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Have I made the wrong decision?

Pravda

Pravda

New Member
I've had a 9200T for years, I live in the footprint of two transmitters, which has caused it's fair share of fun - but my 9200T is no longer keeping up with my needs, and I wanted something which could interact with my ethernet network and Win Seven O/S.

The HDR2000T looked ideal, and I flicked through a few reviews which didn't say anything to put me off - and ordered a 1Tb model (without a dongle) for something like £203.

It's not yet been dispatched by the online shop concerned, and I thought I'd flick around the forums for additional comments on the machine (which I ought to have done first of course...) only to see that on here there are a handful of threads saying the unit cannot stream HD content.

My modus-operandi would be using the Hummy to record and to review recordings by having it just linked up to the telly'... but as with good films from the 9200T, I'd intended to archive whatever was worth keeping longer term, by transferring it over ethernet to either a hard drive in my PC or an NAS drive array on the network.

Am I to assume this will be kyboshed and that transferring HD content won't work?

If i already have HD films on my network drives, will I not be able to stream it to my telly' through the HDR2000T?

If someone could be kind enough to advise I'd appreciate it. If there will be issues I will cancel the purchase order and investigate whether I shouldn't have gone for the older HDR-FOX T2-G - but will that model present any difficulties of a similar nature?

Thanks in advance...
 
The HDR-FOX T2-G will run Customised Firmware that greatly enhances what can be done to recorded content, it may be possible in the future to run CFW on the 2000T but there is no certainty of this at present. The HDR-FOX T2-G will both sent and receive streamed content in Hi-Def. and standard Def. where as the 2000T will both sent and receive streamed content in Standard def. but will only receive streamed content in Hi-Def., Humax have been asked about this but as yet have not said if this will be changed. All recorded content is encrypted on both Humax products so although it would be possible to FTP files from your 2000T they would not play on another device, however Standard Def. recordings copied to a USB drive are decrypted, Hi-Def. recordings can be treated in the same way after they have been altered using a FOXY, there is a Wiki page detailing this procedure (Link HERE) for the HDR-FOX T2 that will also work for the 2000T
 
At the moment, the only work-around for HiDef is to transfer it still encrypted (FTP or USB) and have to play it using the original Humax (either put it back or play from USB - the sidecar files must be still present for this to work), or to use Foxy so that the recording is decrypted when copied to USB (when decrypted, the .TS file will play without the sidecar files being present, and can be played on other devices).

For information about using Foxy, see the Wiki.
 
Ok thanks. This sounds like a right mess with the DRM and Hummy firmware, somewhat disappointing.

What about the custom FW on the HDR-FOX units, does that overcome these same issues?
 
One difference between the HDR-Fox T2 and the 200oT is that the latter can copy to NTFS format. I've formatted a USB stick to NTFS and copied a Foxied HD file to it. It comfortably plays on my PC. It's a bit of a faff, and takes a while, but it opens the prospect of having a large USB drive attached to the 2000T for archive purposes.

I got my 2000T as a free replacement for my Fox T2, which packed up (gradually worsening pixellation) 11 months into warranty. The warning signs gave me time to download the custom firmware and archive all my saved recordings. If I had the opportunity to replace my 2000T with a brand new Fox T2 I don't know which I'd choose. The 2000T seems more reliable but it's more annoying to use.
 
Thanks for the links guys, much appreciated.

I'm left feeling awfully un-confident that Humax have come on as far as I'd hoped in the 6/7 years since I bought my 9200T... there still seem to be so many bugs!

As a simple Joe Blow who just wants to able to share content from PC > TV (through the PVR) and vice-versa (archiving recordings on the network from where they can be streamed back to the Humax or watched on a connected PC...) I never imagined that I was asking for the moon and the stars.

I've cancelled my order for the 2000T and am studying the links and having a rethink.

Part of that rethink (even if the solution inevitably costs more) is possibly building a minimalist multimedia PC with (small SSD, Dual-Core Atom, 6Gb generic memory, sufficiently powerful NVidia chipset, and decent PVR software) and linking it to a capacious NAT storage unit, and a pair of SiliconDust ethernet tuners...

A pair of tuners will cost me the same as the 2000T, so the overall expense is more when factoring in the additional components of course - but I do want a DRM worry free solution... and unless I'm not reading reports and posts correctly, the Humax options don't offer me a DRM free network...

Perhaps I should be asking in the HDR-FOX T2 forum before abandoning the Humax route...
 
That's thinking outside the box - literally! How much of your watching, including control thereof, could be done with that set-up from your TV sofa with a remote control?
 
With a USB radio controlled remote control (not IR) you can wake/boot/ shutdown the whole thing as well as access all the settings, choosing channels, displaying EPG, selecting recordings, etc. It's also fairly simple to set the PVR software to launch at startup so that you don't actually see a traditional desktop, just your tuner/recording interface. Similarly the firewall can set to prevent anything but the time sync' services and the EPG from updating themselves. I need NAS ethernet capacity anyway, so in my case it'd be just the mainboard & CPU, one SSD, case, memory, OS and PVR software, and the tuners which would need purchasing.

