With that in mind, we purchased a Tevion TEV8200 HD STB from our local Aldi store. This is one of the cheapest HD STBs currently available and has all the features that you are likely to want.

With a recommended retail price of $119 (including GST) and occasionally available on special at $99, the Tevion HD STB is hard to go past. It is quite a bit larger than typical SD STBs and is quite heavy to boot.

Its front panel has six pushbuttons to control the various on-screen menus, to select channels and control volume. But after the initial setup, there is no need to ever use the front panel controls.

The rear panel is of more interest because the number of video output connections is impressive. In fact, the array of connectors on the rear panel is likely to be quite daunting for any non-technical user.

The TV Channel Manager screen shows the channels that are available together with a preview of the channel selected, in this case ABC HDTV. Note the availability of the D44 data signal channels.

This screen is a program guide showing what is available over most parts of Sydney, including the D44 Datacast channels. The latter include weather, federal parliament, a TV buying channel, a Christian channel and so on.

It has the standard male and female coax connectors for the antenna input fly lead and an output to VCR, TV or whatever. To connect an analog TV, there are RCA sockets for composite video and L & R stereo audio, S-video and component video.