Currys, Comet - all of them.

I really am going to have to let you all know how i get on after i attempt my return!

Watch this space.

Well, what do you know, i got a full refund from Currys megastore at M6 J9 Wednesbury. It went like this...

How can i help?

Hello. I bought this Humax Foxsat just under a year ago and there have been some problems. I hung out for an official update OTA which only recently arrived but it didn't fix what are in my opinion some critical bugs. With this in mind i'm bringing it back as i have returned to Sky+ as you can see from the box that I have returned the Humax in.

Ok, would you like a full refund then?

yes please

Ok, do you have the card you used to purchase it?

Yes

And what was one of the main problems?

Not recovering from a powercut and recording. Happened whilst on holiday and didnt get any recordings. Quite crucial for a PVR IMO.

OK, Tap Tap Tap on keyboard

Etc

Etc

I was quite shocked it went as smooth as that but genuinely thought it was a possibility. I would have accepted a credit note.

So, there you have it, the end of my foray into the Humax Foxsat PVR. I have returned to Sky + HD and have to report 100% faultless performance so far.

I am using the sky+ hd remote for TV, Sky box and AV amp and i dont have to push silly buttons to control any of them. The remote is also much more intuitive.

With the same unadjusted sky dish i now get all the channels again. With the foxsat, some of the channels on one bird were 'no or bad signal' despite many attempts at trying to get it sorted.

I hope in earnest that when i next get a powercut the Sky box simply sorts itself out, i assume it will.

I have recorded from the buffer.

I dont have the problem of a chase play program jumping to the end of the program if it being recorded too.

So, i'm a happy guy. I'm paying for it (half price for a year), but im happy!

I wanted to like the Foxsat, but with a list of important bugs and annoyances (and yes i do view some of them as bugs) the Foxsat simply just doesnt cut it. It is an immature product that lacks flair and design thought (think remote!). It wont be enhanced / updated again and thats that.

I suppose the age old adage, you get what you pay for, rings true somewhere along the way here!

Jono

I'm impressed. I guess Currys want your continued business

I was thinking of switching to Sky, partly because of the poor Humax interface and partly because the BBCHD picture quality is so poor since they dropped the bit rate.

However, I have decided to hang on because Tivo is returning to the UK in 2010.

My old Tivo was wonderful and Virgin Media will be marketing the new Tivo soon.

Sale Of Goods Act.
Forget the "one year" stuff, if an item isn't "fit for the purpose" within the expected lifetime, you are entitled to take it back for a (possibly) refund, (definately) replacement or repair.
An item can have a fault for 18 months, and you can have put up with it, but even if you have, and you have reached the end of your tether, you are perfectly entitled to put the item in front of a judge (if it goes that far) and ask him/her if it is fit for the purpose.
Obviously the older an item gets, the lower the chances of success. My very old portable anologue TV (about 20 years old) gave up last week. Er, I don't think I'll bother asking for a repair on the SOGA for that!!

Yes, you have the right to complain beyond a year. But the law allows 'fair wear and tear' to be taken into consideration when deciding on compensation. If you've had an item for 18 months then f,w&t will have reduced its value. The law will also consider whether an item that was in constant use for 18 months was 'not fit for the purpose'. Quite clearly it was in large part.

You shouldn't confuse what the store did with what the law requires. The OP says it was an amicable refund so the law wasn't involved. The store chose to refund him for their own reasons.

How much are you paying £8.50 per month?
If so the return of the HDR will more than pay for it.

Full package at half price then an eatra tenner a month for the +

So, about 37 quid i think.

I spent a bit more on my wifes christmas present as a consequence of getting a refund too!

You don't pay any extra for the +, it's been 'free' two and a half years now.

If I read this correctly, you would rather PAY to receive the same 'poor' BBC HD than continue to receive it free? Have I had too much Christmas spirit or am I missing something?

Presumably he'd like to watch HD?, and the only HD channel on Freesat has now plummeted in quality, so moving to Sky with 30+ HD channels gives you lot's more HD - and of course the identical poor BBC HD part time channel.

OK, I've read the post again. Nope, no mention of wanting MORE HD channels, just the Humax interface and the poor BBC HD channel. So, he really does want to pay to watch "the identical poor BBC HD part time channel"! Strange.

I'll go back to have some more Christmas spirit then.

