Aura UHD android TV recorder November launch

[MartinOnline]

For GLT,

My results are as below. Note that I used the 'Ethernet' LED on my BT Broadband extender, which is connected to the Aura, to indicate full low-power standby. The LED stays off when a device 'is not connected or powered off' according to the user documentation and my experience. I noticed that the disk drive stopped before the Ethernet LED stopped flashing and stayed off.

Prior to full low-power, but mains-connected standby, the Aura live TV was set to BBC1 SD.

I carried out two runs with the TV powered on and set to the Aura HDMI input. All times are from power on.

Run 1
Time to display the word 'Humax' : 10.25s
Time to display the Android Animation: 29.05s
Time to Live BBC1 SD TV: 1m 03.15s

Run 2
Time to display the word 'Humax' : 08.50s
Time to display the Android Animation: 28.77s
Time to Live BBC1 SD TV: 1m 02.81s

I attribute the changes in time, certainly for the Humax one, to my becoming more adept at tapping my smartphone.

I do not understand your first time of 1.14.55 but the time difference between your 'Humax' time and the Live TV time matches mine at ~42s.

Do you connect the Aura to your Router using a WiFi or Ethernet connection?

 

[grahamlthompson]

For GLT,

My results are as below. Note that I used the 'Ethernet' LED on my BT Broadband extender, which is connected to the Aura, to indicate full low-power standby. The LED stays off when a device 'is not connected or powered off' according to the user documentation and my experience. I noticed that the disk drive stopped before the Ethernet LED stopped flashing and stayed off.

Prior to full low-power, but mains-connected standby, the Aura live TV was set to BBC1 SD.

I carried out two runs with the TV powered on and set to the Aura HDMI input. All times are from power on.

Run 1
Time to display the word 'Humax' : 10.25s
Time to display the Android Animation: 29.05s
Time to Live BBC1 SD TV: 1m 03.15s

Run 2
Time to display the word 'Humax' : 08.50s
Time to display the Android Animation: 28.77s
Time to Live BBC1 SD TV: 1m 02.81s

I attribute the changes in time, certainly for the Humax one, to my becoming more adept at tapping my smartphone.

I do not understand your first time of 1.14.55 but the time difference between your 'Humax' time and the Live TV time matches mine at ~42s.

Do you connect the Aura to your Router using a WiFi or Ethernet connection?

It's wired via a 16 way Gigabit network switch using a 300Mbps pair of homeplug to reach the Wireless Netgear Nighthawk router network switch upstairs. The Virgin broadband router has crap WiFi range so is run in modem mode.

The time delay is likely to be stored energy in the device power supply capacitors.

 

[grahamlthompson]

Steam valve TVs warmed up quicker than that! It seems rum that a set-top box, even an Android one, should take longer to boot (1m57s according to your post) than a Windows PC (okay, maybe not my Windows PC).

I know people will interpret this as knocking the product when I don't even have one, but really: in whose world is it reasonable for a domestic consumer apparatus to take more than a few seconds to turn on, unless you leave it in hot standby? According to the above, the Aura doesn't even show it is alive for a minute and a quarter - not very reassuring. A PC is a bit different: as office equipment, it would generally be turned on at the beginning of the day while you make your coffee, and then left running for an extended period.

LG 32LD690 LCD TV from cold start to live TV	7s
Samsung UE32EH5000 LCD TV from cold start to live TV	10s
JVC LT-40C590 LED TV from cold start to live TV	14s
Apple iPad Pro MM192B/A from cold start to home screen (including unlock)	23s
HD-FOX (with CF and external HDD) cold start to live TV	24s
HDR-FOX (with CF) cold start to live TV	24s
Samsung A3 Android phone from cold start to home screen (including unlock)	48s
Humax Aura from cold boot to live TV (according to GLT)	117s

In all cases above (except the Aura) a splash screen appears within a few seconds of turn on, to let the user know something is happening. What's more, the HD-FOX and HDR-FOX are able to wake up and record on schedule from anything other than "turned off at the wall".

In other words: the Aura is more like an item of professional equipment than like a domestic box.

