Goodmans - Freeview Digital TV Receivers

	Goodmans GDB5 - Combined digital TV and digital radio Combined Digital TV and Digital Radio receiver. This set top box receives Freeview and DAB stations. You can discuss the GDB5 in our forum. Has a 5 event timer. Scrolling display for radio text. Became available from May 2004. See below for a full review. Outputs: 2 x SCART, RF loopthrough, audio phono Available for £69.99 from Argos (Cat no: 532/0187)
	Goodmans GDVD305 DVBT - DVD Recorder Freeview with DVD recorder - Supports DVD, DVD-R, DVD+R, CD and JPEG picture CD playback compatible. Region 2 coding. Outputs: 2 x SCART Available £139.99 from Argos (Cat no: 085/0229)
	Goodmans GDB400 - Combined digital TV and DVD player This is a combined Freeview and DVD player - also supports playback of CD, CDR , MP3 and Kodak picture CD. Outputs: 2 x SCART, RF loopthrough Last seen for £122. Know a supplier?
	Goodmans GHDD1785 DVBT Personal Video Recorder (PVR)... to allow recording of Freeview onto hard disk. Released Aug 2005 Hard Disk: 80Gig (35 hours) Tuner: Twin Other: 7-day EPG. Pause live TV Outputs: 2 x SCART, RF loopthrough Available for £129.99 from Argos (Cat 532-0620)
	Goodmans GDB7CA Freeview box with 7-day EPG. Card slot suitable for subscription services. Became available August 2005. Outputs: 2 x SCART, RF loopthrough Available for £54.99 from Argos (Cat no: 532/0534)
	Goodmans GDB10F2 Twin Tuner. 7-day EPG . Outputs: 2 x SCART, RF loopthrough Available for £79.99 from Argos (Cat no: 5320675)
	Goodmans GDB6 Basic box. Outputs: 2 x SCART. Available for £37.97 from Tesco.com
	Goodmans GDB4 From what we understand, this is a re-packaged version of the GDB3, with an external power supply, to keep the unit size down. Outputs: 2 x SCART, RF loopthrough (no modulator), audio phono Extras: Has a 5 event timer, digital teletext. Last seen for £59.50 from John Lewis
	Goodmans GDB3 Set-top box that receives Freeview digital TV. Updated version of GDB2 Outputs: 2 x SCART, RF loopthrough (no modulator), audio phono Extras: Has a 5 event timer, digital teletext. Available for £34.99 from Argos Available for £59.99 from Littlewoods Direct (Cat no. PY576X) Available for £69 from Tesco
	Goodmans GDB2 Digital TV set-top box that picks up free-to-air channels. Outputs: 2 x SCART Extras: Has a 5 event timer. No longer available. Last seen at £75
	Goodmans GDB1 One of the first of the Freeview boxes, this was first seen in November 2002 at around £100. Basic box with a timer. User comments can be found on our older comments page. No longer available. Last seen at £75

For more help with Goodmans products, call their Product Support on 0870 873 0080.

Can't find it? If you can't track down the model you're after, try a price search at Pricerunner, BuyCentral or Kelkoo . You could also try Ebay.co.uk .
Failing that, check out the alternatives or try asking for some suggestions in our forum.

