Humax can be difficult to use

rowanmoor said:
...The UI is there to help me to do what I want to do, not to get in the way. If I can make it do what I want quicker (and I know that what I want to do is often not the same as the next user) then that is a good thing. There is a reason that I and some others in my company are far more productive than some other people doing the same thing - we set up our PCs so that they work for us rather than the UI getting on the way of what we want to do...
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I agree to an extent, but the risk that I will have to use a PC that is not set up to my "liking" is sufficient that I prefer not to deviate too far from standard on my PC and would prefer other PCs I might have to use to be likewise. It seems to me that most people customise their desktops just for the hell of it.
 
Black Hole, if you are talking of a business situation with you providing professional support for a range of users, then I agree with your point. Otherwise, as they have been saying for thirty odd years - remember what the 'P' in PC (and PVR) stands for.

rowanmoor - you make so much sense, so eloquently! I thought that years ago we learnt the importance of a user-centric view of the UI of systems, but perhaps not.
 
Hi All, just thought I'd add my thoughts on this as I'm in the market for a new bit of kit.

I've used Pace Twins over the years and currently own a Topfield which still works fine, though it just can't do my HD TV justice with only upscaled SD playback. So, my research has led me here to a new Fox HDR T2 with CF - or do I get a HDR2000T?

The Topfield in its standard guise was a hideous experience agreed, but the world of TAPs transformed that for myself and many others. From what I've read so far it looks like the Fox may be able to replicate a lot of that functionality I've come to expect from the Toppy. I really am not interested in all the whistles & bells of VOD, etc as my smart TV does that already, so why duplicate something I already have?

My concern is mainly is around the age of the Fox and how it compares to the HDR 2000T - is the latter faster with better picture quality due to new hardware but without the flexibility of a customised Fox?
I guess ultimately I just want it to do what the Toppy does (chase play, 4 buttons for interval advance/rewind, record 2 and watch a 3rd channel, easily customisable folder structure) but in HD.

There's so much to read it has my head spinning! - I did think about the new DTR-2000T as an option but have discounted that since I have all the standalone VOD players
 
If you can get hold of an HDR-Fox T2 go for it as it has the Custom Firmware, the HDR2000T is a cost reduced replacement for the Fox-T2 and does not have Custom Firmware. The DTRs are less flexible than either the Fox T2 or 2000T. The 2000T does have a faster CPU and more memory, but has not been reported as being of better picture quality compared to the older Fox T2
 
Oldskoolskater said:
So, my research has led me here to a new Fox HDR T2 with CF - or do I get a HDR2000T?
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Your problem is that it is almost impossible to get a new HDR-FOX T2; you can get a reconditioned one from Humax Direct which will come with a years warranty but there are a significant number of reports of them sometimes needing to be replaced until a good one is delivered.
I guess ultimately I just want it to do what the Toppy does (chase play, 4 buttons for interval advance/rewind, record 2 and watch a 3rd channel, easily customisable folder structure) but in HD.
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The Hdr-2000T can do the first three of your requirements out of the box. Can you explain what you mean by easily customisable folder structure?
 
I can get a new Fox HDR for sure, though if this was not the case I would not go down the recon route, so the only option for me would be a HDR2000T.

The Topfield had options to automatically create folders for any recording not just series, and folder admin was quite easy from the remote.
 
Oldskoolskater said:
I can get a new Fox HDR for sure.
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When you have made a purchase then other people would be interested to know your source.
The Topfield had options to automatically create folders for any recording not just series, and folder admin was quite easy from the remote.
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The HDR-2000T will automatically create folder for a series recording but not for a one off recording. You can create them manually and move recordings into them using the remote.
 
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Oldskoolskater said:
is the latter faster
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How fast does it need to be? Faster than what? Is the former not fast enough? Fast enough for what?
with better picture quality due to new hardware
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Ezra Pound said:
has not been reported as being of better picture quality
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Sometimes I really wonder whether people 'get' digital...

Of course it's no different. The boxes just record transport streams off air and replay them exactly as they were at some later time. How would the picture quality be able to change? Is this really not absolutely blindingly obvious? Really?
 
prpr said:
How fast does it need to be? Faster than what? Is the former not fast enough? Fast enough for what?


Sometimes I really wonder whether people 'get' digital...

Of course it's no different. The boxes just record transport streams off air and replay them exactly as they were at some later time. How would the picture quality be able to change? Is this really not absolutely blindingly obvious? Really?
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That being the case, why do different boxes look different in playback? It's not like the hardware and chipsets,etc could be different could it....
 
MartinLiddle said:
When you have made a purchase the other people would be interested to know your source.
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The "Manager's Specials" on Humax Direct are not really "recon", are they? In a lot of cases they are products that have been bought and then returned because the buyer didn't like them, not because they were actually faulty and needed repairing. (Though I am sure some have been repaired)

The ones Maplin are selling ( A53JX ) claim to be new, or at least they make no mention of being used.
 
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prpr said:
How fast does it need to be? Faster than what? Is the former not fast enough? Fast enough for what?
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The 'Fox is genuinely annoyingly slow for certain actions, such as EPG browsing and iPlayer. A faster processor would presumably make this "slicker". (And yes, so would better code, of course, as we know because the EPG used to be quicker)
 
TonyC said:
The "Manager's Specials" on Humax Direct are not really "recon", are they? In a lot of cases they are products that have been bought and then returned because the buyer didn't like them, not because they were actually faulty and needed repairing.
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I think that would have been true to a significant extent a year ago but when no new ones have been manufactured for a year or so I doubt that there are many perfect boxes being returned?
 
prpr said:
Of course it's no different. The boxes just record transport streams off air and replay them exactly as they were at some later time. How would the picture quality be able to change? Is this really not absolutely blindingly obvious? Really?
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Well, yes and no.

You're 100% correct that the quality of recorded programs is identical to that of live broadcasts, without any degradation like you got on old VHS recordings, or indeed DVD recordings that transcoded before recording.

And it's also true that the transfer from the 'Fox to the TV via HDMI is lossless, despite what the purveyors of £500 HDMI cables would try and persuade us ("blacker blacks" my arse :) )

But there must be some processing between the digital Transport Stream received from the aerial and the digital data stream sent out over HDMI, even without pausing or FF / RW, and even if both streams are at the same resolution. I don't know if sufficiently poor quality or low powered hardware might introduce artefacts at this stage, though I agree that any differences between boxes are likely to be very small.
 
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EPG surfing is a key activity for me so if this is slow on a late f/w Fox then it may be a deal breaker.

I know how good the Topfield is with custom code so the Fox really does appeal. It still costs more than the newer HDR-2000T which may reflect the Fox' capabilities.
 
Oldskoolskater said:
EPG surfing is a key activity for me so if this is slow on a late f/w Fox then it may be a deal breaker.
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This is why many of us use the Custom Firmware capabilities of either EPG browsing via the web interface, or the Remote Scheduling service. If my own late F/W 'Fox is typical of how slow the standard built-in EPG is, then I couldn't imagine using it on a daily basis as the primary way to set recordings.
 
MartinLiddle said:
I think that would have been true to a significant extent a year ago but when no new ones have been manufactured for a year or so I doubt that there are many perfect boxes being returned?
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Hmm, true. Unless they have just been stuck in a warehouse somewhere for months (I think that was the conclusion with the Maplin ones), which perhaps is equally off-putting if you want a genuinely new (or at least very nearly so) box.
 
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