Freeview HD recorder - buying advice

mrtubs

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Hi
I would like to buy my parents a freeview HD recorder for Christmas and would really appreciate some buying advice.
Freeview has only been available to them since the last change over. They have a standard freeview receiver built into their TV but not an HD receiver. The TV is 1080p HD ready.
They would like a good epg with the ability to record entire series and be capable of recording two programmes at once.
what would be a huge bonus would be if it were possible to copy recordings onto a USB stick to be played on another TV via a media player.
Funds are not great but I would like it to be a decent recorder.
Thanks in advance
Ian
 
Hi
I would like to buy my parents a freeview HD recorder for Christmas and would really appreciate some buying advice.
Freeview has only been available to them since the last change over. They have a standard freeview receiver built into their TV but not an HD receiver. The TV is 1080p HD ready.
They would like a good epg with the ability to record entire series and be capable of recording two programmes at once.
what would be a huge bonus would be if it were possible to copy recordings onto a USB stick to be played on another TV via a media player.
Funds are not great but I would like it to be a decent recorder.
Thanks in advance
Ian

What's your budget as that determines what we can recommend.

Pretty much all of the major Freeview HD PVRs can do what you want, although some don't allow recordings to be copied to USB and those that do are restricted by copy protection on HD recordings, so it's generally only SD recordings that can be copied off.

Do you know what media player they have, as again that might affect the recommendations given that some recorders might need an external HDD formatted in a filesystem their media player cannot see.
 
Hi I have a Humax HDR T2 .

At this moment I hate it , it has let me down many times and caused massive friction with my wife.

1. Always chopped off the end of programs , I put on 10 minutes padding on , the start and finish time but it always chopped the end off each recorded program.

Humax told me to manually tune each channel, did that no problem , even though the email they sent me absolutely crap email trying to describe how the complete the manual tune.

that seems fixed now.

2. it cannot recorded series link , it always `drops out` in the middle of the series.

I think that Humax are breaking the law by selling this machine stating that it does the series link feature as it does not.
 
Hi
Around about £200 I think, although could possibly stretch to a bit more if needed. There are 2 x TV's likely to use the USB, one through a ASUS O Play media player and the other a LG TV has a built in media player.

I'll stay away from Humax by the sound of scot360's post.

Ian
 
Hi
Around about £200 I think, although could possibly stretch to a bit more if needed. There are 2 x TV's likely to use the USB, one through a ASUS O Play media player and the other a LG TV has a built in media player.

I'll stay away from Humax by the sound of scot360's post.

Ian
If your budget can stretch to it, I don't think that you will find a better Freeview+ HD recorder than the Humax HDR-FOX T2. I am very happy with mine, and suggest that you should Not be put off by the post from "scot360". I would suggest that you read the dedicated forum for the Humax, and come to your own conclusion.
 
Hi I have a Humax HDR T2 .

At this moment I hate it , it has let me down many times and caused massive friction with my wife.

1. Always chopped off the end of programs , I put on 10 minutes padding on , the start and finish time but it always chopped the end off each recorded program.

Humax told me to manually tune each channel, did that no problem , even though the email they sent me absolutely crap email trying to describe how the complete the manual tune.

that seems fixed now.

2. it cannot recorded series link , it always `drops out` in the middle of the series.

I think that Humax are breaking the law by selling this machine stating that it does the series link feature as it does not.

If that's the case (I assume you have no channels in the 800's and reasonable signal quality) then it's faulty. Get it exchanged it's not normal. I have the single tuner HD FOX T2 it records series recordings no problem at all (same software).
 
I'll stay away from Humax by the sound of scot360's post.

Ignore this advice. Individual owners should not assume that their faulty example is in any way representative of the brand.

Click here for a summary of 10 HD PVRs. Guess which gets the Editor's Choice Award?

Mine has given me no trouble since I bought it in May. Never bothered to read the instructions. No need. No failed recordings. No handshaking problems, etc. Click here for 60 Amazon 'customer reviews'.
 
— As an Amazon Associate, AVForums earns from qualifying purchases —
Ignore this advice. Individual owners should not assume that their faulty example is in any way representative of the brand.
In a nutshell.

:smashin:
 
Hi
Around about £200 I think, although could possibly stretch to a bit more if needed. There are 2 x TV's likely to use the USB, one through a ASUS O Play media player and the other a LG TV has a built in media player.

I'll stay away from Humax by the sound of scot360's post.

Ian
I think scot360's case is not the norm.
The biggest consideration must be reliability and the Humax probably scores the highest by the majority of users.

I would suggest getting a grade A HDR-FOX T2 from Humax direct. It costs £200.

You get one year warranty (on site) instead of 2 (for a full price unit) and everything else should still be the same.

