This is something I can 100% agree with as being one of the good features of the box. Even the blessed Tivo had 70 watts in standby!

Patrick

Glad I am not the only one that thought the posting referred is more than slightly ridicolous. Pressing guide to get the epg also requires 2 button presses and in any case compared to the button presses to find the wanted epg entry pales into insignificance. The poster clearly thinks the epg works like the freeview one where every channel transmits the full epg. Using this system on a satellite based system would be stupid, just think of the amount of repeated and therefore redundant data that would have to be uplifted for every freesat channel transponder. On freeview only 6 mux carriers need to be serviced.

Radio Times!

Bluddy Luxury!


Us young 'uns used to 'av t'go and 'ang around outside chippy in all weathers, then follow customers until they threw away their wrappings, wring out t'grease t'make candles and find TV section in t'rest o' paper.

And try telling that to the kids of today ...

We get a TV paper each week - the EPG cannot ever compete with a paper version. Its easy to tell what is a new series / what is a repeat etc.

We look in the magazine then bring up the guide and put in what we want.

I use Digiguide. It has all the advantages of a paper magazine (except for extra articles) but can do much more.

One of the best features is that you can have all the channels that you actaully watch together on one page which makes scanning a day's TV very easy.

Some still prefer paper, though as I know someone who went back to the RT after a year on Digiguide.

I know about that. I still want Standby I just don't want the Sleep to be so deep that it may as well be powered off. I would also like some setting like with a PC where I can specify e.g. if no key presses for 2/4/6/whatever hours then go into standby.

There needs to be some compromise between those two extremes. My MacBook Pro consumes under 2W while asleep yet wakes instantly if the lid is opened. Both the MBP & the Humax box consume 0W when switched off.

Ah, but did you have to live in a lake?

So it seems that all boxes have some sort of problems then. The Sky box, although being noisy, does not seem to have any of these problems. It makes decisions very difficult to make.

Yeap I'm in exactly the same boat. I want to jump from Sky+ but don't want to risk it will all the 'issues' I've read about. Now I've waited so long since the HDR came last yr, I think I might as well hang on another 6 months and see what (if anything) happens to the PVR market. It's just a shame and a rather bit disappointment that no other manufacturers products are enticing me to jump sooner.

Hmm this realdigitalTV page has changed now.....

"Easy to use Fortec Star Innovation High Definition Set Top Box.

DVB-S & DVB-S2 Mepg2 and Mpeg4 Compatible. Multi Satellite
Reception. Free Remote Control included. Over the Air Updates.
Scart Connection, HDMI, Stereo Phono Audio output.
Over 250 channels including all the BBC, ITV, Ch4 services and Ch5.
Over 100+ Digital Radio services from the UK and Europe.

Viewing Card needed to use the EPG service and
to watch receive Pay TV channels."

Not exactly a twin tuner PVR then.

I can honestly say I have not had any of the so called problems attributed to the Humax Freesat PVR. The statement by TIMEY
Is incorrect. To take it further, I have had, and still have Sky+ for many years. This locks up frequently, usually following switching channels or skimming through the EPG. I know many users who have similar problems.

The only issue I have with the Humax is that it is slow to delete recordings.

I have had my box for about 3 weeks now, with no freezing, or no lock ups, and I am totally satisfied with my purchase.

jonesyboy - I agree with you, not all of the HDR boxes or for that matter SKy+ boxes have problems.

All I can say is that I have had Sky+ for 18 months without any issues and I would like to think that the Humax would give me the same experience. Now I understand that some Sky+ users have issues and some HDR users have issues.
However I'm only reading about the HDR on these forums and the feedback I'm getting from the posts is that a number of these problems/issues seem to be regularly occurring with the HDR box. As such I seriously think currently having a HDR would not give me the same issue free experience as my Sky+ box. Simple as that. I long for my view to change and I await the new firmware release with much anticipation.

You on the other hand have had issues with Sky+ but not the HDR, so your view of the HDR is obviously much more positive.

