FVP-4000T my 2 Cents

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FVT4000 My 2 Cents

Last Updated 22 August 2018


I've been using TiVo since it arrived in the UK until I decided £45 month was too much when all my favorite channels are now FREE to air and cancelled my virgin media contract.


Decided to buy a FVT 4000 since it was the only other PVR on the market with 3 high definition tuners and it also has scroll back tv guide to access catch up tv. I bought the 1TB version same as my TiVo which was always about 75% full. I will be keeping this initial post updated with any new discoveries to save you trawling the thread. This post has actually got shorter as new updates have removed the old bugs


Here's my 2 cents on the 4000 much as comparison with TiVo


First off IT'S TINY and far smaller/lighter than I anticipated and far far smaller than TiVo


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Feb 2018 Humax have REMOVED THE RECENT Recording MENU???????!!!!!!!????? which listed recordings in order of most recently watched. With 1 TB of recordings to wade through this is the Go-To menu to pick up where you left off. Coupled with the series play feature meant you could totally resume watching a series in seconds. Now they've removed it you CAN NO LONGER RESUME WATCHING A SERIES??????? So good luck hunting through 1 Terrabyte of data to find out where you left off last week.


FEATURES ROLL-BACK TV GUIDE, just shift left for catch up tv brilliant


FEATURES 3 BUILT IN HIGH DEFINITION TUNERS AND CAN RECORD 4 CHANNELS SIMULTANEOUSLY. Don't know how that works but mine does and it works great


So far NO CLIPPED RECORDINGS so the start end times seem pretty accurate


FEATURES TV GUIDE SEARCH


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...just type in a few letters and instant filter of the TV guide appears. Very cool, easy and fast to use. As well as searching the TV Guide it ALSO FINDS RESULTS FROM ON-DEMAND SERVICES, RECORDINGS AND EVEN YOU TUBE CLIPS. It also lists recordings from oldest>newest and since Resume menu has been deleted this is now my go to method of finding the oldest recordings to watch in order


DIFFICULT TO TELL WHEN IT'S SWITCHED ON because it uses same red led for standby and recording and it takes quite a while before it actually bursts into life so you can't tell whether you have actually switched it on/off???? But who wants loads of LEDs? Maybe just get the led to "Flash" "Flash" twice when switching on


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I have 50 inch screen and pleasantly surprised with picture quality and no artifacts MY WIFE THINKS THE PICTURE QUALITY IS BETTER THAN TIVO


There is an ICON TO INDICATE WHETHER RECORDINGS ARE UNWATCHED OR PART WATCHED .....

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.....but you can't tell how much you have watched


If you're watching a channel in Low Def then the 4000 PROMPTS YOU TO WATCH IN HD "Click OK to watch in HD" which is a great idea. We mostly used to watch TiVo in low def just because the HD channels were such a chore to find


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Same when setting up a recording in SD the 4000 PROMPTS TO RECORD IN HD which is really cool


TV GUIDE HAS NO PREVIEW PANE so your family can't watch TV while you are surfing the guide. The guide is opaque but you still can't see to watch.


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TV GUIDE HAS NO INFO PANE available either. You can click OK on-each-programme to find out more but it's very slow and clunky and not really practical for guide surfing


TEXT ON THE GUIDE IS TOO BIG and could be reduced leaving room to display both an info & previews pane


GENRE SEARCH/FILTER IS INCLUDED with the guide....


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....which is brilliant in theory and I would use it alllllll the time to set up my recordings for the whole week BUT IT ONLY FINDS RESULTS FOR THE NEXT TWO HOURS???????????, not even a whole day.


FEATURES SERIES PLAY MODE so you can binge watch episodes one after the other but don't stop because there's NO RESUME SERIES (menu removed Feb 2018) so good luck finding where you left off last week???????


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During playback you can use the left/right buttons < > to SKIP, great, and you can also customise the length of the skip but then after you shuttle with the dedicated fast forward / rewind buttons << >> this causes the 'SKIP' KEYS to start behaving like fast forward/rewind buttons which is a real annoyance and zero logic


REMOVED RESUME>SERIES MENU?????????? Feb 2018. So good luck hunting through 1 Terabyte (2 Terabyte on the new 5000 model) of data to find where you left off last week


The CURSOR BUTTONS ACTUALLY CLICK which can be annoying when you have to type into the search feature


NO TRASH BIN when you delete stuff by accident


PAUSE TV DOESN'T WORK????? It appears to work until the live broadcast ends which causes the chase recording to quit, which means you don't get to see the end of any programmes. Weird city


4000 HAS HEAPS OF EXTRAS


FEATURES A BUILT IN MEDIA PLAYER so you can plug into usb to play Video, Music and Photos.


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...but after 3 major updates the files are still not sorted in order which means YOU CAN'T USE SERIES PLAY because all the episodes are in a random order


FEATURES MEDIA STREAMING FROM LOCAL SERVERS so you can stream from any other computers that are sharing media content and using the same wi-fi connection


VIDEO MEDIA DECODER HAS A S-T-U-T-T-E-R which occurs during scrolling action. I originally put this down to streaming over wifi until I plugged directly into USB and video still stutters. It's clearly a problem with the video decoder. That said its not nearly as intrusive as it sounds but it is there.


