General questions & observations from a new owner

C

ColinS

Member
I've just bought the HDR-Fox T2-1Tb and retired my PVR-9300T to another room.
My first observation is that the Fox seems to have a different channel sensitivity to the 9300 that it's replacing. Has anybody else noticed that? e.g. BBC1-SD on Mux Ch46 (Blackhill) reports 57% strength on the Fox when the 9300 reports 71%. Same aerial, cables & transmitter after DSO.
This also caused the Fox autosearch to tune in a duplicate BBC Mux, with the weaker one (10% strength) in ch1 and the stronger one (57%) in ch801. I had to manually tune the correct mux. Have others experienced this too?
Finally, and I admit to a degree of hopeful naivety in this, on swapping out the 9300, I upgraded its HDD to 1Tb too (successfully), but had then hoped the Fox might recognise the old 320Gb drive externally; but it doesn't. It doesn't recognise the drive at all. It knows there's a USB device there all right, but can't make sense of the volume as it appears it is not formatted as an Ext3 volume. It seems the old 9300 used a 'private' raw format. Would that be correct?
 
Hi Colin,

I went from a 9200T, to a Toppy and then to the HDR-T2, so I can't comment about the comparative sensitivities. However, if you are using Accurate Recording (padding levels set to zero and relying on the broadcaster for the start and end times of programmes) you need to make sure that you remove all channel conflicts when tuning. This is easiest done by a factory reset before a manual tune and you will lose your scheduled recordings so take a note of them beforehand (a digital camera is good for this).

The 9300 looks like it uses the same or a similar format to the 9200, which is Humax proprietary. If you just want to use the disk for storage and you are happy to lose what's on it, them reformat it as ext3 and you should be fine. However, if you want to read programes from the old disk, then read on...

The good news is that a bunch of people reverse engineered the format and created the HumaxRW tool (see http://www.hummy.tv/forum/threads/9300-transfers.166/ for more info). You will be able to read the recordings if you attach your disk to a PC and can then play them back with a program like VideoLan Client (vlc). You might well be able to copy them to an ext2 or ext3 formatted USB drive and play them on the T2, but some renaming may be needed to get them to play, see this post on AVForums for more info http://www.avforums.com/forums/pvrs-vcrs/1439069-humax-hdr-fox-t2-proven-video-files-supported.html.

Unfortunately, because the T2 treats different material differently depending on how it is accessed, you may be better off using a file transfer utility like ftp to upload them to the T2 itself, for viewing.
 
Thanks Sam. That's given me a lot (more reading!) to think about. I did want to try to transfer the existing recordings, so this info is extremely helpful. Thank you again.
 
ColinS said:
My first observation is that the Fox seems to have a different channel sensitivity to the 9300 that it's replacing. Has anybody else noticed that? e.g. BBC1-SD on Mux Ch46 (Blackhill) reports 57% strength on the Fox when the 9300 reports 71%. Same aerial, cables & transmitter after DSO.
Click to expand...
Yes I reported something similar but more extreme earlier in the year however providing the signal strength is greater than 35% and the quality 100% you should not have any problems.
ColinS said:
This also caused the Fox autosearch to tune in a duplicate BBC Mux, with the weaker one (10% strength) in ch1 and the stronger one (57%) in ch801. I had to manually tune the correct mux. Have others experienced this too?
Click to expand...
I don't think this has anything to do with tuner sensitivity and I would expect a box with higher sensitivity to be more likely to mistune. This is a commonly reported problem and I think the issue is that the Humax tuning software should be more intelligent.
 
ColinS said:
That's given me a lot (more reading!) to think about. I did want to try to transfer the existing recordings, so this info is extremely helpful.
Click to expand...
It is possible to just transfer the .ts file from the 9300 to the HDR. I can't remember whether I had to rename it to get it to play. This will not FF/REW and only the basic infomation (filename) will be shown in the media browser.

The other files associated with a recording are not compatible with the HDR. I did try to convert the .hre file to .hmt but the HDR will not accept it without a .nts file. If someone manages to figure out the .nts file format then all functions should be available (raydon?).
 
Martin,

Thank you. It's good to know that you have already reported the 'problem', although perhaps it won't be high on Humax's priorities. The two boxes must use a different measure of 100% signal strength; I wonder what that is? However since, as you say, quality is 100%, it's not a practical issue.

As to the tuning software, I can only agree; it should be better in this area; selecting a 10% and low quality signal over a much stronger and better quality one seems to miss the point. I can only assume the algorithm is something like 'first-come-first-served'!
 
xyz321,

Thank you too. That's also very helpful. With Sam's earlier pointers, I've already copied off the old disc to my home media server. Next thing to try is copying a .ts file to the fox and play it; your post clarifies what I can expect. I wondered myself whether the 9300T sum of .hre+.epg content would have similar info to the fox .hmt; but only somebody like Raydon might know, and even then it would need somebody a lot cleverer than me to knock some sort of utility up to do this.
 
Another thing I've noticed, if anyone can clarify for me. Having successfully connected via WiFi, I notice that the portal is still marked BETA. Is this still correct, as elsewhere here I'm sure I saw someone dissecting the portal and the one referenced had more in it and was not marked BETA. Perhaps this is just a new version in development?
 
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