IMPORTANT: The Differences Between HD-FOX T2 and HDR-FOX T2

Black Hole

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This has been thoroughly signposted in the other primer material, but HD-FOX owners still seem to fall into the trap of expecting their budget purchase to behave the same as an HDR-FOX, so I thought it would do no harm to flag it up again (and be ignored again).
  1. The HD-FOX has no internal hard drive, so if you want to use it as a PVR instead of just a FreeviewHD tuner you need to provide a USB hard drive (preferably "portable" rather than "external"/"desktop" so it doesn't need additional power), and prepare it using the format options on the HD-FOX settings menus. To make life easy stick to a 1TB drive or below, and not USB3 (which can draw too much power from the USB port).
  2. The HD-FOX only has one tuner, so you can only record one service at a time and it won't give you the option to record another even if it is on the same multiplex.
  3. The HD-FOX has different firmware and a slightly different manual firmware update process from the HDR-FOX, so if you want to install official firmware or the customised firmware make sure you get the right files, rename them to the right thing (if necessary), and follow the update instructions pertinent to the HD-FOX specifically. The custom firmware is an add-on rather than a replacement, so it is also vital to use the version appropriate to the HD-FOX and the current installed official firmware.
  4. The HD-FOX has no media streaming capability to your network, although it can access other DLNA/UPnP server devices and stream from the network as a client. This gap can be plugged to a certain extent using the custom software, the Mediatomb package, and decrypted recordings (see 5).
  5. All recordings made by the HD-FOX onto the external drive are encrypted, effectively locked to that specific unit for playback. There is only one way around this to obtain decrypted recordings which can be streamed using Mediatomb, accessed by a network share, or copied out by FTP (or other means) for use elsewhere:
    1. Install the custom software (for which you also need the external drive - see 1);
    2. Install virtual disk and HDR Mode;
    3. In the case of a HiDef recording use the web interface to clear the Enc flag (or have auto-unprotect running in the background);
    4. Run HDR Mode;
    5. Use the remote control handset to navigate the Media list and copy the required recording(s) to the virtual drive (on the USB device options) - this will decrypt them (copying using the WebIF media browser IS NOT SUFFICIENT, and if the red button offers you "move" instead of "copy" you are trying to send it to the wrong place);
    6. Reboot to return the HD-FOX to normal operation (non-HDR Mode).
  6. DON'T FORGET that references to decrypted download options, decrypt-in-place from the WebIF OPT+ menu, WebIF auto-decrypt, and unencrypt (automated decryption in the background) DO NOT APPLY to the HD-FOX. Sorry. Nothing we can do about it. Once you do have a decrypted recording though, options to convert to MP3 and extract MPG should become available (install ffmpeg).
If all this is news to you and you didn't know you could do any of these things, start on your path to enlightenment HERE (click).
 
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