The setup is considerably more expensive though, but a pair of dual band tuners would give fourfold simultaneous viewing/recording capacity.

What would be novel would be to build that into the old 9200 Humax box!
 
colirv said:
One difference between the HDR-Fox T2 and the 200oT is that the latter can copy to NTFS format. I've formatted a USB stick to NTFS and copied a Foxied HD file to it. It comfortably plays on my PC. It's a bit of a faff, and takes a while, but it opens the prospect of having a large USB drive attached to the 2000T for archive purposes.

I got my 2000T as a free replacement for my Fox T2, which packed up (gradually worsening pixellation) 11 months into warranty. The warning signs gave me time to download the custom firmware and archive all my saved recordings. If I had the opportunity to replace my 2000T with a brand new Fox T2 I don't know which I'd choose. The 2000T seems more reliable but it's more annoying to use.
Click to expand...

The Custom Firmware for the HDR FOX T2 enables writing capability to NTFS volumes.
 
Before I invested in HDR-FOX back in 2010 I was considering a PC setup to do the same - the expense was considerable but the clincher was that DVB-T2 tuners were not available at the time.

The PC solution (or maybe even Raspberry Pi) will unlock all the web-based on-demand players, and bypass the DRM issue (Freeview broadcasts are not encrypted - for the moment - but they are talking about locking out people who have been caught without a licence somehow) but I'm not sure what one does about an EPG (which is provided as a licence deal with the likes of Humax).
 
I'm going to be reading through the material on the HDR-FOX links before I decide anything as final. Thanks again for the information.

The PC solution is expensive in truth, but infinitely more upgradeable as technology changes. Just need to carefully choose the right PVR software to run on it.
 
"decent PVR software"
Interested to know what software you plan to use. Before buying my Fox in 2012 I had same idea. Looked at windows and linux software and found none compared with the mystuff/topfield I had then -some was easy-to-use, some was powerful, but none both!
 
Ron347 said:
Looked at windows and linux software and found none compared with the mystuff/topfield I had then -some was easy-to-use, some was powerful, but none both!
Click to expand...
I suppose the advantage of building your own is that you get a fully fledged PC connected to the TV, with a proper choice of browsers and programs, not just some dumbed-down version that the OEM wants you to use. For example, access to all catchup players would be a given. You could play any PC games, or use any PC programs, on the TV. You could include a blu-ray player in the box. You could have a hybrid Freeview/Freesat box.
 
I believe that a PC which runs nothing bar PVR software, and on hardware supported by Linux, should be able to take advantage of Myth TV software (just about the best out there, but you may want to grab a Linux distro' that includes it rather than end up using command line approach to setting its parametres yourself!) but I hesitate because of Linux compatibility issues with anything which I might want to 'plug in' like NAS storage which would predominantly be sited on a Windows network!

That said a Windows friendly PVR option is TVCenter, and there are other PVR suites too of course.

Blu-ray is obviously something easily incorporated to either a Linux or Windows machine.

I still haven't discounted the HDR-FOX approach, but am struggling to find time to read through all the material kindly linked to on this thread by others...
 
Thanks, Pravda (:) the name ). I recall trying mythtv and xbmc I think both in dedicated distros, also Windows media center, and my reaction to them was what inspired my comments. I guess all have progressed since Dec 2012 - I think XBMC did not have an integrated PVR at that time, but I see now has - I really can't remember which third party pvr I used. May have another play. I agree with your comments about Linux - love it, indeed ran it on my laptop for a couple of years, but it can be a struggle when manufacturers don't provide linux support for devices/software (and please, I don't mean to encourage a thread accusing me of being a linux-denier!)
 
Incidentally, what inspired me to put the effort into a pc based solution (and to suffer the cost) was the opportunity to use a semi-pro sound card and so get reasonable quality for tv and media. It still is, in my mind, the one factor that really makes a pc approach make sense.
 
Ron347 said:
Incidentally, what inspired me to put the effort into a pc based solution (and to suffer the cost) was the opportunity to use a semi-pro sound card and so get reasonable quality for tv and media. It still is, in my mind, the one factor that really makes a pc approach make sense.
Click to expand...

A PC sound card is unlikely to make any difference to the digital audio outputs of a box connected to a decent AV amplifier and speakers, just the same as a PC would need.
 
Pravda said:
I still haven't discounted the HDR-FOX approach, but am struggling to find time to read through all the material kindly linked to on this thread by others...
Click to expand...
The bottom line is that getting hold of an HDR-FOX and then playing with custom firmware (if you want) is limited compared with a DIY solution, but:
  • Cheap;
  • Works out-of-the-box;
  • Comes with a licensed EPG;
  • Requires little maintenance;
  • Relatively low power requirement;
  • Excellent support network (in the shape of hummy.tv).
 
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