FEATURES "YOU TUBE" APP and you can cast from your phone or tablet or desktop straight to the 4000 and onto your BIG screen

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this works fantastic because youtube clips now have a lot of high definition and high quality sound and connected to my hi-fi and to a 50 inch screen so the net result is absolutely brilliant and we use it all the time to stream music videos/concerts through the 4000


FEATURES BUILT IN PHONO OUT SOCKETS which meant I could plug my stereo amp and subwoofer straight in and now sound fantastic. ALSO FEATURES BUILT-IN VOLUME CONTROL which controls my amp volume perfectly without need for separate remote. ALSO FEATURES LIP SYNC SETTING so my amp got synced up in a trice.


FEATURES 2 USB PORTS which is great because I permanently connect the one at the back to my 1TB external SSD USB with all my media on and the other one is at the side and very handy for charging my PS4 controller.


FEATURES HDMI CEC SETTING, which means when you switch the 4000 on/off it also switches your compatible TV on/off at the same time. Lovely Jubbly


FEATURES COPY/MOVE RECORDINGS FROM HDD TO EXTERNAL/USB DRIVE but just be mindful that the recordings are a special format that will only play back on the humax.


FEATURES NETFLIX APP which we are subscribed to and that's works great

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My WISHLIST (Just stuff I would like to see on the 4000)


WISH YOU COULD RESUME WATCHING a series from where you left off

My 15 year old Philips PVR could resume series just by pressing PLAY on the folder


Wish Humax would GIVE KEYS A DEFAULT FUNCTION in certain context like all other companies do. There are 41 keys on the remote control


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and MOST KEYS DO NOTHING, MOST OF THE TIME, in fact I don't think the coloured keys do anything any of the time. It's called "intuitive". Save the OK button for accessing the full menu but keyboard shortcuts would speed things up literally 10 times faster for common operations. e.g

When navigating the recordings just press PLAY to start (or continue if you're already into the programme)


Wish it had the GOOGLE PLAY MUSIC APP. That would really compliment the 4000 media capabilities and you could take advantage of Google Music Radio and wish it had a Google photos app

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WISH YOU COULD GO BACK TO A RECORDING when you interrupt a playback recording to watch live TV (News Flash)


Wish it included Suggestions for programmes from same genre, actor, director


WISH IT HAD WISHLISTS. Tivo has wishlists where you could search for Genre, actor, director or keywords e.g "planets" or "universe" which would find a list of matching programmes irrespective of which channel.


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You could also save them to run again anytime. You could also set them to automatically record any matching programmes. You could also set them to only record new episode (not repeats). Sounds great, and it is, but is it rocket science? No!
 
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++ Casting from your mobile tablet to Hummy4000 works very well and almost instantaneous compared to TiVo which is oober slow and practically unusable
 
- a lot of screen real estate is taken up by blank icons? Remind me of the saying "If you have nothing good to day then say nothing", so either include pictures or get rid and provide more comprehensive listing view

Sent from my GEM-702L using Tapatalk
 
++Only recently discovered 'recent' menu (menu/down) where you can pick up where you left off with dozens of recordings - Smashin. Use it all the time now

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+++++ another discovery. Just bought a new tv and the sound is very poor. The Hummy4000 has phono outs built in which meant I could plug my stereo amp straight in and now sound fantastic ++ the Hummy4000 also has built in volume which controls it perfectly without need for separate remote +++ I noticed lip sync was out but Hummy4000 has lip sync setting which fixed that in a trice

Sent from my GEM-702L using Tapatalk
 
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- -There does not seem to be any method of managing your series links for priorities and clashes and as a result it failed to record our favorite programme without warning and again exacerbated by the fact it seems to prioritise the newer recordings which is totally counter intrusive. If you are not going to provide the user with control of priorities then at least follow intuition of prioritising the recording set first. that said, there is no excuse not to issue warnings if the recording is going to fail to give user chance to cancel some recordings.

Sent from my GEM-702L using Tapatalk
 
++ You can also scan the local network for media servers and play videos, music or photos.....

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--- ...But I notice for some strange reason it only lists my videos up to letter "L", or maybe limited by number, it errors if I try to scroll any further but either way it's obviously useless to me
 
- had to reset the other day because it wouldn't start, not a problem but it was recording at the time and I ended up with two parts of the programme both failed to play, and if I hadn't had a TiVo I wouldn't even be writing but if I reset the TiVo I ended up with two parts to the programme but both parts played (just the down time wad missing)

Sent from my GEM-702L using Tapatalk
 
They've fixed the server feature and it now lists all my programmes and even better

+++ You can also scan the local network for media servers and play videos, music or photos.....

