Home > Consumer Reviews > Sony VTX-D800U Freeview Digital TV Set Top Box

I bought the Sony VTX-D800U Freeview box based on Sony's good reputation and the many positive reviews on Amazon. I'm glad I paid the extra money instead of saving a few quid on a cheap supermarket box.

Plus points:
1. Superb sound and picture quality (no "lip-synch" problems for me either).
2. Easy to set-up and operate.
3. Very fast access to "red button" interactive TV offered by the BBC and others (my old cable digital box took an age to access these features).
4. Stylish design.

Negatives:
1. No access to the "Top Up TV" channels. However, as these channels are relatively expensive, I wasn't bothered in the slightest by this ommission.

I also took this Sony box round to a relative's house to test that his aerial could receive Freeview. The signal was fine with the Sony box. However, he bought a cheap supermarket Freeview box and found that some of the channels broke up. So there IS a difference between a quality box manufactured by the likes of Sony and the cheap boxes available elsewhere.

I was given this box after my cheapo grundig box went wrong after a year...the Sony has a better picture, and is easier to use. A quality product. Don't waste time and money buying a cheapo one, get the real deal Sony. Highly recommended.

At one time or another, I've bought or borrowed a number of freeview boxes and had problems with them plus seen other people's boxes in action.

The Sony is not cheap compared to other boxes but you get a very high quality product. The box is excellent at holding the signal, so no freezing or blocking as you get on other boxes. This is from my slightly weak signal that has troubled other digital boxes I've had.

The 7-day programme guide is available instantly rather than gradually as on some boxes and the text services also work fine. The box also finds and adds new channels as they appear so you shouldn't ever need to retune it.

Two scart sockets and an RF aerial out allow all the right connections to be made, unlike other boxes which have only one scar socket and sometimes not even an aerial out!

True, it doesn't support topuptv but I think topup is a poor service for what it offers and with the increased number of freeview channels over the last 12 months, you have more than enough to watch.

An excellent product.

I've been very impressed with this Sony freeview box and would recommend it happily to anyone else. The tuning and setup process was
straightforward and well described in the manuual. The postcode checker for reception on the freeview website suggested I'd need an
aerial upgrade, but the reception is excellent, both in terms of the observed picture/sound and the signal strength and quality you can see
from the engineering part of the onscreen menu. So I wouldn't rush out and get a new aerial before trying it out first :-)

The device has some nice touches - a good EPG (soon to be extended to 7 days after a trial in Wales I think), a favourite channels
button on the remote, and some dedicated buttons for control of the TV including a mute button. The most compelling reason to buy
this device instead of the other available boxes is that it's the only one for sale in the UK at the moment with the SmartLink or
P50 support. This means that provided your VCR or DVDR has this support (check the manual because there are a welter of different
trademarks for the same technology) you can set a program to record via the freeview EPG and at the appropriate time the STB will
turn on the VCR/DVDR and tune it to the correct digital channel. It adds an extra 5 minutes on the end in case there is a slight
overrun. Great for all those obscure films on BBC4...

I've had a Philips DTR500 for past 10 months which I thought was pretty good because the picture and sound were excellant and the EPG and VCR control excellant and only had a few of the typical digibox problems (like having to be powered off every week or so). But it finally packed up so I got a refund (from Amazon) and bought this sony instead.

My God, this is even better. Same picture and sound quality but the speed of this box is fantastic on both channel change and the EPG. (a real problem with the Philips) The EPG is much clearer and easier to use than that of the Philips and smartlink record setup much easier.

Took about a minute from switching it on, for the first time, to watching perfect clear pictures

But the best thing of all is that you have separate buttons on the remote which can be programmed to turn on/off your telly (any make) and change the volume, so you can do away with your old telly remote. Fantastic. It shows that Sony have really thought about this device and I can tell you they have delivered.

My advice : don't buy any other digibox...its worth the extra few quid.