newbiexscoobie
Novice Member
Hi folks,
We've had our Humax Foxsat HDR from new for many years. We also have a Panasonic HDR with a combined DVD recorder. Both had been working flawlessly for years. We would copy recordings we wanted to keep from the Humax to the Panasonic. More recently the Panasonic developed a fault and can now only copy recordings in real time.
It was only once we had this problem (not being able to copy recording content fast enough) we discovered we could actually plug an external hard drive into our Humax and copy recordings to it and it would probably be cheaper than disks too! I had concerns over reliability but we went ahead anyway. We tried a pendrive first and then we got an external hard drive which has proven reliable so far. We now have the Foxsat HDR in the dining room and the Panasonic remains in the lounge and is still used to record and make disks.
It's only recently that we decided to look on line and see what else we might be missing in terms of making the most of what we have but to tell you the truth it all seems too confusing. What we be really helpful is some up to date guidance of what the options are with today's technology combined with our now quite ancient Foxsat HDR. We have broadband (fibre optic is now available at our cabinet but haven't upgraded yet). We also have a Panasonic BD player with wifi. We have a PS3. We have a wireless router and two plug in devices too. We also have a Talk Talk YouView box.
Now to some questions:
Is it possible to play recordings from our Humax in the dining room to the lounge? What's the best way of doing that? We had been considering getting another Foxsat HDR and plugging the external HD in there so we can watch programmes recorded in the dining room that way. Would that work?
The internal HD of the Humax is quite small these days and fills up in no time when recording HD content. What is the maximum size of a replacement that we could fit? Is it worth getting a SSD as the replacement drive?
I finally figured out how to format our external drives using EaseUs Partition Master 10.0 on our Windows 7 laptop and have successfully used WD My Passport Ultra 2TB portable drives formatted to EXT 3 with 4KB cluster sizes. Can bigger external drives be used successfully?
Since recording programmes to the external drive we've noticed that a symbol appears against HD programmes which seems to be copyright protection. Can that be overcome with custom firmware? We've noticed custom firmware being discussed but truth be told I'm daunted by the prospect of installing it. I've no programming experience and never even updated my computers operating system. It all seems like Greek to me. How easy is it for a technophobe like me to install (I'm more daunted by software upgrades than hardware upgrades). Is there a comprehensive but straightforward guide available explaining the process in layman's terms. What advantages does it offer anyway? Why should I go to the effort?
There's an ethernet socket at the back of the Humax. Is that for connecting to a network? How straightforward is that and what benefits would it provide? Would I be able to play programmes from the Humax via the Panasonic BD player in the lounge or the Sony PS3 for instance? If so, can the Humax be controlled from these devices or is it more like a mirror link? Also, would I be able to access recordings from elsewhere in the country or abroad for that matter?
There's probably some straight forward guide to all this already in existence and if so I apologize but all much of what I've found now seems quite dated and I'm sure things have moved on.
Finally, as mentioned, we may soon get a second Humax Foxsat HDR. Is it worth waiting for a new model to come out (not sure how long the existing model has been on the market)? Will they wait for 4K before releasing the next model? Is Humax still the best maker of freesat HDR's or are there other's. It would be great if Panasonic made a foxsat HDR with BD recorder!
Thanks everyone.
We've had our Humax Foxsat HDR from new for many years. We also have a Panasonic HDR with a combined DVD recorder. Both had been working flawlessly for years. We would copy recordings we wanted to keep from the Humax to the Panasonic. More recently the Panasonic developed a fault and can now only copy recordings in real time.
It was only once we had this problem (not being able to copy recording content fast enough) we discovered we could actually plug an external hard drive into our Humax and copy recordings to it and it would probably be cheaper than disks too! I had concerns over reliability but we went ahead anyway. We tried a pendrive first and then we got an external hard drive which has proven reliable so far. We now have the Foxsat HDR in the dining room and the Panasonic remains in the lounge and is still used to record and make disks.
It's only recently that we decided to look on line and see what else we might be missing in terms of making the most of what we have but to tell you the truth it all seems too confusing. What we be really helpful is some up to date guidance of what the options are with today's technology combined with our now quite ancient Foxsat HDR. We have broadband (fibre optic is now available at our cabinet but haven't upgraded yet). We also have a Panasonic BD player with wifi. We have a PS3. We have a wireless router and two plug in devices too. We also have a Talk Talk YouView box.
Now to some questions:
Is it possible to play recordings from our Humax in the dining room to the lounge? What's the best way of doing that? We had been considering getting another Foxsat HDR and plugging the external HD in there so we can watch programmes recorded in the dining room that way. Would that work?
The internal HD of the Humax is quite small these days and fills up in no time when recording HD content. What is the maximum size of a replacement that we could fit? Is it worth getting a SSD as the replacement drive?
I finally figured out how to format our external drives using EaseUs Partition Master 10.0 on our Windows 7 laptop and have successfully used WD My Passport Ultra 2TB portable drives formatted to EXT 3 with 4KB cluster sizes. Can bigger external drives be used successfully?
Since recording programmes to the external drive we've noticed that a symbol appears against HD programmes which seems to be copyright protection. Can that be overcome with custom firmware? We've noticed custom firmware being discussed but truth be told I'm daunted by the prospect of installing it. I've no programming experience and never even updated my computers operating system. It all seems like Greek to me. How easy is it for a technophobe like me to install (I'm more daunted by software upgrades than hardware upgrades). Is there a comprehensive but straightforward guide available explaining the process in layman's terms. What advantages does it offer anyway? Why should I go to the effort?
There's an ethernet socket at the back of the Humax. Is that for connecting to a network? How straightforward is that and what benefits would it provide? Would I be able to play programmes from the Humax via the Panasonic BD player in the lounge or the Sony PS3 for instance? If so, can the Humax be controlled from these devices or is it more like a mirror link? Also, would I be able to access recordings from elsewhere in the country or abroad for that matter?
There's probably some straight forward guide to all this already in existence and if so I apologize but all much of what I've found now seems quite dated and I'm sure things have moved on.
Finally, as mentioned, we may soon get a second Humax Foxsat HDR. Is it worth waiting for a new model to come out (not sure how long the existing model has been on the market)? Will they wait for 4K before releasing the next model? Is Humax still the best maker of freesat HDR's or are there other's. It would be great if Panasonic made a foxsat HDR with BD recorder!
Thanks everyone.