Digital TV is gaining a foothold in our living rooms in a two-pronged approach. You can add a separate digibox or get an integrated digital TV with built-in tuner. A growing number of digital recorders include Freeview too, either as a hard-disk-equipped personal video recorder (PVR) or inside a DVD recorder, with or without a hard disk.
Sanyo's CE32LDY1 is one of the few TVs to include both a Freeview receiver and hard-disk recorder inside. It's also an HD-ready 32in LCD with an HDMI port should you upgrade to the next evolution of TV (though of course you'll need to add a separate HDTV box).
Sanyo nicknames this the Y:TV, a 'designer' product made in the UK and available with a black, white, red or blue frame. The screen is stand or wall-mountable, though the extra electronics make it stocky for a flat TV. The speakers are placed unusually at the back, which is a case of designing for appearance over performance - no matter how clever Sanyo says the 'Time Domain' audio technology is.
If you need to connect additional items such as a DVD player, then you'll find three Scarts (two with RGB), component video for progressive scan and the aforementioned HDMI. Two of the Scarts also have an output for external recording. Sadly the only format available is basic composite video, which is okay for external VHS recordings but not DVD due to the basic quality.
This is just the first of many limitations of the Y:TV. The main drawback is that there's only one digital tuner, so you cannot record overlapping programmes or watch one Freeview channel when recording another (there is an analogue tuner so you can at least watch channels 1-5 while recording Freeview, or vice versa). This is a shame as the hard drive has a huge 160GB capacity for storing 40 hours at the highest recording quality mode (and about 180 hours at the lowest).
The hard drive does, however, constantly buffer what you're tuned to for up to two hours, even if you change channel, so you can pause live TV or scroll back over something you might have missed. However, unlike many PVRs, you cannot capture this buffer as a proper recording.
Performance
There is a full seven-day electronic programme guide but it is hard to browse listings across all Freeview channels - apart from what's on right now or immediately afterwards. It's easy to choose a programme to record, but you then have to wade through three levels of confirmation screens, which can be a bind if you're setting several recordings, and the confusing array of function buttons on the unwieldy remote control sends your fingers into contortions.
There are various other problems. Firstly the programme names are not copied from the guide into your playlist of recordings, so it's hard to identify what's what. Then there's the timer's two-minute warning that comes on-screen if the digital tuner is about to change channel for a pre-timed event. This is fine - though rather irritating - if you are watching Freeview (and here's where having dual tuners would help), but worst of all, the message pops up even if you are playing a DVD through an external input! Finally, you cannot play anything previously stored on the hard drive when the Y:TV is making a new recording. Simultaneous play and record is a fundamental PVR feature but one that is beyond this TV's ability.
We mentioned how you can only connect external recorders to the Y:TV through basic composite video. It appears that a similarly poor connection is used internally between the screen, Freeview tuner and hard drive. This means that the digital channels look terrible (much worse than a standard digibox plugged into an LCD TV via RGB Scart), as do the recordings. Of the various recording modes, the top two (HQ and SP) seem reasonable but not as good as they should be, while the lower modes such as LP and SLP are full of digital break-up.
Live analogue TV viewing is more impressive, as is DVD playback and HDTV via component video or HDMI - with just a tiny amount of picture flaws, so if you do play from an external source, make sure you use progressive scan and/or a high definition digital connection. The commonplace RGB Scart option is usually a fair alternative but on the Sanyo the picture quality is another major letdown with an over-sharpened, burnt out and generally artificial looking performance. Having the speakers at the rear is a big mistake too, especially when they can only pump out five watts of power. The result is weedy and so 'boxed in' that you need to have volume at almost full blast just to hear dialogue clearly.
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This is a space-saving way to combine a 32in LCD TV with a Freeview tuner and hard-drive recorder but the built-in technologies are poor compared to standalone examples and the screen only looks effective with a progressive scan DVD player or HDTV box connected to it. Buy a decent Freeview PVR instead and watch it on a better TV of your own choice.
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Dave Oliver
