Price: £Under 160 Freeview is now evolving further. It's been a year since the first generation of the SetPal receivers for the free digital terrestrial TV service hit the shelves. These set-top boxes were among the first to herald a new generation of sexier-looking compact receivers, designed for Freeview. The service allows the average TV viewer access to a considerable amount of new channels on offer such as those being advertised by the BBC - and all through a standard TV aerial. Now the follow up product is here, and is the first of its type in the UK. It is simply a SetPal integrated with a standard VHS VCR, and is given the model number SV-900. As with the first SetPal units, the VCR features a Daewoo badge, although the real brains behind all the SetPal-based products are actually the Irish company NovaPal. For those who don't know already, a major unique selling point of SetPal-based receivers over other Freeview receivers, is the sensitive tuner that gives a clear picture where most other boxes would be too glitchy. This helps for viewers in marginal signal areas, and makes all the difference in this transitional period when the digital TV signal is much weaker than that of the traditional analogue one. In the last year, NovaPal was successfully able to fend off a challenge to this claim, when a rival manufacturer complained to the Advertising Standards Association. Basic Description Back to the VCR, then. The idea is simply as a drop in replacement to a standard analogue video. It is VHS with the HQ system and the standard SP and LP modes, as well as featuring the now ubiquitous VideoPlus+. This is also the first product to combine both Freeview and VideoPlus+. Because of this, it may take the magazine listings a little time to catch up with publishing compatible numbers for non-terrestrial Freeview channels, however work is definitely in progress to make it so. The video will also put an Index mark on each recording made and features an Index Search option from the remote control which will automatically scan through your recordings. There is no PDC (Programme Delivery Control), as this system is based on the analogue TV system, and since this VCR only features a digital tuner and not an analogue one, then it is not present. However, many may not be bothered by this. PDC can be unreliable and does not have total coverage, as this excellent guide explains. Also, the vast majority of non-terrestrial channels work to a strict schedule now anyway. Programmes on UK History or the Community Channel are unlikely to be disrupted by an over-running football match ! One of the questions that has been around for some time is what happens to people's video recorders when the analogue signal is switched off - well this product is certainly the answer for some. I find it interesting that whilst idTV (Integrated Digital TVs) have been available for a some years already, this is only the first idVCR to hit the shelves. I do think it is much more logical design-wise to put a DTT tuner in a VCR, so why we had to wait until late 2003 for the very first is anyone's guess.

Switching On As a VCR it works pretty much how you'd expect it to. It's just that it has many more channels than a regular video, plus a beautiful-looking interface to navigate through them ! The front LED of the panel will light up which channel you're currently viewing. When a tape is inserted the front-panel will not show the tape counter (not enough digits!) however, a much nicer counter can be called up on-screen by pressing the Display button on the remote. This features a very nice "fuel-gauge" style bar and there is a feature that automatically works out the length of the inserted tape (see image to the right). Switching on this video for the first time kicks off the EasyTune process. This works in two stages - firstly to tune the VCR to your TV, and secondly to scan for digital TV multiplexes, from where the VCR will also set it's clock automatically. If you're still using an RF lead into your TV then the VCR automatically cycles round all of the UHF channels until you find the one that matches. You can also select what RF channel (21-69) to use in the preferences menu, however it's always better to use a SCART lead wherever possible. Helpfully, both a basic SCART lead and an RF lead are supplied in the packaging. The scanning for digital channels and the Favourites list is identical to that of the existing SetPal receivers. You have the option of initially excluding from the list anything you don't like. For me, that's shopping channels! Continuing, it then becomes clear that the menus are evolved from the original SetPals, with more colour and new options for handling Timers. Menu speed is still very fast indeed, and so is Digital Text. Given the integrated nature of the product, there appears to be no compromise in the excellent performance of the SetPal tuner, at least on my setup. I personally do not have ideal reception conditions, as I am currently using an indoor aerial, but the SetPal copes miles better than an ex-ITVD Nokia receiver I used to own. A brand new Preferences menu is available, which allows many options for configuring the behaviour of the SetPal tuner as well as some of the VCR behaviour. A number of these options were previously available only in the hidden engineering menus of older SetPals. Picture/Sound Quality As with previous SetPals, the VCR automatically outputs both RGB and Composite video and your TV should select RGB over Composite if it is supported. There is no S-Video, although with the excellent RGB picture quality available it should hardly be needed. Playing a VHS tape will switch the SCART to output Composite only. The unit is auto-tracking (but with a manual option if need be), and tape playback quality, whilst not breaking any new boundaries at all, seems acceptable with my pre-recorded material and lots of off-air recordings made with my old Toshiba V857-B VCR. Recordings made with the VCR again are reasonable with both SP and LP modes - I don't think it's as good as my old Toshiba, but then again that cost me 400GBP at the time - this 6-head machine will not cost anywhere near that much! Again I would emphasise that this product is probably for average mass-market consumer, and not for the home cinema enthusiast whom in this age has probably already moved on to DVD recorders. Hi-Fi stereo is of course featured, and sounds nice and crisp. This is not NICAM however (the system that was designed for digital stereo over analogue TV). There is no analogue tuner in this VCR - so there is no NICAM, but Freeview still does deliver good quality MPEG-2 stereo. You must remember, however that to hear the stereo back you must have this VCR connected to your TV with the SCART lead, as the remodulated RF output is mono only. If you want to hear your VCR through your Hi-Fi then two RCA connectors are at the back for L/R stereo output. Unfortunately, no digital S/PDIF output yet, although I wouldn't be surprised if one appeared in a future product.

Other Features If you want to connect a camcorder, there are composite inputs on the front of the Unit, and a second SCART around the back can also loop through other sources. To my knowledge, this is also the first VCR that can loop through RGB sources, although unfortunately in my pre-production model there is a bug which has prevented it from working totally satisfactorily. NovaPal have informed me that some of the early units in the shops may have this feature disabled because of a bug introduced by Daewoo (not NovaPal's fault). Hopefully a statement will be forthcoming from Daewoo on this issue. Conclusion If your current video is on its last legs, and you know you still want VHS for a number of years yet whilst the DVD-recording format war rages on, then this product can probably serve a duty as being the last VHS video you ever own. It may also be appealling to those who do not yet have Freeview, and although they already have a reasonable VCR, would like a way of adding Freeview to their setup without adding to the "box count" of their system. Those who do not want to go down the TiVo or Pace Twin route may simply buy the product because it provides a very easy to use integrated timer/recording functionality for Digital TV. I am confident that even those who have not used a SetPal should find it easy to use. The large number of people who are familiar with a SetPal already will find it an absolute cinch! The market has well and truly been cornered. There is no doubt that some may well see the combination of the analogue and digital world in this way a rather odd proposition, and I think there's a growing community out there who are wondering if we'll ever see a SetPal idDVD-R. A product with S-VHS ET and maybe some even Digital Noise Reduction would have been desirable to milk the last vestiges out of analogue recording. As it is, bog-standard VHS looks really dated. But whilst we wait patiently for more advanced products, NovaPal & Daewoo have taken a logical step in the direction of putting Freeview into the humble video, and I'm sure there will be many who'll go for it. Pros: SetPal tuner provides best chance of a good reception. Good looking and very easy to use software and timer. Cons: It's VHS, and my 5-year old Toshiba deck had a more solid picture. Possible bugs in early units.

Review copyright © Eddie Talbot, 2003.