If you’re the proud owner of an HD-Ready display, but don’t fancy forking out for a Sky+ high-definition box and subscription, Humax has an alternative for you.

The HDCI-2000 will hook up to a satellite signal (this can be via a Sky digital dish or other digital satellite) and receive free-to-air broadcasts.

Thanks to the HDMI port at the rear, it’s perfectly capable of handling HD channels, but at present you’re limited to BBC HD on the ‘gratis’ front. If you fancy realigning your dish to a satellite other than Astra, further HD broadcasts can be uncovered.

The box itself isn’t particularly stylish: the LED display looks distinctly retro, while the remote is bulky and unattractive. Navigating the menus is a bit fiddly and falls far short of Sky’s excellent interface. The EPG is also disappointing, cutting off names of channels and taking a long time to populate.

Initial installation wasn’t tricky and basically involved hooking up the satellite cable to the back of the Humax HDCI-2000. The satellite signal can be looped through to a second digital set-top box if required.

However, it soon became apparent the Firmware needed to be updated before BBC HD could be received. With a USB socket sitting on the front of the HDCI-2000, we hoped this would be a relatively simple process.

Sadly, it wasn’t. The only way to update the HDCI-2000’s firmware is via an old-fashioned RS232 null-modem cable connection to your PC – something that’s so out of date we were confronted with blank looks when trying to hunt one down on the high street.

After finally updating the firmware, we then had to manually hunt down the BBC HD channel.

Despite the fiddly setup, we were suitably impressed when watching BBC HD via HDMI. Various programmes, such as ‘EastEnders’, are upscaled to HD, but you only really see the difference during true HD broadcasts: the World Cup and Wimbledon were two recent events to get the full HD treatment.

With the sparse availablility of free HD broadcasts, the HDCI-2000 is an expensive way to get a small taste of the future. But, if your HD display is crying out for content and you don’t want to be tied to a subscription, you might just be able to justify the price tag.