The Humax Youview boxes are slow in the most energy saving standby mode.


Boot time to 1 minute 27 Seconds.

Shut down to full standby: 7 minutes

However User response is a lot faster than a HDR-FOX-T2. It's the fastest unit of any Humax PVR of any other Humax pvr I have owned and it's a Ferrari compared to a FVP-5000T. If left in active sby power consumption is a reasonable 8W or so.

 

[Black Hole]

However User response is a lot faster than a HDR-FOX-T2. It's the fastest unit of any Humax PVR of any other Humax pvr I have owned and it's a Ferrari compared to a FVP-5000T.

I see no reason responsiveness to user input should necessitate a long start-up. Perhaps the Humax engineers should look at prioritising the loading of essential drivers only, get a splash screen up ASAP, and defer less essential drivers until later in the process.

 

[MartinOnline]

Set up WiFi on my Aura, disconnected the Ethernet and repeated the experiment. Similar timings achieved.

Your hypothesis about stored energy in the power supply capacitors is interesting and I will investigate when I can leave the Aura off for a significant amount of time. A minute seems a long time to charge the power supply capacitors before starting the boot process but I have no detailed experience of such devices.

 

[Black Hole]

The time delay is likely to be stored energy in the device power supply capacitors.

No it isn't. It is very unlikely the stored energy is sufficient to run the system for any significant amount of time, and if you are thinking of data retention in memory all that will be flushed if the micro gets a reset signal - the software would not be able to assume data retention is intact. Neither is it likely the memory has a separate supply rail.

 

[grahamlthompson]

Set up WiFi on my Aura, disconnected the Ethernet and repeated the experiment. Similar timings achieved.

Your hypothesis about stored energy in the power supply capacitors is interesting and I will investigate when I can leave the Aura off for a significant amount of time. A minute seems a long time to charge the power supply capacitors before starting the boot process but I have no detailed experience of such devices.

Easy way to tell. With the Aura fully on. Unplug the usb cable. How long does it take before the device LED goes out ? A single led only draws about 10mA at 5V, so charged capacitors in the device can probably maintain this current for a significant time.

 

[grahamlthompson]

No it isn't. It is very unlikely the stored energy is sufficient to run the system for any significant amount of time, and if you are thinking of data retention in memory all that will be flushed if the micro gets a reset signal - the software would not be able to assume data retention is intact. Neither is it likely the memory has a separate supply rail.

Switch off the rear power switch on a Foxsat-HDR in full low power standby. It takes about 20 seconds before the front LED goes out. If you restore the power before the led goes out it doesn't even stop the clock. So no reboot to restart the clock takes place at all.

 

[prpr]

in whose world is it reasonable for a domestic consumer apparatus to take more than a few seconds to turn on

Nobody's. Two minutes is, quite frankly, a ridiculous amount of time. One really has to wonder what the hell it is doing that takes so long.

the Aura is more like an item of professional equipment than like a domestic box.

Huh? What pro. equipment behaves like this?

The time delay is likely to be stored energy in the device power supply capacitors.

You really cannot be serious.

 

[MartinOnline]

For GLT,

Please forgive my ignorance but what has the 'USB Cable' got to do with supplying power to the Aura, if your statement about the LED going out refers to that of the Aura?

One way for this to be investigated is for you to repeat the timing experiment just after your HDMI switch light goes out and thus the power supply capacitors can be considered still energised.

My overnight standby experiment results should match yours if my device's capacitors are considered fully discharged by that low-power standby duration.

However, I am confused by your posts. In #505 you state:

'Turn it off last thing at night to full sby. Check the port is not powered. Turn on the TV and select the hdmi input used by the aura. Press the remote power button and you will see in a short period a Humax flash screen. The led will change colour several times before you see live TV.'

Perhaps my understanding of a 'short period' is not the same as yours. Also my understanding of 'near instant'.

 

[grahamlthompson]

For GLT,

Please forgive my ignorance but what has the 'USB Cable' got to do with supplying power to the Aura, if your statement about the LED going out refers to that of the Aura?

One way for this to be investigated is for you to repeat the timing experiment just after your HDMI switch light goes out and thus the power supply capacitors can be considered still energised.

