Review of the Grundig GDT 1000 – posted 18/3/2003 by Barry Flynn

This receiver, essentially the same as the Grundig GDT 1500 model, except with a different cabinet, can currently be had for around £90.00, excluding a widget called an 'IR Extender' (which I'll come back to).

It's no great looker, being a boxy, metallic-finished job about half the size of a VCR, which eschews the retro curves we have come to expect from such products (click here for image). The remote control is, conversely, quite a nice shape, and (small point, I know), uses ordinary AA batteries instead of those fiddly little triple-A things you're always running out of and which nobody stocks.

Setup proved simple and straightforward, something we have now come to take for granted. Simply plug the receiver in to the mains, connect up the rooftop aerial lead and the SCARTs (the GDT 1000 has two, plus RF loop-through), press the power button on the remote, and the receiver begins auto-tuning in the channels. This took marginally longer than on some boxes - around two and a half minutes - but since this is not something you have to do particularly frequently, it's no great disadvantage.

Swapping channels is possible in two different modes: one, through what Grundig calls the TV Guide, is an onscreen menu showing a list of different channels, which you scroll up and down through. Stopping at a particular channel causes the currently broadcast video for that channel to appear in a small window on the upper right hand side. At that point, pressing the OK button on the remote control brings up the chosen channel full screen. As with some other Freeview boxes, there is a palpable pause of at least a second as the tuner switches to the new channel. Within TV Guide mode, you can also set a reminder for a programme that you wish to view later. All in all, a simple, functional, user-friendly navigational tool.

The alternative way to change channels is in full-screen mode, either by dialling in the new channel number on the remote control or using the channel change buttons (labelled P+ and P-). These buttons, which are the most frequently used apart from the volume keys, seem to be strangely placed: one would expect them either to be close to the up-and-down and side-to-side arrow keys (mainly used in various menu functions, like the TV Guide), or for this function actually to be subsumed by the arrow keys, which would be the most intuitive arrangement, in my view. Instead, they are inconveniently placed on the right-hand upper side of the remote.

This isn't my only quibble with the remote. The volume controls on mine didn't work properly. The 'mute' button did nothing at all, while use of the arrow keys (+ is supposed to turn the volume up and - down) had no effect, either. Also, I hardly think that labelling one of the keys 'TV-G' is going to communicate to most users that pressing it will bring up the TV Guide (otherwise known as the EPG or Electronic Programme Guide). It's not enough that the details are in the manual. TV remotes should be intuitive.

Some other issues:

1. The decoded picture is slightly bleached out (my control being the picture from my Sky+ box). This can be corrected by altering the contrast settings on the TV receiver, but could be a problem if you're swapping between different inputs frequently. It may well be that I'm over-sensitive to picture quality (in another incarnation I was a TV producer), but it's the first time I've actually noticed any such effect with a Freeview receiver.
2. Since I have a widescreen TV, I set the option to '16:9' in the setup menu. As I may have mentioned in other reviews, my TV set is able to detect the tags in the TV signal which tell it whether it is receiving a 4:3 or 16:9 signal, and resizes the picture accordingly. But, like several other boxes, the GDT 1000 makes my TV behave very erratically in this respect: sometimes it switches to the appropriate aspect ratio; sometimes it doesn't. As I have said before, there's nothing worse than a new device actually subtracting functionality from your existing equipment.
3. The TV Guide is 'twitchy'. That is to say, it puts up error messages far too fast when it encounters a delay of some sort. When I initially tuned in to BBC3, it gave me a BAD SIGNAL message because the channel wasn't broadcasting at the time, which then changed to DATA SERVICE when it realized it was getting a text (i.e. MHEG) download. It transpired (after around 15 seconds) that this was just an onscreen message saying when BBC3 would be back on air. I also received erroneous AUDIO SERVICE messages when the tuner was simply decoding the audio a fraction ahead of the video.

Some pluses: the box automatically tells you when there's a software upgrade being broadcast (although it doesn't install it for you automatically). It also has RF loopthrough, which means you can still access analogue channels and record analogue programmes on the VCR while watching digital ones - and vice versa (although it doesn't have RF re-modulation, which would allow you to pipe the digital signal elsewhere). Finally, if you're really worried about the box's appearance, you can hide it, and connect up an unobtrusive, mouse-like 'IR extender' on the end of a long wire, which will intercept the commands from your remote control instead. That costs an extra £10, and may suit those suffering from box overload.

Verdict: Not the best receiver I've tested, by any means, and I think Grundig have been a bit light on the useability testing. However, it's reasonably well featured for a box in its class, with two SCARTs and RF loopthrough, plus the IR extender feature. It also performs its major function - tuning in and decoding Freeview signals - effectively, if a mite slowly. My worry would be that Grundig has now departed these shores, and that - although there are promises that customer service, plus regular software updates, will continue regardless through GTS - it may not be worth the risk when there are equivalent if not better receivers around at a similar price. On the whole, I'd tend to steer clear of it.