Everyone knows about the Humax box and it gets good reviews but it has three drawbacks:

1) It's £300
2) It's in short supply
3) It doesn't appear to allow you to use an external (USB) HD for extra capacity though I guess you could probably hack into it if you were really dedicated.

There's also the Topfield which appears to be even more expensive (£349).

I just discovered that there are several alternatives that do let you use an external HD and which Maplin is selling for much less:

Comag £109
Passion+ £159
Innovation £179
MVision HD200 £179

However from what I have been reading here some (all?) of the ones above have limited EPG functionality (only now and next, no automatic sync of recording with programming).

So are the alternatives above the only ones currently available? Do none of them properly/fully receive the Freesat EPG? What is known about future iPlayer compatibility? How many tuners do each of them have?

As for the Topfield why would one buy it over the Humax?

If someone could compile this information and present it in table form I am sure this would help potential Freesat+ buyers like myself...

Add teletext to the list too
I think the comag boxes support old style text which is still broadcast on five and bbc world service, but not red button interactive not really text at all text
It would be interesting which boxes support double height text too
I'm not too bothered about Freesat specific EPG, I think they all have a basic what's on now EPG, but would be good to know.

How many columns is that

Pretty sure all the above have only 1 tuner. The Passion+ is definetely only a single tuner stb

The Passion+ has one tuner but a 7 day epg which can be used to schedule recordings.

The Topfield has 2 tuners and usb out, but can't get the 7 day epg afaik.

I read the flyer as well , I noted it only said "get BBC HD" , I`m pretty sure it would not be ITV HD capabable, or am I wrong ?

You can get ITV HD, you can add the data stream as a channel

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/s...d.php?t=795984

Text on Freesat (and Freeview) uses MHEG middleware for presentation. Sky use OpenTV, and most of the rest of Europe seems to use MHP. So most of the non-Freesat boxes have MHP middleware installed. I dunno if MHEG is available for Dreambox. It apparently is available on MythTV.

Thanks
If Ive read other threads correctly it appears that some of the recent boxes support what I call the simple does what it says on the tin 'text' services eg on Five going to subtitles then selecting text
and what I call the do I really need to wait and where do I need to scroll 'interactive' services through the red button

A column for each would do the trick

Whether it's a full text mode eg offering double height probably depends on the remote

It's here:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?k...PKA6YfUOUp5pTg

I encourage anyone who can fill in the blanks here from their experience to do so (use the comment feature included to provide references if possible).