My overnight standby experiment results should match yours if my device's capacitors are considered fully discharged by that low-power standby duration.

However, I am confused by your posts. In #505 you state:

'Turn it off last thing at night to full sby. Check the port is not powered. Turn on the TV and select the hdmi input used by the aura. Press the remote power button and you will see in a short period a Humax flash screen. The led will change colour several times before you see live TV.'

Perhaps my understanding of a 'short period' is not the same as yours. Also my understanding of 'near instant'.

As I understand it you are using a device connected to one of the Aura ports to indicate the box is in full sby, or is the device purely powered by the Humax 5V output. And it has a delay after you hear the HDD shut down. The device I use has no delay it's just a led. Yours presumably is externally powered so will have some internal storage. The short period is in relation to the total boot time from low power standby to live TV. The Humax flash screen is the first visible sign that the box is in process of booting from full sby.

 

[Deleted member 473]

Steam valve TVs warmed up quicker than that! It seems rum that a set-top box, even an Android one, should take longer to boot (1m57s according to your post) than a Windows PC (okay, maybe not my Windows PC).

I know people will interpret this as knocking the product when I don't even have one, but really: in whose world is it reasonable for a domestic consumer apparatus to take more than a few seconds to turn on, unless you leave it in hot standby? According to the above, the Aura doesn't even show it is alive for a minute and a quarter - not very reassuring. A PC is a bit different: as office equipment, it would generally be turned on at the beginning of the day while you make your coffee, and then left running for an extended period.

LG 32LD690 LCD TV from cold start to live TV	7s
Samsung UE32EH5000 LCD TV from cold start to live TV	10s
JVC LT-40C590 LED TV from cold start to live TV	14s
Apple iPad Pro MM192B/A from cold start to home screen (including unlock)	23s
HD-FOX (with CF and external HDD) cold start to live TV	24s
HDR-FOX (with CF) cold start to live TV	24s
Samsung A3 Android phone from cold start to home screen (including unlock)	48s
Humax Aura from cold boot to live TV (according to GLT)	117s

In all cases above (except the Aura) a splash screen appears within a few seconds of turn on, to let the user know something is happening. What's more, the HD-FOX and HDR-FOX are able to wake up and record on schedule from anything other than "turned off at the wall".

In other words: the Aura is more like an item of professional equipment than like a domestic box.

My laptop boots quickly too, the magic of SSD.

As I mentioned early in this discussion, I really can't understand why this box needs to keep its HDD running most of the time. It must be doing something with that drive that it should be doing with an SSD. Why would the HDD be active even in standby, with no recordings active?

 

[grahamlthompson]

My laptop boots quickly too, the magic of SSD.

As I mentioned early in this discussion, I really can't understand why this box needs to keep its HDD running most of the time. It must be doing something with that drive that it should be doing with an SSD. Why would the HDD be active even in standby, with no recordings active?

It's not active in full sby. The box has a statutory power consumption of less than 0.5W nowhere near enough power to run the HDD. There also no rf loop ampifier. It's provided by a relay that maintains the loop through even without power to the box. Even unused tuners are powered off to save power.

The HDD runs in active sby hence the fast boot from active sby. That uses about 8W much less than the earlier boxes with 3.5" Sata drives.

My laptop also boots from really quickly from a SSD that and a core I7 intel processor. . I had to change it recently for a 2TB SSD as it was too small for the increasingly larger updates to Windows 10. SSD's are not really suitable for pvrs. Apart from being noiseless. The need to maintain a constantly written and rewritten timeshift buffer file reduces the drive life and a 2TB SSD would cost more than the 2TB box does and make zero difference to the box performance as a pvr.

 

[MartinOnline]

GLT,

In preparation for an overnight shutdown of the Aura I connected an unpowered techole HDMI Switch to the Aura and onto the PVR input on my TV which showed a green LED powered from the Aura. I then 'shutdown' the Aura using the long Power-Off push.

I had expected that the HDMI Switch LED would go off at the same time as the Ethernet LED on my BT Broadband but that did not happen. The Aura's HDD stopped and later the Ethernet LED went out but the HDMI Switch LED stayed on.

