It’s the gadget clash no one was particularly bothered about seeing, but here it is: my brand new 2009 Sky+ HD box versus my quite old 2006 Matsui Freeview PVR. No contest, I hear you say. The might of the British Sky Broadcasting corporation against a now-defunct Dixons/Currys own brand? Hardly a fair fight, it would seem. But read on…

The Matsui M802PVR cost me £119.99 back on October 2006 and since then, pound for pound, it has proved to be the best value bit of tech kit I’ve ever bought. It’s a twin tuner PVR – able to record two channels at once – and has an 80GB hard drive. It has an incredibly user-friendly interface, with far more thought having gone into the product than its own brand badge might suggest. As for reliability, over the best part of three years of heavy usage it has never, ever let me down.

So why bother with Sky? For one simple reason – so I can subscribe to Sky Sports. And if I was going for Sky, I reckoned, I might as well go for HD. So I’ve now got a brand new Sky+ HD box. Manufactured by Amstrad. Hmm. I’d probably have gone for a Samsung or Pace box, but unfortunately Sky don’t give you (or your installer) any choice. And I’m assured that Sir Alan’s effort is the latest and most reliable box available. So this contest could actually be billed as Amstrad versus Matsui. Not exactly a clash of technological titans, but here goes:

In the manner of ITN’s recent Jacko versus Lady Di celebrity deathmatch, I’ll compare both contestants in a series of scored rounds, at the end of which the highest score wins.

Key features: The Sky box takes an early lead with this one, offering (obviously) HD, and a 160GB hard drive compared to the Matsui’s 80GB. Sky 1 Matsui 0.

Looks: At first glance, the Sky box offers sleek curves and a matt black finish, while the silver Matsui box looks a bit, well, boxy. But the Matsui is actually smaller than the plastic-y Sky in terms of width and depth, and, crucially, it has a small, clear clock on the front, showing the current time, and playing position of programmes, which I always found extremely useful. Sky 1 Matsui 1.

Noise: Box boxes fare well here. There’s a faint whirring when the hard drives of each box kick into action, but it’s unobtrusive, and both are impressively quiet. Nothing between them here, so a point each. Sky 2 Matsui 2.

Remote: Both remotes are very responsive, and the Matsui’s is smaller and very neatly laid out, if a little uglier in overall appearance. But the Sky remote seamlessly controls my Toshiba TV, while the relative obscurity of the Matsui means universal remote use is difficult. Sky 3 Matsui 2.

EPG: Sky is currently rolling out an updated Electronic Programme Guide (EPG), but with rumours suggesting it might be the end of the year before the Amstrad is updated, the Sky box goes into this round with its old EPG. And that’s a problem. The Matsui has picture-in-picture as standard, so you don’t have to interrupt your viewing to browse the EPG or your recorded programmes list. The current Sky EPG interrupts your viewing and overlays the menu screens with horrible elevator muzak. This makes channel surfing something of a pain, unless you avoid the EPG by remembering channel numbers, or scroll through each channel or your favourites in order. Sky 3 Matsui 3.

Channel range: Good grief, there is some rubbish on Sky. A quick browse through the channels reveals an alarming array of low quality shopping, sex chat and Gold-bothering channels (including about twenty showing religious preachers shouting into cheap camcorders in bad English). I don’t watch a lot of TV, so I’m looking for quality, not quantity. Matsui’s Freeview offers more than enough channels for me – except, crucially, for the inability to get Sky Sports. Of course, you’re paying a premium for the Sports package, but it is the reason I subscribed to Sky, so Sky wins this round for that fact alone. Sky 4 Matsui 3.

Picture quality: This is a key one, and of course the Sky box has the advantage of offering High Definition. At it’s best, when watching the BBC HD Preview and live sports on Sky Sports HD or Eurosport HD, it looks fantastic, even on my (relatively small) 32-inch Toshiba Regza. But Sky’s claim that its HD channels only broadcast HD programming is misleading. Old episodes of The Simpsons on Sky1 HD, for example, are not HD, and look awful. Having said that, the Matsui obviously doesn’t offer HD at all, so Sky takes a point for HD quality. Sky 5 Matsui 3.

But when we come to Standard Definition picture quality, there’s a surprise. Sky’s standard def quality on certain channels, including its own Sky News and Sky Sports News, is poor. The Matsui, on the other hand, offers a crisp, vivid picture across all of its key channels, particularly emphasised when watching the scrolling news tickers on the Sky News channels, which appear slightly blurred on the Sky box. I tried connecting the Sky box to my television through a SCART rather than an HDMI lead, but any improvement in picture quality was negligible. A shame, and a shock, then, with the Matsui coming out on top for standard def picture quality. Sky 5 Matsui 4.

Reliability: As mentioned above, the Matsui has been 100-percent reliable. The Sky box, on the other hand, crashed within ten minutes of first being switched on. However, I’m going to give Sky and Amstrad another chance and see how it performs over a month or so before judging its reliability. So, for now, no points are awarded in this round. Sky 5 Matsui 4.

Extra features: The Sky and Matsui boxes share a lot of features, such as the ability to pause live TV, instant rewind and the like. If you get halfway through watching a programme and decide you’d like to record it, the Matsui will record it from the beginning. The Sky will only record it from the point at which you hit the record button. Another fantastically useful feature available on the Matsui but missing on the Sky box is the “ad skip” facility during playback, allowing you to jump forward by a user-defined time period (most primetime ad breaks are 4 minutes long) at the press of a button, instantly skipping the ads without the need to fast forward. I also liked the ability on the Matsui to delete annoying channels from the EPG, making navigation much easier and quicker, and more useful than the favourites feature available on both boxes. The best extra feature I’ve found so far on the Sky box is Series Link, which is very useful in ensuring you don’t miss any episodes of The Wire, although less useful if a broadcaster repeats your favourite programme several times over the course of a week. Sky’s Anytime feature doesn’t seem particularly useful unless you’re a really big fan of Noel’s Are You Smarter Than a Ten Year Old, concentrating as it does on Sky’s own-programming. This final round goes to the Matsui. Sky 5 Matsui 5.

The result: Sky 5 Matsui 5. Yes, it’s a wholly unsatisfying score draw! Sky scored with its big guns of HD and Sky Sports, but Matsui hit back with neat features and general ease of use. I’ll update this post if and when the Sky box impresses or annoys me enough to add or subtract any scores, but for the meantime the Sky sits under the TV, but the Matsui is safe from eBay, and will be kept safe in a cupboard with the knowledge that if it’s needed in the future it won’t let me down. Your move, Sky box.

Paul Technology