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Old 15-04-2009, 16:14
jwball
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Does anyone know if the new Panasonic PVR has an RF modulator for £1000. If not it's capabilities are seriously limited at that price.
Just checked and it doesn't. Who wants to tell Panasonic the box is doomed?
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Old 15-04-2009, 16:18
Nigel Goodwin
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Does anyone know if the new Panasonic PVR has an RF modulator for £1000. If not it's capabilities are seriously limited at that price.
BluRay via RF - got to be good
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Old 15-04-2009, 16:20
Tern
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Not 'enthusiasts', they (we!) wouldn't want to drop from RGB to the lowest quality possible - RF - but the 'general public' do want it, and it's the 'general public' Freesat is aimed at.



Just because you don't want it, doesn't mean it's not in great demand - RF outputs, particularly on a satellite box complete with 'magic eye' is an incredibly popular and desirable feature.

Large numbers of people now even have aerial distribution systems powered from Sky boxes, saving the cost of the mains power supply for the aerial system.

Most of the general public don't care about the quality drop from RGB to RF.
If the 'general public' want it, they can add it as an external modification so that the money people pay for the box is spent on features that everyone wants.

Your contention that it is 'limiting' Freesat or losing them sales is what is so absurd.

Of course, if you actually had any Freesat PVR's to sell it might improve your credibility.
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Old 15-04-2009, 16:21
Caz42
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This is where we differ.

I can't see that adding £20 worth of components would be a good idea unless it was pretty certain that a good majority of people wanted it.

It is perfectly easy to just add it as an extra.

In the same way that there would be no point in adding a third tuner - something I think would be a good feature - unless a majority wanted it.

My real objection was to the idea that the lack of this particular feature means Freesat is 'limited' (when adding it as an external option works perfectly well).
I think going by the replies it seems it is something people want. Why then are house builders building them with sky feeds to 3 rooms now if it's not what people want?
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Old 15-04-2009, 16:29
Tern
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I think going by the replies it seems it is something people want.
I hate to come up with this annoying response, but it's far more likely that people will post if they do want a feature than if they don't.

Anyway, as I said, it's the idea that leaving out something that is easily added by those who want it does not make Freesat 'limited'.

Freesat/Humax are the people who have the facilities to do market research and obviously decided that the demand did not warrant the cost increase that eeryone would have to bear if the RF Mod were added to the box.


Why then are house builders building them with sky feeds to 3 rooms now if it's not what people want?
Do you mean a DSat feed to three rooms?

Seems a bit pointless to me as people will only start complaining that they need dual feeds to each room to operate PVR's.
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Old 15-04-2009, 16:29
Nigel Goodwin
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If the 'general public' want it, they can add it as an external modification so that the money people pay for the box is spent on features that everyone wants.
Why should they?, why not just buy a more fully featured box that does everything they want?.


Your contention that it is 'limiting' Freesat or losing them sales is what is so absurd.
What's absurd about it - loads of customers come in, want to buy Freesat (i.e. don't want to pay Sky) - but then find out they can't watch it and change channels all round the house like a Sky box.

It's limiting sales considerably, and with the main target audience.


Of course, if you actually had any Freesat PVR's to sell it might improve your credibility.
Plenty in stock now, now that Humax have given all the 'cream' to a few favoured retailers, they are letting the rest of the trade have the dregs!
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Old 15-04-2009, 16:32
Nigel Goodwin
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Freesat/Humax are the people who have the facilities to do market research and obviously decided that the demand did not warrant the cost increase that eeryone would have to bear if the RF Mod were added to the box.
Unfortunately I don't think Freesat have the slightest clue what people want - Humax PVR's in the past had RF modulators (but no magic eye, and still poor remotes), but at least you could feed it elsewhere.

I would suspect it's not part of the Freesat box specification, so it wasn't added - ruins a good product though.
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Old 15-04-2009, 16:38
Young Turks
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I find the suggestion that Freesat are losing viewers because of this quite ludicrous, TBH.
I agree with you, it is ludicrous to claim people decide not to buy freesat pvrs because of RF modulator.

I am a potential freesat HD customer and I might go for it when my sky+ contract ends. I couldn't care less if freesat HD PVR offers RF or not, as my and probably many others main aim is to watch and record HD & SD channels for free of charge.

I just can't see how RF modulator can be a deal breaker when we talk about watching and recording HD channels. Who would want to watch their HD programmes through RF connection?
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Old 15-04-2009, 19:53
ProDave
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What's absurd about it - loads of customers come in, want to buy Freesat (i.e. don't want to pay Sky) - but then find out they can't watch it and change channels all round the house like a Sky box.

It's limiting sales considerably, and with the main target audience.(

I'm with Nigel on this one.

When freesat was anounced, it promised a lot.

But to me, it failed to deliver.

