Samsung SIRU200I

It has been reliable but anoying with no easy to mnipute channel moving facility. samsung sites of no help what so ever also contact points available onsites .bad show samsung.

We have had 3 of the Samsung SIRU200I boxes, regrettably our oldest has finally died.They have proved very reliable up until the channel updates where all 3 of the boxes fall over.I assume this must be because of our area but it is still irritating to have to reset the box in order to download new channels, often loosing older ones.

The Samsung SIRU200I is a good FREEVIEW box overall!

For starters, it has a cool design. No one can really complain with the colour, design, shape or size.

With auto set-up and auto scan, installing the box couldn't be much easier. Scanning for digital services when you're not in a high signal area can take a few minutes though. Even once set up is complete, the box still has a lot to show you. For one thing it has an amazing demo feature, which will really help you to get to know your box alongside reading the manual.

Just as is the case with most FREEVIEW boxes, crashes are frequent in medium to weak signal areas, even when your box is operating on a high-gain aerial. If you do live in a medium to weak signal area, you'll need a good high-gain aerial to get full enjoyment from interactive services.

The menu is attractive, and the 'now & next' guide is a great treasure for a frequent user.

Samsung SIRU200I - The Samsung box has done fairly good duty at my parent's house now since Christmas 2003. I like the simplicity of the box and that it has two scart sockets.

However, there are better boxes available (such as the Sony DTX-800) which support the 7 day electronic programme guide, show now and next when the 'info' button is pressed (the samsung only shows what's currently showing unless you go to the guide).

The remote deserves special attention as it's particularly bad. Small buttons, unclear in their layout and no ability to mimic the TV's remote.

I bought this Samsung SIRU200I DVB when I was tired of the cheap Goodmans model I'd first bought repeatedly crashed. This I understand is common for freeview boxes. All well and good, but the model I had doesn't recover, you have to unplug it and plug it back in.

Anyway, being a tiny bit more pricey, I was swayed by the good name of Samsung, and the styling. It, at the time, was totally different to all the other boxes on the market. But the main thing that swayed me, was the second scart socket that would enable me to attach it to my video recorder and record digital broadcasts in true widescreen format (analogue does not broadcast true widescreen, so a widescreen tv is pointless with analogue reception).

Setup was easy, and the instruction book is simple. Actually, a little too simple - I would have preferred more detailed information. The UI (user interface) I think is very attractive (remember, I was using a really cheap box before, where the UI was VERY ugly), and you can set a level of transparency for it - which adds to the sense of style I think. (There is a current fad with pc software to support transparency levels, and it does make a difference.) Apart from this, it is easily navigable, and easy to understand.

The now and next feature of the UI is frequently usefull, and this can be extended to show program scheduling over a few hours. A nice idea, but for the fact that none of the channels broadcast anything other than now and next programme information.

Whether watching a true widescreen broadcast, or a 4:3 ratio broadcast, the box is almost always unnoticeably quick in switching what it feeds to your TV. And if you have a widescreen TV, and the box receives a 4:3 ratio broadcast, it automatically adds black space to the side of the image, thus maintaining a widescreen image for the TV (this cuts out the necessity for your TV to switch to 4:3 ratio). I must admit though, this can be annoying sometimes, because you can't switch your TV to Cinema mode. Well, you can, but you just can't get rid of the black space the box puts at the side of 4:3 broadcasts.

The firmware can be updated via broadcast from the TV transmitters. The only problem is, you have to wait to be told if there is an update, and I have yet to see one (I'll come back to this point).

As for crashing. Yes, I have had a few, and I mean a few, crashes with this box. The crashes have never bothered me though, because the box has automatically, and quickly recovered from the crashes on every occassion (unlike my previous box). Remember, crashes are typical for freeview boxes. Par for the course, as I understand.

On the downside, there is no ability to delete any one channel from the channel listing. I would love to get rid of Free2Play and the auction channels - trash tv. But at least you can configure a favourites menu, and leave these out. Even though the box can be connected to a Video recorder via the second scart socket, the switch control* gained via scart means that the box 'hogs' your video recorder. In other words, if you set your video recorder to record an analogue channel, whilst you watch digital through the box, your video will only be able to 'see' what you're watching on the freeview box, and so will record that. (*Means the box is able to switch over the channel of your TV or Video to the required AV channel automatically.)

This brings me to two other points. Although it is possible to connect the box to your Video recorder to record digital broadcasts, there is no separate tuner for picture supplied to the video. This means you can only record what you are watching on the freeview box. Neither is there a timer menu where you can set the box to come on at a given time (i.e synchronised with the timer on your Video recorder). So if you want to record several digital broadcasts from differing channels, you have to be there to switch the box on, and over to the required channels at the given time. Unless you're recording from one channel!

The above reviewer mentioned not being able to stack this box due to it's shape. Well you can't put anything on it, but you could put it on something else. I wouldn't advise that though. The documentation does say not to put this box on top of any electrical items but that's all. Me being me, I had to test it, and I discovered it's because the box emits a strong magnetic field. Yes, all electrical items do, but not to the extent that you cannot stack them. This means, if you put it on your TV, it will distort the picture (in the short term), long term it would no doubt damage it. I don't know about other items, but I would imagine if you stack it on something, it would cause damage. So, do as the documentation says, and do not put it on other items.

Finally, I return to firmware updates and why I want one. Just like the above reviewer said. There is no support for BBC News 24 Multiscreen. I had hoped to get a firmware update, but am sad to read that the above reviewer has been told by Samsung that there are no such plans. Having had the box for about a year, I am beginning to think that there are no plans for any kind of firmware update at all.

The Samsung SIRU200I is probably the most attractive Freeview box I've seen, at least on the outside. Given the female in my household, this was an important selection feature (more's the pity).

The auto-scan is very good and the box seems to be generally reliable, although it has reset itself once when there was some particularly bad interference due to the poor signal quality in my area.

The UI is good and easy to use and widescreen support including WSS auto-switching seems to work as well as any other WSS device I've used. Not perfect as I did need to reset the box once to get it to send the WSS signals to my TV but I understand this is a common problem.

The main bad point of the unit is its lack of support for BBC News Multiscreen. If this channel is selected (at the time of writing), a message is shown saying that the box is incompatible with the service. Having contacted Samsung, there are no plans to upgrade the software to support this at the moment. I've also not managed to get F2P Games to work, but that could be my signal.

In summary, if you want a good-looking box, don't need BBC News Multiscreen and have a silver TV, the Samsung is as good a choice as any I know of.