That is exactly what I did with my Freeview + PVR ........ I got Humax to change it but it was also defective. I had 4 boxes/replacements in total from them and they were ALL defective in the same way so yes I did get my money back.
Sadly it took a complaint to the CEO to get my money due to Humax customer service ignoring emails.

My Foxsat HDR has been returned to Humax and is being repaired at the moment.
It was their customer service who told me the problem is being caused by the loader software and it would be cured by an update so I am not assuming anything ......... I am expecting Humax to do what they say they will do.

Or is that also unrealistic

ignore this
Last edited by carvell : 21-06-2009 at 10:53

I can't compare to BT Vision, however ff the Humax box was half as reliable as a sky box, I'd agree, unfortunately from my experience it doesn't come close. Sky never suffered from locking up when left switched on for a couple of days, neither did it frequently miss recordings. If you paused a programme, it never jumped back to live TV when the programme finished, even though you were only a couple of minutes behind (in chase play). It also allows you to delete programmes whilst another was being recorded.

I could go on, but I know you don't need me to. Everybody that owns a HDR knows that the device has some fundamental flaws which shouldn't be there, and I'm hugely disappointed that Humax haven't fixed these core issues after almost 9 months.

Who is is everybody that owns a Humax box that has some fundamental flaws. The only flaw that bothers me is the slow deleting of recorded programs. That is only a niggle. Not important as far as I am concerned.My Humax has not locked up once. Read these forums. not everybody has problems. Things that could be improved . Yes. There are many worse manufacturers than Humax.

As for Sky being reliable. Having had many Sky+ boxes. None have been reliable. All had frequent lock ups . Being in the trade, our customers confirm this.

You must be lucky with your Sky Service. My Thomson HD Box locks up about every 3-4 weeks - most recently just now during the F1. The only way I can get it back is to turn it off for a few seconds and then wait, and wait, until it reboots.

I agree that there are bugs with the Humax that are taking too long to fix.

As it's a Thomson it probably needs the faulty capacitors in the PSU replacing.

My Pace Sky+ has only ever once locked up, and I've had it since Sky+ first went 'free' with any subscription (was that July 2006?).

Any computer system can crash, and often it's caused by a poor and noisey mains supply - Thomson HD boxes seem particularly prone to mains borne problems.

Okay, fair point, maybe I've just been unlucky and have got one of the many boxes that appear to be prone to locking up and failing to record, but surely the number of people posting on this forum about these very problems would suggest that the number of people with this issue is far from insignificant.

Don't get me wrong, I hate to admit that the Sky+ boxes are better, in fact they were far from perfect, but they were far more stable than the HDR I now have. The HDR has a lot of potential, which I'm sure will be realised in the future, but right now, its so unreliable, it's bordering on not fit for purpose.

Any chance you have power glitches, as was pointed out to me there is a bug with the HDR that after a power outage in standby it will not wake up and record.

For you its unreliable. For many on here it is not. Who knows what percentage of users of any of the STBs post on here. E.G. many millions of people use Sky +. How many posters are there on DS. In comparison not that many. Count up the number of regular different posters there are on Freesat+. 50 max at a guess. Normally these sites attract users with problems, yet many are trouble free. It hardly says that the Humax HD PVR is awash with problems.

Not scientific I know. We have installed many thousands of SKY+ boxes over the years. Many people have lock ups. I have no idea what percentage. Some are hardware problems some are user issues. i suspect some Humax issues are the user. For example the Sky+ box does not like to be hurried. Does the Humax react in the same way? Who knows. I personally never hurry through any STB entries or menus.

I digress, but I.M.O. the Humax is no worse than all the other STB's I use(5) or have tried (To many to list).

Yeah, I know but I've got a Harmony One and haven't got around to rearranging things to take that into account!

The power has to be off for at least around 30 sec and the foxsat has to be in sby at the time. Shorter than that or if the foxsat is booted it will continue to record it's schedule

Other things I can see are either lower priority (e.g. the delete fiasco) or potentially difficult to diagnose (lockups), this one is a howler though - you go off on holiday, one little power glitch and no recordings. Its not difficult to reproduce - I'm just lucky that in the last 2 years my power has gotten a lot more reliable as new homes were built in the village.

Who in their right mind releases a PVR that doesn't cope with power outage ?

Thanks for the feedback

The caps are fine, I tested them - that was my first thought, too. My mains is filtered and is clean.

My problem yesterday was that, for the first time ever, I was getting a HDCP error from the Sky box during the F1. The HDMI feed kept going off and I had to switch to Scart. (All this on BBC SD!) I had to carry out a hard reboot to clear the problem.

My Pace Sky+ box never locked up in the ~ two years I used it.

That would be Humax - assuming they are in their right minds.

Of course they probably weren't aware of the bug when they released the box. Or at least that's what I'd like to think.

How did you test them?, the only real way is an ESR meter - although checking for ripple on the capacitors with a scope is fine as well.

I have an old Daewoo Freeview+ box (well less than a year).

After a power cut it will come on in standby and thus it never sets the clock and because of that no timer recordings are made....

So Humax are not the only makers to miss the basic checks before they launch a product....

They are all bad!

Automan.

I used a scope and a 100kHz, 0.5V p-p, signal. Crude, but effective!

wrt "Who in their right mind releases a PVR that doesn't cope with power outage ?"


Its simply not conceivable that they didn't test that - If testing was so badly planned we would have many more issues. No they would have known and somebody on the team classified the fault as not critical for fix before release.

I'm getting really bugged by mine now. I don't get trouble with recordings being missed - if i leave it alone and don't go near it it's fine.

However, it regularly locks up when try to take it out of standby when it's recording and it has also got a habit of switching itself off when i try to change the volume on my TV (but only if i press the button rapidly). Both of these make me think there's something wrong with the software treats IR commands.

Mmmm,didn't know it had been 7 months,got a diferent view now.

It should have been longer, but the launch kept getting delayed - presumably until the 02 firmware update was made available. Don't think much is know about the 01 firmware, except that it DID allow you to delete files whilst recording.

I'm here.

I understand the sentiment behind your words Les. Sadly it is not up to the BBC.

As in all areas the BBC has do everything after cutting through lots of red tape.

The BBC Trust does not now intend to publish a decision on the 24 July regarding project Canvas. In fact there is now no set date for a response. Full details are here.http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/consul...ns/canvas.html

iPlayer and Canvas aren't the same thing. Canvas is bogged down in red tape, but that's not the case with iPlayer.

What's the plan then Nigel?

Are we going to get iplayer coming to Freesat products like the Foxsat HDR first and then start again with Canvas if it gets the go ahead?

Since Freesat includes the other broadcasters are they going to want iplayer on Freesat products?

I'm not really sure where they are going with it right now.