A Newbie Question

A

Anthony

New Member
First Post.

I have a Sony Bravia KDL32EX403U 32-inch Widescreen Full HD television and I've just bought a Humax HDR FOX-T2 HD PVR basically to use the recording facilities and that is my basic kit, but I'm unsure about two points.

First, what's the best way to connect the two bits of kit together? At the moment I have my aerial going into the Humax Antenna In and an RF cable from the Antenna Out to the television. In addition I have a HDMI cable from the Humax to the television.

The second point I'm not too sure about is how best to watch the television, should I watch it directly via the Sony television or should I watch it via the Humax tuner.

I have noticed that if I remove the RF cable then I can't watch the television directly, with the cable removed I can only control the television via the Humax

Maybe it is my imagination, or maybe it is because the Humax is just new and the Sony is at least two years old but I think I get a better picture watching via the Humax box does that make sense?
 
The humax picture should be of better quality as it upscales SD to 1080p (as long as you've set it at this setting using V-Format button) and you are watching over HDMI.
Other than that it's your preference.

Just to give you a quick overview of why you loose picture from the TVs built in tuner when you remove the RF cable - it's because HDMI does not carry freeview aerial signals. Thats what the aerial cable does. I presume this is what you were confused about?

Personally I would keep it hooked up the way you have it so that you can switch easily between the humax tuners and the tv's tuner should you wish to in the future. But as a default, watch tv from the humax over hdmi.
 
Reasons to watch live TV via the Humax: if your programme gets interrupted (phone call, cooking, door bell, kids...) you can just pause it. Then, once you have some pause buffer built up, you can skip through adverts.

Reasons not to watch live TV via the Humax: more electricity consumed; maybe the Humax is busy recording two programmes simultaneously and you want to watch a third.

Daisy-chaining the aerial feed first to the Humax and then to the TV, plus connecting the Humax to the TV by HDMI is correct. I think you might be confused because the good old VCRs only needed the aerial connection as they created another channel on the aerial feed for the TV to tune in to. In this case the HDMI is doing a similar thing to a SCART connection - providing a much better picture, but it doesn't replace the aerial lead for other purposes. Also, unlike VCRs, the Humax will not provide a playback output on the aerial lead so you MUST have the HDMI.

One little thing to be aware of: to get a TV picture when the Humax is off, you need to enable aerial pass-through in the Humax settings.
 
ChrisDaniels said:
The humax picture should be of better quality as it upscales SD to 1080p (as long as you've set it at this setting using V-Format button) and you are watching over HDMI.
Click to expand...
Actually the TV also upscales SD programmes to HD. If it didn't you would end up with a small picture only filling about a quarter of the screen. Whether the TV does a better job of upscaling than the PVR is the real question and one that only be determined by sucking it and seeing in each individual case.
 
I have a Sony kdl 40w905a & v impressed with picture - just bought a humax fox t2 pvr - connected aerial lead to Humax & Then hdmi cable from humax to tv - the HD picture is nowhere near as vibrant in colour - am I doing anything wrong?
 
TVs usually have different picture settings according to what source you are viewing. The HDMI input in question can probably be given a picture mode (eg "cinema" or whatever), and calibrated independently of the settings for the tuner. Turning up the colour for the tuner may not have affected the settings for the HDMI input.

Incidentally, a less vibrant picture is probably more realistic - if realism is what you want.
 
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