It amazes me why so many people bid on ebay for a used unit without warranty for over £200!

BTW do not expect (too much) that you can copy the recordings (from this or others) and play in your other devices. Though it can be done with some efforts (customs rom etc) and a good versatile media player (not what you have got!).
 
Last edited:
Hi I have a Humax HDR T2 .

2. it cannot recorded series link , it always `drops out` in the middle of the series.

I think that Humax are breaking the law by selling this machine stating that it does the series link feature as it does not.
All series or any in particular? It could be software glitch on the Humax, but unfortunately some broadcasters are also prone to changing the series ID mid-series and any PVR can only record what the broadcaster tells it to :(.
 
All series or any in particular? It could be software glitch on the Humax, but unfortunately some broadcasters are also prone to changing the series ID mid-series and any PVR can only record what the broadcaster tells it to :(.

Channel 5 did this yesterday on satellite. They changed the event ID's after Fridays lunchtime show requiring a new series reservation for Monday.
 
Hi, I'm looking at buying a freeview HD recorder, which has the capabilities for me to use as a basic NAS to store all my photo's, videos and music files, preferably with wi-fi option. Does anyone have any ideas what products are out there which are able to do this please.

I'm looking to spend below £300

Thanks
 
Hi, I'm looking at buying a freeview HD recorder, which has the capabilities for me to use as a basic NAS to store all my photo's, videos and music files, preferably with wi-fi option. Does anyone have any ideas what products are out there which are able to do this please.

I'm looking to spend below £300

Thanks
There's two worth looking at now. Previously the Technika from Tesco would have also been considered, but it'ss proved somewhat flaky and has now been discontinued.

The cheapest now would be the Digitalstream, which costs around £160 for the 320Gb (DHR8203) version and £199 for the 500Gb version (DHR8205). It doesn't support what you want out of the box but the latest firmware supports user mods that run from an external USB stick, and the first one out of the box is a Samba mod that Davegu here at AVForums created. It allows you to copy compatible video files, music files and jpeg's to and from the box via your home network for playback on your TV, as well as copying SD files the box has recorded to your PC or Mac for archiving.

More advanced is the Humax HDR Fox T2 which supports networking features out of the box. The Humax also handles more video filetypes for playback. New the 500Gb version costs around £240.
 
Thanks CaptainKremmen, as I'm a novice to all this industry, would you mind answering a few questions about the humax?
As I have been looking at this kit for quite some time but can't find the answers to some questions.

Does it have the ability to download a torrent?
If so does it have the software to decode the torrent and play it straight onto the TV?

Can it send video, photo and music files to over devices connected to the wi fi? Like my HTC desire, or my girlfriends I-phone or one of our laptops?

Could I send a live football stream to it to be able to watch it on my tv? Instead of me plugging the laptops into the TV?

Thanks
 
Thanks CaptainKremmen, as I'm a novice to all this industry, would you mind answering a few questions about the humax?

I hope you don't mind me answering some of your questions :rolleyes:

Does it have the ability to download a torrent?

No, it doesn't have a torrent client. You'd need a PC to do this.

If so does it have the software to decode the torrent and play it straight onto the TV?

No. It does have avi, divx, xvid, etc. compatability though.

Can it send video, photo and music files to over devices connected to the wi fi? Like my HTC desire, or my girlfriends I-phone or one of our laptops?

AFAIK, this is only possible via FTP. Content Share is only for other Humax devices (and only one way - ie. from the HDR-Fox to another)

Could I send a live football stream to it to be able to watch it on my tv? Instead of me plugging the laptops into the TV

I don't think this would be possible either. There's the Humax TV Portal but IMO it's very limited (only support for BBC iPlayer, Youtube, etc. no ability to surf or browse other sites)
 
Thanks for that.
So ideally the best thing for me to do is to buy a seperate NAS ?

If so can you suggest a reasonably priced entrance model that will enable a torrent download with the ability to send that torrent to phone and laptops over wi fi?
And can send a stream to the tv via cable?

Cheers
 
AFAIK, this is only possible via FTP. Content Share is only for other Humax devices (and only one way - ie. from the HDR-Fox to another)

Thinking about it, you could probably do this with XBMC or another DLNA compatible streaming program. I tried doing this a while back but I found the interface a bit clunky.
 
If so can you suggest a reasonably priced entrance model that will enable a torrent download with the ability to send that torrent to phone and laptops over wi fi? And can send a stream to the tv via cable?

I've got a really cheap laptop with a long VGA cable plugged into the back of the TV (with display extension) and the audio out plugged into my AV amp. The PC acts as the "hub" via ethernet or wifi to just about everything else in the house (PS3, HDR Fox, USB drives, other PCs, etc.).

As a pet project, I was wondering about replacing the laptop with a Raspi :D
 

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