+++ It also remembers where you got to on each video

+++ It also creates a shortcut for all videos watched and that saves you loads of time navigating the long menus

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--- ...But I notice for some strange reason it only lists my videos up to letter "L", or maybe limited by number, it errors if I try to scroll any further but either way it's obviously useless to me (NOW FIXED)


Sent from my GEM-702L using Tapatalk
 
I am amazed you havent mentioned my biggest gripe... performance. Its just so damn sluggish accessing and going through the menus. We also have an HDR-FOX T2 and its lightening fast going through menus, you are never sat there saying 'come on' when you want to look at your recording list and why did they get rid of the coloured buttons to jump to various related functions??

Don't get me wrong, its a great machine, but the sluggishness really frustrates me.
 
Wow they just updated the TV guide
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You can now see seven channels at once
brilliant
They have also improved the opaqueness so you can see through the guide better but it's still not suitable, you can tell from this photo that you can't really see thought the guide which makes it pointless, you need to be able to watch the picture as priority and reading the guide is secondary.
Just have a look at the broadcast channel dogs to see how it's done
Big improvement though
 
I too was pleased to see the new guide when I turned on last night. :)

Its great they have got rid of the pointless initial Now/Next page and now jump straight to the main guide. The time boxes now only occupy the space of the programe and not jump over the next when its a short programme which is so much better. I think they could have made more use of the box at the botton or top of the guide to show the programme information instead of just the programme description and HD symbols. Having to OK on a programme to get the information is tiresome especially as its still so sluggish,

They need to make the rest of the UI look the same as going into the programme list or programme information it still has the original large chunky sized icons and text.

Also, please please please try and improve its speed. The new guide is great, but it would be even better if it appeared immediately and not slowly build in about 3 chunks.
 
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I found another little annoyance that wasnt there previously.

Before if you were on say ITV and went into the guide ITV would be at the top (as it is now), but you could then use the up arrow to move through the guide one channel at a time to be able to put BBC1 at the top so all the main channels were visible. Now when you use the up arrow it jumps up a page at a time, which is the same as using the Channel up/down button. This means that now in order for me to have BBC1 at the top of the guide I have to physcially change to BBC1 which is really really annoying!
 
Presumably, to do this 'they' must go through some sort of thought process? I wonder how on earth these thought processes lead to making things worse rather than better. If a down arrow takes you down one channel at a time, what kind of thought process is it that leads someone to believe that the up arrow should do anything other than take you up one channel at a time and duplicate a button that does what your iffy thought process dictates anyway. It is soooo illogical that a thought process would move away from this logic.
 
The up and down arrows do move you up and down one channel at a time, until you reach the channel at the top or bottom of the page on screen. Then a further press will either take you up or down to the next page.
 
The up and down arrows do move you up and down one channel at a time until you reach the channel at the top or bottom of the page on the screen. Then a further press will either take you up or down to the next page.

Yes, maybe I didn't explain myself too well, agreed it moves up 1 channel at a time, but when you get to the top of the guide it will then move up a page as you say.

Before, if I was on ITV, I would press the up arrow twice, 1st time puts BBc2 at the top, 2nd time puts BBC1 at the top, then I could see all the main channels together and set my programmes whilst still watching say ITV.
 
I found another little annoyance that wasnt there previously.

Before if you were on say ITV and went into the guide ITV would be at the top (as it is now), but you could then use the up arrow to move through the guide one channel at a time to be able to put BBC1 at the top so all the main channels were visible. Now when you use the up arrow it jumps up a page at a time, which is the same as using the Channel up/down button. This means that now in order for me to have BBC1 at the top of the guide I have to physcially change to BBC1 which is really really annoying!
I noticed that too,I had to fiddle and fad around by nudging the channel down down then page up to make it show bbc1-bbc4 on the screen

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I too was pleased to see the new guide when I turned on last night. :)

Its great they have got rid of the pointless initial Now/Next page and now jump straight to the main guide. The time boxes now only occupy the space of the programe and not jump over the next when its a short programme which is so much better. I think they could have made more use of the box at the botton or top of the guide to show the programme information instead of just the programme description and HD symbols. Having to OK on a programme to get the information is tiresome especially as its still so sluggish,

They need to make the rest of the UI look the same as going into the programme list or programme information it still has the original large chunky sized icons and text.

Also, please please please try and improve its speed. The new guide is great, but it would be even better if it appeared immediately and not slowly build in about 3 chunks.
I also agree it desperately needs an info window (and a channel window)
I'm not sure why they haven't followed the format of every other tv guide in existence (info window, channel view window, channel guide window) because that format had been arrived at for a reason, because it's the best

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Have noticed another fix
when you pressed the genre button on the guide to find programs with a different genre previously if you then press the info button to find out anything about the program which you really need to do, when you return the genre list disappears and you have to start over. They have fixed that now

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I also noticed now if you press the record button from within the guide it now gives you the choice of one time or series, instead of just setting one time record. That is just like the HDR-Fox T2 does (except via OK), so that is much better as it saves having to wait for the big clunky recording/info box to appear.

Also, there was some kind of retune the other night which amazingly didn't lose my timers or Favourites list. It kicked the Favourites off, but it didn't lose them so I just changed the group from TV to Favourite 1 and they were back again.

The box is getting better and better, the biggest issue for me is the speed of the menus. If that is ever sorted I will be very pleased.
 
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