Humax 9200 ~Top-up TV

happhhitachi

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Hi Folks

Am researching a freeview box for my parents. Budget is £200 ish, the 9200 looks a contender. Trouble is I know little about this (Mom wont have a Sky dish) so its gotta be freeview. Like the idea of twin tuners and folk seem to think the 9200 id fine 'out the box' as its got to be rasonably straightforward in use.

Question
Does the 9200 have a card slot for TopUp TV as the Old's use this a lot. If not any other suggestions?


Opinion/comment/suggestion most welcome. :lease:
 
The 9200 is IMO a great pvr and yeah it does have TopupTV slot but you have to buy the cam for it.
 
The Topfield TF5800 also works with TUTV; like the Humax, you need a CAM, which you can buy from TUTV directly.

Nigel.
 
Colonel Burton said:
The 9200 is IMO a great pvr and yeah it does have TopupTV slot but you have to buy the cam for it.


I note from your Sig that you have a 9200, I am looking for my parents, now both in their late 70's. So I want something that is fairly intuative to use straight out of the box. Using TAP's and other 3rd party add-on's is completely out of the question, as are sotfware/firmware updates unless they come 'off-air' automaticaly. They can however cope with the DVD recorder quite happily so they are not out of their depth with TV technology.

With this in mind and the fact that I dont have freeview myself (Sky+ user) would you still reccommend this for the use intended.
 
Again all i can say from my own experience is that it is simple to use software is available OTA (over the air) there is no taps for this machine and not being funny or putting my mrs down or anyone else but if she can use then anyone can belive me ;)
 
nwhitfield said:
The Topfield TF5800 also works with TUTV; like the Humax, you need a CAM, which you can buy from TUTV directly.

Nigel.

No you can't buy a CAM from Top Up TV directly. I rang them the other day to try formy 9200 and the bloke on the other end said they had none left and didn't know if or when they would be getting any more.

Pointed me in the direction of Tubosat web site (or something like that).

Dave
 
happhhitachi said:
They can however cope with the DVD recorder quite happily so they are not out of their depth with TV technology.

With this in mind and the fact that I dont have freeview myself (Sky+ user) would you still recommend this for the use intended.

If they can cope witha DVD recorder they can handle a 9200. That said I am pretty technically minded and like to think I can suss out things like this intuatively but have had to consult the manual (which is a good manual) for a couple of things.

One was how to play back a recording. To do this I found I had to press a button that is hidden under the flap on the remote. This brings up a list of recordings and you select which one you want to play.

I first looked under the recordings menu which seemed the obvious place to look to play a recording from, but that menu is where you can edit a recording. Pressing "play" in that menu only plays it in a small window for previewing where you might make an edit e.g. to trim off any padding.

Speaking of padding if you select a program to record from the EPG no padding is applied so you have to navigate to the recording menu to do that and add some manually. I understand this is due to be fixed in the next upgrade.

If you decide to record the program you are watching you can add padding easily by hitting the right arrow on the remote.

The rather counter-intuitive way to play recordings is the only thing that wasn't obvious how you did it. Other than that it is so easy to use it is untrue and I like the EPG.

Quality of picture is very good, it responds fast and is silent in operation.

I think it is a marvellous bit of kit and as I said if they can operate a DVD recorder they ought to find this simple.

Dave
 
Dune said:
I first looked under the recordings menu which seemed the obvious place to look to play a recording from, but that menu is where you can edit a recording. Pressing "play" in that menu only plays it in a small window for previewing

I always play back my recordings from this menu. When the recording is playing in the small window simply press exit or back and it will then play back full screen.
 
Dune said:
Speaking of padding if you select a program to record from the EPG no padding is applied so you have to navigate to the recording menu to do that and add some manually. I understand this is due to be fixed in the next upgrade.
First Humax have been remarkably vague about adding automatic padding and conspicously *have not promised it for the next update* (now scheduled for May - 6 months after launch). They've already cancelled promised updates in Jan and Feb/Mar, hard to take the promises seriously any longer.

Manual padding has some problemsl. Timers no longer appear on the EPG after padding making it hard to keep track of what's set, programmes with start padding get the wrong programme name - it becomes a guessing game working out what's on the machine. Also a few people have reported recording of consecutive padded programmes failing.

If you stay away from the USB functions its a fairly reliable machine, though when it screws up it does it big time, losing the entire machine contents for some people.
 
Paul Shirley said:
Manual padding has some problemsl. Timers no longer appear on the EPG after padding making it hard to keep track of what's set, programmes with start padding get the wrong programme name - it becomes a guessing game working out what's on the machine. Also a few people have reported recording of consecutive padded programmes failing.

If you mean the indication that a program is going to be recorded goes from the EPG if you add manual padding, I can't say I have noticed.

If I want to check what is scheduled to be recorded I look under the recordings menu. It never crossed my mind to check the EPG. I am not sure why I would want to use the EPG to check anyway as I would have to scoll through it whereas it is just a simple ordered list under the recordings menu.

Dave
 
Bouncy Pete said:
I always play back my recordings from this menu. When the recording is playing in the small window simply press exit or back and it will then play back full screen.

Yes it does work as you say. I was sure I tried the exit button and didn't get the recording to play but I tried it tonight and it works.

Dave
 
Dune said:
I am not sure why I would want to use the EPG to check anyway as I would have to scoll through it whereas it is just a simple ordered list under the recordings menu.

I find having them showing on the same screen used to set programmes very convenient, much easier to spot conflicts. Scrolling the schedule list may work nicely for 5 or 6 programmes, not too useful for 20, especially if half them have the wrong programme name because of padding bugs!
 
Paul Shirley said:
I find having them showing on the same screen used to set programmes very convenient, much easier to spot conflicts. Scrolling the schedule list may work nicely for 5 or 6 programmes, not too useful for 20, especially if half them have the wrong programme name because of padding bugs!

Well I pad my recordngs and the program names seem OK so far.

Dave
 
happhhitachi said:
I note from your Sig that you have a 9200, I am looking for my parents, now both in their late 70's. So I want something that is fairly intuative to use straight out of the box. Using TAP's and other 3rd party add-on's is completely out of the question, as are sotfware/firmware updates unless they come 'off-air' automaticaly. They can however cope with the DVD recorder quite happily so they are not out of their depth with TV technology.

With this in mind and the fact that I dont have freeview myself (Sky+ user) would you still reccommend this for the use intended.

just for clarity... :cool:
The vanilla Topfield (straight from the box) with no added TAPS or anything is perfectly usable.
It is easy to use. Selecting recordings, sorting recordings, playing are all very very straight forward. It's only when you want a few more bells and whistles (that enhance the experience - not add it) that you need worry about TAPS.:smashin:
 
Dune said:
Well I pad my recordngs and the program names seem OK so far.

Dave
Add a minute at the start and marvel at the way it's now showing the previous programme name...
 

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