way and there was a better programme guide. Think it must be native to the Sony telly but it was great. On this new HD STB, there is only a port in for the co-ax cable and no port out to connect to the TV. Think we’ll have to get a splitter and hope that it works.

Second, the HD box won’t work with the Elgato video capture I had set up. At least, it won’t work if the HDMI cable is plugged in. We have to disconnect that and then the computer can pick the video signal up from the HD box. It can get an audio signal but no video for some reason. I have a sneaking suspicion that if a Scart lead was connected to a DVR from the HD box, it wouldn’t work either – at least, not until the HDMI cable is disconnected. Then it works. Am really puzzled as to why this is.

But otherwise, I love it. It's what all the HD tellys were made for.