What I had hoped for is a wide choice of different receivers with different features and different price tags. Some with RF modulators and tv link capabilities and some without. I also hoped for substantially different user interfaces between boxes giving the user choice.

The reality so far is poor specced boxes, lacking these nice features sky box users take for granted.

It has just served to show just how good the humble sky box really is.

If sky would only pull their finger out and allow sky+ recording features for free to non subscribers then freesat would be dead as far as I am concerned.
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Old 15-04-2009, 20:22
Nigel Goodwin
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If sky would only pull their finger out and allow sky+ recording features for free to non subscribers then freesat would be dead as far as I am concerned.
The trade were confident that they would do so back in winter 2007 and spring 2008, with the forthcoming launch of Freesat - we expected the market flooding with cheap highly specified PVR's, and Sky would have had to make the Sky+ recording totally subscription free before the UK households were full of boxes that couldn't subscribe to Sky.

In the event, Freesat was late, and late, and late - eventually launched with a faint whisper, and the promised PVR's were nowhere in sight.

When the PVR's did actually appear they were expensive (because they were HD only), and only available in very small numbers, through a small number of favoured outlets (coincidently, the ones who already had a poor record selling Freesat).

Then the PVR (like the standard boxes) were missing popular features that the public are used to, and expect - particularly in such a top-end product.

As it stands so far, I can't see as Sky have any incentive to drop the Sky+ subscription - which I think is a real shame.

As such the 'best' option is probably for better featured, lower priced, Freesat PVR's - hopefully with some of the other manufacturers releasing them, we might see that?.
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Old 15-04-2009, 22:27
LesU
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I'm with Nigel on this one.


The reality so far is poor specced boxes, lacking these nice features sky box users take for granted.

It has just served to show just how good the humble sky box really is.
Well I have a TV with both a Sky+ box (SD) and a Humax HD- PVR sitting beside it. I can't speak for the capabilities of the Sky HD+ box, but I know which of the 2 boxes of mine I prefer.
The Humax may lack the RF mod output, but it has a whole set of features that my Sky+ box is lacking.
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Old 15-04-2009, 22:31
jwball
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BluRay via RF - got to be good
You mean as good as HD from the HDR over RF?
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Old 16-04-2009, 10:33
coopermanyorks
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BluRay via RF - got to be good
You mean as good as HD from the HDR over RF?
Advantage Jw
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Old 16-04-2009, 11:09
2Bdecided
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I can't see that adding £20 worth of components would be a good idea unless it was pretty certain that a good majority of people wanted it.
The cost of adding an RF modulator to a STB is less than £1. It's still sufficient cost to drop them from low end Freeview boxes, and any box where it's felt to be of no benefit.

There must be other reasons to drop it from a £300 PVR where it might be of benefit (and the competition already includes it).

Oversight? Patent issue? Official Freesat specs? I have no idea. It's unlikely to be cost though.

Cheers,
David.
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Old 16-04-2009, 11:09
Young Turks
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Then the PVR (like the standard boxes) were missing popular features that the public are used to, and expect - particularly in such a top-end product.
Are you saying Sky's PVRs are better than Freesat and/or freeview PVrs?

I have a freeview PVR that wipes the floor with Sky+ when comparing the PVR functions & the recording capacity.

I don't have Sky HD PVR to compare with Freesat PVR but one can easily see from the specs that Foxsot HD PVR offers better PVR functions than Sky HD.

As it stands so far, I can't see as Sky have any incentive to drop the Sky+ subscription - which I think is a real shame.
That will be their loss, not many people will pay forever to record SD channels when they can record both SD & HD for free.

What the market needs is more & cheaper Freesat PVRs and these things take time but I have no doubt that sky will have to drop sky+ subscription.
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Old 16-04-2009, 11:14
Nikodemus
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Well, at the risk of adding nothing to this debate, it is my hope that once the networking has been enabled, it may be possible to stream round the house that way, which I'm sure will not suit everyone, but some for sure.

Where cost is no issue, most things are possible, but I can understand Humax a) Dropping additions which would have increased costs & b) sticking to the Freesat spec.

Project canvas will inevitably change things significantly for future PVR releases, and even the implementation of iplayer if/when it happens may be a short lived benefit. Ultimately, we pay the price for jumping on at the start of these sort of initiatives. In 5 years, the spec will have settled down and we'll all know where we stand, though most of the members of this forum will be discussing the new "latest thing" in AV, and probably bemoaning the lack of some feature or another.

It's who we are. We want it all & we want it NOW!!

Keep smiling. Who knows, one day we might just get it lol

Kind regards

Nick
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Old 16-04-2009, 11:16
Tern
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The cost of adding an RF modulator to a STB is less than £1. It's still sufficient cost to drop them from low end Freeview boxes, and any box where it's felt to be of no benefit.
Do you have a credible source for that?

