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Sagem DTR94500S HD Freesat+ DVR

Capacious

The remote, like the unit itself, feels a little plasticky and, frankly, we weren’t impressed with the position of all the buttons. There are several that don’t do anything at all, which may well confuse some users.

Sagem DTR94500S

More contrast on the UI, please

In normal operation, you’ll see the channel number on the bog-standard display. When you go into the menus or the Electronic Programme Guide (EPG), or a recording starts, it tells you as best as it can in seven segments. You may also hear something – ours had a definite buzz.

The on-screen info box at the bottom of the picture has a wide range of icons to indicate HD programming, the type of audio, and so on, in orange-on-grey. Some of the icons don’t seem that clear, and the while the colour scheme’s not too bad, it could do with more contrast.

Freesat lays down some rules for presenting the EPG, but there’s a fair bit of latitude within those. Like other boxes, the Sagem insists on displaying the Genre screen when you enter the guide, and there’s no option to turn it off. More annoyingly, you can’t change genre, so you have to exit, and then go back into the guide. We felt, too, that the colour scheme and layout of the guide isn’t as clear as on, say, the Panasonic DMR-S850 Freesat recorder.

Sagem DTR94500S

Not the clearest of EPGs

Irksomely, you also have to press Exit to return to live TV if you want to go from the EPG to the list of recordings, or in the opposite direction – you can’t just hit the appropriate button and bounce between them.

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