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Review of the GDB5 Freeview and DAB Receiver:
The set top box itself is 120x218x30, which is big for a set top box. It has a 2 line LCD display in the front which gives, for example, the URL of the radio channel playing. It has aerial in and out. 2 SCART and 2 phono out. The power supply is absolutely enormous and heavy.
I made sure I had bought an extra RF loop through cable, but due to lack of manuals etc online for the GDB5 had not realised it needed an extra SCART lead - one is supplied in the box but I wanted to go via my HS2 recorder. One SCART goes from the GDB5 to the HS2, the other from the GDB5 to the TV.
My major problems related to the fact that the supplied SCART lead appeared to be of the lowest possible quality and effectively barely could connect to the GDB5, to the TV or to the HS2 recorder. Since you always have in any case one less lead than necessary, I now had 2 less than necessary, so a minute house search was needed which yielded two SCART leads which eventually worked. I would say the SCART connection on the back of the GDB5 does not have the robust feel about it in any case. If my poor fortune is repeated make sure you have 2 good SCART leads if you are going via a recorder (only one needed if just using TV).
The remote control looks and feels unattractively, with very small keys, but it does work.
I am new to Freeview so had to come to terms with that as much as the GDB5. Once the connections were correctly made, a blue setup screen appeared and pressing OK kicked off the search for TV and DAB channels. It treats the radio part of Freeview as "TV" - DAB has a separate icon in the menu, and there are two others for setup and for timer record. I needed the setup as the preset was to wide screen letter box.
You can move your favourite channels to the top of the programme guides for easier access.
The first thing I had not realised (at least using the configuration I have used) was that although Freeview is on my TV channel 0 - AV - it takes over all the other channels as well, so I cannot press 1 on the old TV remote control to get BBC 1 - I just get Freeview again.
The programme guide shows 41 channels, 3 teletext and 4 which seem to be under development. 11 of these, irritatingly shown already in the main programme guide, will not at all available except by paying 7.99 a month to topuptv. Needless to say these include channels such as Discovery, E4, UK Gold etc.
Many of the channels shown double up - obviously the children's channels are allocated to something else at night. BBC3, BBC4, BBCi, ITV2, ITV news and Sky News and Sky Sports News look OK for me.
On the radio front, there are 21 channels shown under Freeview. 18 of these are duplicated with DAB in my area, 3 are unique to Freeview - 5Live Sports Extra, Q and MOJO.
The DAB has a further 33 stations unique to it. By my maths that makes 18+3+33 or 54 radio stations in all. I definitely wanted some of the DAB stations such as Classic FM. I am in a poor reception area for radio and listen to it mostly on small portable radios. Having these 54 is a huge step forward.
I would have liked a digital output from the GDB5 to the receiver, but phono does well enough for me.
Now it is all working, I feel it does exactly what I expected it to do. The TV cannot be better than the TV side of Freeview without paying for the extra channels - these are well documented so you will know if you want them. The point of buying this box is to get at the DAB in addition to what I will call Freeview Radio. In the London area there is a very good choice of channels, and I am happy with the reception, not least compared to the very poor radio I have had up to now.
The look and feel of the GDB5 components is not up to the standard of a Sony or Panasonic, but then neither is the price. I can live with a massively oversized power supply and probably live with the small keys on the remote. I paid the price in time for the unusable SCART lead - my advice unless I have just been unlucky is to have these and the RF loop all ready waiting before you get your GDB5.

Thanks to Clive Holtham for this review posted to our Freeview forum May 2004 Read other reviews

Goodmans GDB2 comments:

Comments: Just bought two Goodmans GDB2s, one for my Parents' and one for myself.
Overall they seem good (but I do find on both the signal strength only seems about 1/3 up the white bar, and signal quality about 2/3 up the green bar - is this correct ?).
BUT - GOODMANS TECHNICAL - PLEASE READ
There are two bad bugs:
1/ When connected to the video recorder, it is not possible to switch in and out of standby. So if one's video is on (not standby) and the GDB2 in standby, one cannot use the terrestrial until one standbys the video - ridiculous. Also if the GDB2 is on, one cannot standby it unless one puts the video into standby first. --- This is completely confusing my Parents who are around 80, even I find it aggravating, originally thinking the box kept locking up.
2/ When one pushes the TV/DTV button it turns off the output to the video recorder as well as to the TV. I therefore cannot record terrestrial and watch analogue (my Hitachi TV decides to take the syncs from the SCART even when overridden to an analogue channel if the GDB2 is set to DTV, and the VCR has nothing fed to it if I select TV). The GDB2 should really only switch it's TV output on and off with the TV/DTV button, and leave the signals on to (or from) the video.
Submitted by: PeterB (sdcpuk@yahoo.com)
Received on: Wed May 7 13:28:42 2003 from IP address: 62.173.97.50

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