It's quite common for people to proclaim that adding certain features to an item would have a negligable effect on cost but less than £1 seems a little optimistic.

Obviously the cost of adding the components would be a great deal less than the cost of buying them as stand-alone parts, so I'd agree with you in part.
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Old 16-04-2009, 11:46
ProDave
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The Foxsat-hdr does not have a RF Modulator

The Foxsat-hdr will never have a RF Modulator

If you want a RF modulator you can add an external one.

If you want to add a remote control from the 2nd TV position you can do that as well

Some think it should have one others disagree
My complaint with adding a seperate modulator and seperate remote control link is all the unecessary clutter that generates. I prefer a one box solution where possible.

Are you saying Sky's PVRs are better than Freesat and/or freeview PVrs?
I believe the hardware of a sky HD PVR is miles ahead of the hardware of a freesat HD PVR.

The dilemma the consumer faces is good hardware (sky box) but crippled by sky's limited software and in particular the charge for recording if you don't subscribe, or arguably better and open software (freesat PVR) with free recording, but poorer hardware.
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Old 16-04-2009, 11:49
Tern
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I believe the hardware of a sky HD PVR is miles ahead of the hardware of a freesat HD PVR.
I would disagree with that assesment on the grounds of power consumption alone.

What other factors inform your opinion that the Sky hardware is superior to the Humax?
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Old 16-04-2009, 12:16
ProDave
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I would disagree with that assesment on the grounds of power consumption alone.

What other factors inform your opinion that the Sky hardware is superior to the Humax?
The connectivity and functionality (rf modulator and built in tv link etc)
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Old 16-04-2009, 12:34
Tern
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The connectivity and functionality (rf modulator and built in tv link etc)
Well, I wouldn't have said that an extra that will not be required by a lot of people and can easily be added by those who want it would make the Sky box "miles ahead".

For those who don't need this feature it's a complete non-issue.

For those who do it's quite simple to add.
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Old 16-04-2009, 13:29
jwball
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My complaint with adding a seperate modulator and seperate remote control link is all the unecessary clutter that generates. I prefer a one box solution where possible.



I believe the hardware of a sky HD PVR is miles ahead of the hardware of a freesat HD PVR.

The dilemma the consumer faces is good hardware (sky box) but crippled by sky's limited software and in particular the charge for recording if you don't subscribe, or arguably better and open software (freesat PVR) with free recording, but poorer hardware.
The humax is a one box solution, designed to record and playback both SD and HD content to a TV it is connected to. The argument for an RF modulator which returns a pretty poor quality signal when compared to HDMI is pretty pointless.

As for poor quality hardware, I agree but the other way. The Sky HD box I have is useless, it has crashed more times times in a week than the Humax has since I bought it. Not to mention the capacitor/power supply problem associated with the Thomson boxes, the recall of the Pace boxes etc.
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Old 16-04-2009, 13:48
coopermanyorks
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The humax is a one box solution, designed to record and playback both SD and HD content to a TV it is connected to. ............
A one box solution if you only want free Tv , if you want Pay TV then you need another box , A Sky box gives the option for free or pay TV but this is flawed with the recording charge if you don't subscribe .

So I guess you cannot please all the people all the time

And 1 box is not better than the other if you want different things from them
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Old 16-04-2009, 22:52
red6000
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The question was posed by myself as i see (in my own individual and personal opinion) that the Humax PVR box is seriously limited if it doesn't have an RF out akin to sky's RF2.

I am very tech savy, but I dont want to have to clutter the house with more add-ons to perform a simple task of being able to watch recordings on other TVs.

For me (in my own individual and personal opinion) I see the lack of this feature a deal breaker for going from Sky to Freesat and I know it also is for my family.

Personally I want to have hdmi from my skyhd box to a tv upstairs, but the hassel of a hdmi splitter or ballums is far too messey so i stick to RF and have decided not to replace my CRT and non-hd LCD with 2 new HD lcd. It's taken me an age to get all the cables from the plasma, amp, ps3, speakers, sub, ipod doc etc all nice and tidy so the last thing i want is to have other gadgets. A very poor decision by Humax not to provide this.
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Old 17-04-2009, 09:10
Tern
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The question was posed by myself as i see (in my own individual and personal opinion) that the Humax PVR box is seriously limited if it doesn't have an RF out akin to sky's RF2.
It's limited for people who want that feature, true.

For those of us who just wanted a Freesat HD PVR to drive one TV it's fine.

It's also seriously limited by not having three tuners, not having a bigger disk and not being able to run on AA batteries.

If these are killer features for you.

But let's be realistic for a moment.

It's far less limited than a box on which you cannot record or playback without paying £10 a month to some grasping Austrailian for the privilege of using your own property.
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