I installed a Freeview HD decoder set-top box over the weekend, allowing my TV to receive Freeview's recently-introduced high-definition broadcasts.

Hit me one time
My first thought was with a hypothetical Freeview fan - let's call him Chris - who bought a set-top box when Freeview's standard digital (SD), satellite based service launched last year.

That service required a satellite dish (if you already had a Sky dish, that was fine, as Sky TV and Freeview use the same satellite, the Auckland-friendly Optus B1), plus the one-off cost of buying a $200 Freeview decoder to receive the SD signal.

And a second
Now comes Freeview HD (high definition), broadcast from towers. This new land-lubbing service, available in 75% of the country (see coverage map here) offers a dramatically better picture than the satellite-based SD version of Freeview - see the official Freeview propaganda pic at the head of this post - but requires the installation (as I did Sunday) of a Freeview HD box, priced from $399. You don't need a dish, only a standard UHF aerial, already present on many homes from its days as the Sky TV mainstay aerial before the dish-based Sky Digital was introduced. (If you want, you can run a Sky Digital TV decoder and a Freeview HD decoder into the same TV to watch both services. For lower North Islanders, TelstraClear's cable TV can coexist with Freeview too.)

And a third
Now fast forward to the end of the year, when Freeview fulfils its already-stated commitment to delivering a Freeview HD decoder with a built-in hard disk drive. That is, a box that will work with an onscreen programming guide to provide you with a MySky-style option to record any programme with a click of your remote. Bang, Chris will have to buy his third Freeview set-top box, likely priced around $600. If I were Chris, I'd be a little shirty at that point.

Sky TV and Freeview are poles apart in their decoder strategies. The former has a fixed, relatively low-spec PVR - MySky - which customers don't own, but have to pay nosebleed monthly fees. Freeview is more driven by customer choice. Freeview General Steven Browning tells me his organisation is still setting the baseline spec. Just with the way technology keeps moving, it's likely this will include a hard disk drive bigger than MySky, and will match MySky's twin tuners for recording two channels at once. "If any manufacturers want to build a Rolls Royce model beyond the basic spec that's up to them," Browning told me Monday.

And a fourth
But wait, there's more: all the main TV makers - Philips, Sony, Samsung et al - have pledged to release flat screen TVs with Freeview decoders built-in. Sources say to expect at least one brand to release a Freeview-packing LCD before the Olympics in August.

For many people this will prove the most practical Freeview HD solution. Especially early-adopting types who already have a standalone hard disk drive recorder, or who are hanging out for Sony's Play TV unit, which turns a PlayStation3 into a recording device for Freeview TV (there's no NZ launch date yet for Play TV, but Sony Computer Entertainment was able to show me a working demo unit at its Auckland office last week).

Light on: that means Freeview's off
Anyhow, back to today. With a UHF aerial already on the roof, set-up of my Zinwell ZMT-620HD receiver ($399) took literally two minutes. The 620HD is tiny - the size of a large paperback.

I was able to almost immediately watch TVNZ's Freeview only TV6 and TV7, which are both very welcome (offering commercial-free kids TV and news beyond 6pm respectively) plus a channel that provides rolling animals-and-scenary demo of HD footage. For while HD does look stunning, there is little in thethe way of HD broadcasts yet, even in the home of HD, the US, for a programme needs to be filmed in HD, edited and processed in HD, then broadcast in HD. TV3 and TV4 are already offering a limited selection of HD fare via Freeview - around 12 hours' worth a week. TVNZ will start its Freeview HD broadcasts with its Olympics coverage).

My only gotcha was that next time I turned on my TV, I couldn't get any Freeview signal. After an hour of furious tears and plugging and unplugging cables, I finally hit Freeview's website (which has an excellent series of explainers) and discovered that the Zinwell's light is on when the unit is off. When the unit's on, receiving a Freeview signal, there is no light. It looks dead.

Anyhow, the parade of receiver options aside, I don't want to sound like I'm bagging Freeview. Browning and his team have taken a very go-ahead, aggressive approach, in stark contrast to Sky TV's meandering, much-delayed introduction of HDTV content (now scheduled for a limited launch on July 1; a handful of details are on Sky's website here). It's no wonder Freeview has blown away its targets. A buyer at Dick Smith told me he was just gobsmacked at how many Freeview boxes his company was moving. All up, it's astounding. Earlier this month Freeview announced more than 100,000 receivers had been sold, putting the service in 100,000 homes, give or take. Come the Olympics, it's going to be a lot more.

More reasons to try Freeview: TV Works (owner of TV3 and TV4) has pledged to provide two more Freeview channels within the next 12 months. And by 2011, when the government switches off analog broadcasts, everyone will have to be on Freeview or SkyTV (or both; catch the handy diagram here).