Humax PVR-9300T

On Thu, 29 Sep 2011 08:28:54 +0100, "Paul D Smith"
wrote:

Well, although thus far my Humax Foxsat HD PVR has been generally OK, my
experiences with the slightly lower-specced 9150T Freeview PVR left me
unimpressed. The boxes continually failed to get a fully populated EPG,
which meant that recordings were sometimes missed -- my other non-Humax
Freeview PVRs had no such EPG issues. I would get occasional glitching on
playback of recordings from the hard disk and 11 months in the box woke up
at 0400 one morning its fan running full tilt, and nothing else -- dead
box. A replacement lasted about a fortnight before it died in the same
way, fan at full tilt.

How up to date was your software? I had a 9200T and the latest software
improved the EPG (it stored it finally rather then restarting from scratch
each time). The 9300T had an initial problem with overly enthusiastic fan
which was also solved by a software upgrade.

I heard the 9300 also used to suffer from the same EPG issue but this
was solved before I bought one.

As someone who writes software for a living, every single piece of
"intelligent" hardware I own irritates me [1],

ditto.

but the Humax 9200T did the
job for me fine. However I have to say that even at SD resolutions, the
picture from the new Humax Fox HD PVR does look noticeably better - probably
better, more powerful video processing to upscale. The new box also has a
"copy off/on from USB pen drive" feature which is handy if you occasionally
want to take a program with you on your laptop, say.

The 9300 does not have a USB interface BTW.

Can't say I'm that impressed by HD (but only a 32inch set) but I did notice
that the football on ITV HD now seems to be played on grass and not, as it
used to look in digital-SD, a "flat" subutteo pitch. Much more watchable.
5.1 sound (when it's transmitted) can be quite fun too.

Paul DS.

[1] Actually the new Humax is based on Linux so there are lots of projects
adding extra function (better media server etc) to the standard package.
I've not tried it because the box does all I need but if you like that sort
of tinkering...

I didn't know there was any way of customising the Humaxes. Is there
anything for the 9300?
--
(\__/) M.
(='.'=) Due to the amount of spam posted via googlegroups and
(")_(") their inaction to the problem. I am blocking some articles
posted from there. If you wish your postings to be seen by
everyone you will need use a different method of posting.

....snip...

The 9300 does not have a USB interface BTW.

You're not missing much. The 9200 acts as a "slave" to a PC master and
appears as a "special device" that requires extra software on the PC.
Downloading is both slow and not that reliable and I don't think you can
upload video at all. When I migrated there were a couple of films I wanted
to move from the 9200 to the HD box and it took 8 attempts (each faster than
realtime, but still around 4 hours total!) to download one 2 hour film, even
using the freeware "better than the Humax offering" software.

By contrast the newer HD boxes are real USB masters so drive a pen drive (or
external USB drive) directly using standard(ish) Linux. Much faster and
seem much more reliable.

I didn't know there was any way of customising the Humaxes. Is there
anything for the 9300?

Not that I'm aware. I don't know what the 9300s are based on but I suspect
it's a custom OS and not Linux. The give away would be if you could find
anything mentioning Linux or GPL in the docs. or on-screen menus. If you
use Linux there are restrictions that make you publish your software (your
bits can be compiled code so you can't re-write the EPG for example) but you
can access the standard Linux stuff thus adding new packages etc. - but only
on the newer HD Freeview and Freesat boxes.

Paul DS.

"Rob Gibson" wrote in message
...

Hi,

I encountered one of these for the first time last week - indeed it was the
first time I'd encountered any PVR! It seems to be just what I want. Any
comments from the group?

Regards,

Rob.



Sadly, I've found Humax Customer Support to be anything but. One of the
worst companies IME for responding to queries and complaints.

On Thu, 29 Sep 2011 13:01:47 +0200, Martin wrote:

On Wed, 28 Sep 2011 11:59:16 +0100, Mark
wrote:

On Wed, 28 Sep 2011 08:36:13 +0100, Steve Thackery
wrote:

Rob Gibson wrote:

I encountered one of these for the first time last week - indeed it was
the first time I'd encountered any PVR! It seems to be just what I want.
Any comments from the group?

Basically it's a minor evolution of the famous 9200 - a classic of its
day.

Bought one for my mum just a few months ago. Compared with the current
Fox models, it has rather a primitive user interface. Compared with
all its contemporaries, it's brilliant.

I'm talking like this simply because it's really quite old now. Having
said that, if you don't care about HD, then it's still (in my opinion)
the one to buy.

I (mostly) agree with this although in hindsight I may have gone for
the HD version for futureproofing.

The 9300 works well almost[*] all the time but does have some minor UI
issues. These may not bother you but I find some of them irritating.
The worse one is that is displays a large banner right in the middle
of the screen every time it starts to record /anything/. Sometimes it
also halts the picture/sound for a short time too. This applies even
if you are watching a different channel.

and watching via the TV decoder!

My TV is analogue only so I can't watch it any other way.

[*] Hopefully these issues are now fixed with the latest software
update.

How do you get software updates for a Humac PVR? The cable system I am
connected to only provides updates to those who bought the PVR from
them at their special enormous rip off price.

I have had a few filing errors, otherwise I am very pleased with it.

On my freeview PVR they transmit updates over the air. They're
supposed to work automatically but I had to activate it manually.
Otherwise I can download the update and install it via a serial
interface (remember those?). Noone should be charging for updates.
I don't know much about cable TV tho.
--
(\__/) M.
(='.'=) Due to the amount of spam posted via googlegroups and
(")_(") their inaction to the problem. I am blocking some articles
posted from there. If you wish your postings to be seen by
everyone you will need use a different method of posting.

