Sagemcom RTI90-320 review

Pressing the next or previous buttons on the remote jumps to the next or previous day in the guide, and the date is highlighted so it’s easy to see where you are. You can search by keyword and genre to find a programme quickly.

Unlike certain PVRs we’ve seen, the RTI90-320 sensibly keeps a thumbnail of the channel you’re watching in the top-left corner of the EPG, so you can carry on watching while browsing. Also, if you press the Info button while watching a show, you can then scroll up, down and right to view programme information for shows on other channels and next on the current channel. Another nice touch is that the main information panel shows the time and title of the following programme.

Our initial test unit – which we’re told was the finished product – was very sluggish to respond to the remote, but Sagemcom rushed us an updated version which largely fixed this. The firm also promised that speed would improve further once the official firmware was released. This will be scheduled for transmission over the air shortly, but you’ll also be able to download it from Sagemcom’s website.

In terms of picture quality, we had no complaints at all. BBC HD certainly has the best apparent quality of the three HD channels, and there’s an enormous different watching World Cup matches in HD on a large Full HD TV compared to standard definition. You can almost make out faces in the crowd, and see the texture of grass, while in SD, the screen is simply a blur of pixels. Whether motion is smooth will depend partly on your TV’s capabilities, but on all the sets we tested the RTI90-320 with, we saw no juddering or any other problems.

It’s still early days for Freeview HD, and early adopters always run the risk that the first generation of PVRs will be missing features that are introduced later, or be incompatible with future changes to Freeview. However, Sagemcom is confident that the RTI90-320 is as upgradeable as it can be, and is ready for iPlayer and other services if and when this becomes available.

Bear in mind, too, that there’s no Common Interface slot so you can’t add any pay TV channels, but since most people will be buying a Freeview HD PVR for it’s free-to-air HD channels, this isn’t likely to be a major problem. We’re a little disappointed that there’s no support for DivX, MKV or any other formats, as this would make the RTI90-320 much better value.

There’s still room for improvement with the RTI90-320, but it’s not a bad choice, and is cheaper than some of its competitors. We’ve yet to see 3view’s Freeview HD PVR, which will cost £300 and be available at the end of July. It will ship with the ability to watch iPlayer and YouTube but we’re a little sceptical about how it will fare in future given that it doesn’t appear to be Freeview HD certified and may not be compatible with the official Freeview IPTV services.

Our advice is to wait a while until more Freeview HD boxes have been launched as prices are sure to drop over the next few months. If you’re desperate to buy a Freeview HD PVR right now to watch the World Cup, you won’t be disappointed with the RTI90-320.