To ensure no extraneous power being supplied to the switch I disconnected it from the TV; the Aura was the only switch input. The HDMI Switch LED stayed on.

After 1 hour and 25 minutes, and with the HDMI Switch LED still lit, I had to power up the Aura (I am not the sole user). The timings I recorded matched those that I obtained using the BT Broadband Extender Ethernet LED as an indicator of full low-power standby mode.

Thus, it appears I need to leave the Aura overnight in low-power standby. I will connect the HDMI Switch to see if its LED is lit or not in the morning.

 

[Deleted member 473]

It's not active in full sby. The box has a statutory power consumption of less than 0.5W nowhere near enough power to run the HDD. There also no rf loop ampifier. It's provided by a relay that maintains the loop through even without power to the box. Even unused tuners are powered off to save power.

The HDD runs in active sby hence the fast boot from active sby. That uses about 8W much less than the earlier boxes with 3.5" Sata drives.

My laptop also boots from really quickly from a SSD that and a core I7 intel processor. . I had to change it recently for a 2TB SSD as it was too small for the increasingly larger updates to Windows 10. SSD's are not really suitable for pvrs. Apart from being noiseless. The need to maintain a constantly written and rewritten timeshift buffer file reduces the drive life and a 2TB SSD would cost more than the 2TB box does and make zero difference to the box performance as a pvr.

Yes, but WHY does the HDD run in active standby.

If the OS is on a SSD and recordings on a HDD, problem solved, surely?

 

[grahamlthompson]

Yes, but WHY does the HDD run in active standby.

If the OS is on a SSD and recordings on a HDD, problem solved, surely?

Because it has to wake up from active to full operation except for video and audio output about 10 mins before a scheduled recording is due to start to watch for the broadcaster accurate recording start signals. Guessing that time is longer when waking from full sby. You must have seen the preparing for recording messsage while watching live tv,


All the Humax pvr boxes I ever had have the OS in NVram which also has a copy of the recording schedule. No reason to suppose the Aura is any different. That is why you can put in a brand new disk and it will set it up and even retain your recording schedule. Guessing you could put a 2TB drive in a 1TB model and still have the recording schedule intact. You would have to have two drive bays for that to work. If you took the SSD out to replace it where is the OS coming from ?

If you disconnect the HDD drive power and data connections say on a HDR-1000 or FVP-5000T . The box will still boot as a non recording box and you can still watch live TV. I have changed the hard drives on both these boxes setup of the new drive is automatic and the recording schedule is still present. NV ram also has a copy of the epg constantly updated from the full epg data on every Freeview Mux and on every Freesat transponder.

 

[Deleted member 473]

OK, but if there is a recording, the HDD can wake up 15 minutes before, why is it running hours before?

 

[MartinLiddle]

SSD's are not really suitable for pvrs. Apart from being noiseless. The need to maintain a constantly written and rewritten timeshift buffer file reduces the drive life .

We have been here before. SSDs are well suited to PVR usage providing that you accept they will have a finite lifetime. I think the last time I did the calculations the minimum life for a good quality SSD would be 5 years and considerably longer on the sort of 12 hours a day usage pattern I have. Show us your calculations if you believe I am wrong.

and a 2TB SSD would cost more than the 2TB box does and make zero difference to the box performance as a pvr

A 2TB Aura costs £279; a 2TB Samsung SSD costs £188 on Amazon today.

I will say what I have said many times before; I don't advocate the use of SSD drives in PVRs at the moment because the only real advantage is complete absence of noise. When the costs come down to similar levels as rotating drives then I expect they will be adopted by PVR manufacturers.

 

[Deleted member 473]

And, as I said before, keeping the OS on a small SSD solves both the longevity and power saving problems. Stick the recordings on a separate drive, that shuts down when not in use.

 

[Black Hole]

keeping the OS on a small SSD solves both the longevity and power saving problems.

I don't get it. Having two mass-storage units increases the cost, and the "OS" might well not be on the spinny disk anyway (it's not in an Android phone or tablet, or in any previous Humax PVR).