....snip...
How do you get software updates for a Humac PVR? The cable system I am
connected to only provides updates to those who bought the PVR from
them at their special enormous rip off price.

I have had a few filing errors, otherwise I am very pleased with it.

On my freeview PVR they transmit updates over the air. They're
supposed to work automatically but I had to activate it manually.
Otherwise I can download the update and install it via a serial
interface (remember those?). Noone should be charging for updates.
I don't know much about cable TV tho.

The newer Humax's can be upgraded by putting the new firmware on a USB
memory stick, inserting and then powering up.

Paul DS.

"Doctor D" wrote in message
o.uk...


"Rob Gibson" wrote in message
...

Hi,

I encountered one of these for the first time last week - indeed it was
the
first time I'd encountered any PVR! It seems to be just what I want. Any
comments from the group?

Regards,

Rob.

Sadly, I've found Humax Customer Support to be anything but. One of the
worst companies IME for responding to queries and complaints.

Was that Humax or Humax Direct? The latter does respond but it can take a
day or two.

Paul DS.

On 29/09/2011 08:28, Paul D Smith wrote:
Can't say I'm that impressed by HD (but only a 32inch set) but I did
notice that the football on ITV HD now seems to be played on grass and
not, as it used to look in digital-SD, a "flat" subutteo pitch.

That is of course not because it's HD, but because it has less
inadequate bandwidth.

Even on SD the grass is fine when the camera holds still for a bit.

Andy

Doctor D wrote:

Sadly, I've found Humax Customer Support to be anything but. One of the
worst companies IME for responding to queries and complaints.

Except that all the other companies are even worse. ;-)

--
SteveT

"Mark" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 28 Sep 2011 20:06:47 +0100, "tim......"
wrote:


"Mark" wrote in message
. ..
On Wed, 28 Sep 2011 08:36:13 +0100, Steve Thackery
wrote:

Rob Gibson wrote:

I encountered one of these for the first time last week - indeed it
was
the first time I'd encountered any PVR! It seems to be just what I
want.
Any comments from the group?

Basically it's a minor evolution of the famous 9200 - a classic of its
day.

Bought one for my mum just a few months ago. Compared with the current
Fox models, it has rather a primitive user interface. Compared with
all its contemporaries, it's brilliant.

I'm talking like this simply because it's really quite old now. Having
said that, if you don't care about HD, then it's still (in my opinion)
the one to buy.

I (mostly) agree with this although in hindsight I may have gone for
the HD version for futureproofing.

The 9300 works well almost[*] all the time but does have some minor UI
issues. These may not bother you but I find some of them irritating.
The worse one is that is displays a large banner right in the middle
of the screen every time it starts to record /anything/. Sometimes it
also halts the picture/sound for a short time too. This applies even
if you are watching a different channel.

[*] Hopefully these issues are now fixed with the latest software
update.

Nope. The lastest software made it worse

In what way? I haven't noticed anything worse (yet).

Far more randomly missed recordings than before (if you don't us AR).
There's a new failure mode and I've been present when it does it. It flags
up the recoding as started but doesn't copy it to disk (or perhaps it does
copy it to disk but forgets to put the program details in the play list!).
(This is in addition to the "randomly deciding not to record something"
which it still does)

If you do use AR, a short experiment with it suggests that they have changed
the way they deal with overrunning programs clashing with another recording
by chopping it off at the booked end time so that it's ready to start the
second recording when it arrives. This even happened when the two programs
were on the same channel and there was no risk at all of the second
program's start flag being missed. So after the second time I
(unnecessarily) missed the final few minutes of a program I turned it off
(yet again) as (for me) this is the worst option that they could have
selected.

You'll note that they still prioritise collecting the live buffer in
preference to overlapping recording and you get the above annoyance even if
you have a spare tuner available for the second recording. They even do
this if the box is in standby where there is no possibility that someone is
utilising the live recording? This is a pants decision, but they just can't
see it! (Like their persistence with the stupid banner and muted audio when
a recording starts in the background).

My analysis is that the Humax is perfect for someone who records 6 programs
a week. It is not (perfect) for someone who records 10 a day. I suspect
Humax thinks that the second person doesn't exist. but he does!

IME Vestel software is far ahead on the Humax, but unfortunately the
hardware is miles behind.

tim

"Mark" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 29 Sep 2011 13:01:47 +0200, Martin wrote:

On Wed, 28 Sep 2011 11:59:16 +0100, Mark
wrote:

On Wed, 28 Sep 2011 08:36:13 +0100, Steve Thackery
wrote:

Rob Gibson wrote:

I encountered one of these for the first time last week - indeed it
was
the first time I'd encountered any PVR! It seems to be just what I
want.
Any comments from the group?

Basically it's a minor evolution of the famous 9200 - a classic of its
day.

Bought one for my mum just a few months ago. Compared with the current
Fox models, it has rather a primitive user interface. Compared with
all its contemporaries, it's brilliant.

I'm talking like this simply because it's really quite old now. Having
said that, if you don't care about HD, then it's still (in my opinion)
the one to buy.

I (mostly) agree with this although in hindsight I may have gone for
the HD version for futureproofing.

The 9300 works well almost[*] all the time but does have some minor UI
issues. These may not bother you but I find some of them irritating.
The worse one is that is displays a large banner right in the middle
of the screen every time it starts to record /anything/. Sometimes it
also halts the picture/sound for a short time too. This applies even
if you are watching a different channel.

and watching via the TV decoder!

My TV is analogue only so I can't watch it any other way.

I've got a "freeview" TV, but it's implementation of screen size options is
so useless I only use its tuners if absolutely necessary

tim