Philips outs new Freeview HD range

Philips has announced its new Freeview HD range for the UK, a receiver and PVR both due in time for June’s World Cup.

Made in conjunction with Pace, which also makes the Sky+ box, the HDT8520 PVR and DTR5520 receiver are probably the nicest looking Freeview HD boxes we’ve ever seen. But how do they fare under the hood?

The HDT8520 packs a 500GB hard drive for up to 250 hours of SD content or around 125 hours of HD recording, a dual tuner for recording one channel while watching another, and Philips say its been designed to operate almost silently.

The DTR5520 will offer a similarly quiet experience, but without the hard drive capability. It also has a seriously low energy consumption of under 6W when its up and running.

Both boxes promise 1080p HD upscaling, USB and Ethernet ports, and automatic installation and channel updates as and when necessary.

The HDT8520 and DTR5520 will hit shelves in May for £299 and £159 respectively.

Dan Grabham Editor-in-Chief

About

Dan is Editor-in-chief of Stuff, working across the magazine and the Stuff.tv website.  Our Editor-in-Chief is a regular at tech shows such as CES in Las Vegas, IFA in Berlin and Mobile World Congress in Barcelona as well as at other launches and events. He has been a CES Innovation Awards judge. Dan is completely platform agnostic and very at home using and writing about Windows, macOS, Android and iOS/iPadOS plus lots and lots of gadgets including audio and smart home gear, laptops and smartphones. He's also been interviewed and quoted in a wide variety of places including The Sun, BBC World Service, BBC News Online, BBC Radio 5Live, BBC Radio 4, Sky News Radio and BBC Local Radio.

Areas of expertise

Computing, mobile, audio, smart home