It should not consume any power apart from charging the battery if it works like my PC laptop. Closing the lid dumps the memory contents to the HDD. I can then turn off the power and remove the battery. Replacing the power source and opening the lid restores RAM contents from the hdd effectively taking you back to the point when the lid was closed.

A really major 'bug' is where the PVR allows you to set 3 recordings that conflict via series link, the result being that none end up being recorded.

An example is in tonight's schedule at 9:00pm, C4 have a two programme series, "1066: The Battle for Middle Earth", the first was shown last night. I didn't notice this morning that the schedule wasn't updated for tonight and that I had also scheduled recordings for "The Incredible Human Journey" and "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation". I only noticed that the PVR did not come out of standby to record 15 minutes before the scheduled transmission so I'm assuming this is the problem. I'm not too fussy about CSI, so I removed this from the schedule and re-scheduled 1066, put the PVR back into standby and noticed the PVR go to 'active' standby.

You can see there wasn't a programme conflict when the programmes were scheduled initially, as "1066: The Battle for Middle Earth" started on a different day. It only conflicted today. I accept with a series, that episodes mostly occur at weekly intervals and therefore can see why this wasn't highlighted when first scheduled. However, you would have thought that the recording schedule should be 'checked' for conflicts each day and then flagged so you could make a judgement. The only problem with this is if you happen to be away on holiday for any length of time then you are scuppered either way!

I suppose you could argue that 1066 wasn't a series in the accepted sense as it only occurred over two days, but you can see there is an anomaly here that is difficult for the programmers to program for.

I may be missing something here but surely the whole point of schedule tracking and series linking is that you don't have to worry about this. I would have thought the HDR should have worked out there was a clash and been able to resolve it on its own (i.e. record the channel 4 documentary from channel 4+1 an hour later). It should only have to prompt you if there is no repeat recording of any of the clashing programmes. The worst case scenario is that you are not around to sort out the clash in which the case the HDR should at least record two of the programmes (instead of missing all three of them).

When you attempt to add a recording and it detects a clash it is clever enough to offer a repeat of the program you are adding and also repeats of those which are already scheduled and clashing (providing there are repeats) so there should be no reason why it can't do this for established series links.

What you are describing is in Windows terms 'hibernation' or in Mac terms 'deep sleep'. What I am describing is 'sleep' or 'standby' where a trickle of power keeps the RAM contents alive so that the system can instantly wake when required. That is the sort of Standby that I would like to see on the Foxsat. Still power efficient but much more convenient.

What you are describing is in Windows terms 'hibernation' or in Mac terms 'deep sleep'. What I am describing is 'sleep' or 'standby' where a trickle of power keeps the RAM contents alive so that the system can instantly wake when required. That is the sort of Standby that I would like to see on the Foxsat. Still power efficient but much more convenient.

I'm very happy with my box. Bit less happy with ITV, but the box is good. 2 things annoy me. 1, the inability to delete while it's recording (and the number of button presses to do it, and the time it takes, ie the whole delete thing) and 2, the startup time, though I have got around that partly by setting the 'on' timer.

This is the problem, the PVR only appears to check for conflicts at the time you schedule a recording. In this instance there was no clash, it only occurred the following day, which appears to have prevented the 'automatic' update of the timers, resulting in all three programmes failing to record (well they would have, if I hadn't noticed!).

It almost always fails when two programs end at say 9pm and another two start at the same time. This is not flagged as a conflict.

Back to topic:

The way HDMI fails to work with everything I have. When I switch to the HDR and it is in active standby, I have to send it an ON signal BEFORE changing inputs on TV or AMP.

Just noticed that on my HDR no interactive services were working on any BBC channels and the Teletext channel was just blank (i.e. no MHEG screen).

Put the box into standby and let it re-boot and all BBC interactive services and the Teletext channel are now working as normal. Can't say as I've ever had this happen before.

They all changed pids this week.