I'm a Sky user simply waiting for the Freesat platform to mature a little before jumping. My Sky+HD box sometimes refuses to pause, fails recordings, crashes.... but with only 2 HD PVRs which have issues, no C4HD on freesat....I'm gonna wait a liltte. With Canvas on the horizon as well I'll hang on....Humax will have a new box in 2010 wont they?

Technoflare, I hope your decision to wait is not fuelled by the negative talk on this forum about Freesat. I am not a techy, just a tv viewer and not a prolific one. I bought Freesat just because I wanted to try out HD tv. I have the Foxsat HDR and am more than pleased with it. I am astonished at how well it records HD TV and plays it back indistinguishable from the original. And all this nonesense I hear about BBC HD losing quality is utter nonsense, in my opinon nit picking to the nth degree. Seriously who cares ?, these people must be up with their noses against the screen with a magnifying glass counting pixels.

I suggest you try to see somebody elses Freesat and decide for yourself.

Not to hijack the thread, but does anybody know if this Canvass thing might be available through the FoxSat ethernet connection when it turn sup, or is it too early to say ?

thanks, its a number of things holding be back, the Humax issues dont seem much worse than the Sky+HD problems. PQ isnt gonna change from Sky to Freesat anyway. I'm simply thinking maybe a 2nd gen box might offer more features. The Canvas standards are not yet set so it would be possible but not probable that current tech would fully support it. The current box will support iPlayer (available in Beta now) and soon ITVplayer, who knows about 4OD though. I am a techy (as I work in TV) and have noticed the change in BBCHD, but I can live with it as long as the content is good enough to engage me....

iPlayer is already available if you have a Wii. Why are we waiting for Humax, the "world leaders" in this technology?

I thought the whole point of BBC HD was er... the HD? I bought the Humax because it was the cheapest way to view some HD content on my HD TV. Either that or sign up to a year with Sky and be hundreds of pounds down or buy a blu-ray player and some expensive DVDs. I was impressed at first with the BBC HD picture quality, less so with ITV HD, but it has now deteriorated. Why have a channel devoted to High Definition with only a slightly better picture than SD? Perhaps it should now be called BBC MD.

Is BBC HD from Sky the same lower quality, I thought it might be broadcast at a higher bit rate?

BBC HD is BBC HD the box you watch it on is totally irrelevant. Apart from sky's own channels all the channels you get on a Freesat box are the same (same satellite same transponder). It's no different to watching BBC1 on a Sony TV and then on a Panasonic TV it's still the same programme

BBC HD is broadcast once only from one satellite (true of the non-HD channels as well). It is freely available on any FTA HD receiver. It is only when recorded via a freesat box in freesat mode, does any encryption take place (to restrict playback). The foxsat in non-freesat mode will record BBC HD without encrypting the programme, allowing it to be played back on a PC, PS3 and probably a load of other devices. It appears on the Sky EPG and the freesat EPG.

I don't know if Sky+ encrypts the recording on the disk, it may only be freesat that is so blessed

Post the proof please!

Here here . I mean this is a freesat+ forum , not I am going back to sky forum , post this on the sky forum i.e. I have come back to sky or some other drivel.

Sounds to me that he should have taken the box back from the start as some of the issues he talks about sound more like faults then bugs. I have had my Humax HDR for a year now and I have not suffered from some of the issues he talks about.

I have never had trouble with the Humax after a power cut. Also I am on a key meter and sometimes the power has gone off because I have not heard the warning beep from the meter warning me that it is running out of credit. As soon as I put the meter on to emergency the TV and Humax come straight back on again with no isssues. My sister's Sky+ box refused to wake up after a power cut and had to have a replacement box as it was only 2 weeks old.

I have never had problems with recordings skipping to the end, either a recorded program or when watching in time shift mode.

I have never had issues with the box not recieving channels and displaying a message saying no or bad signal, with the exception to when I have been channel hopping late at night and have gone on to one of the kids channels that have closed down untill the morning, and dont show any of the teleshoping channels.

I operate my Humax, TV, DVD and amp with my Humax remote with no issues. OK you have to be precise when operating the Humax box, but there again my sister has to have the glass door on her TV cabinet open otherwise her Sky+ box wont respond to the remote at all and she only sits about 7 feet away from it.

Yes at one time it was not possible to delete a recording whilst recording another program, which was a design bug and that has been addressed now.

I have never had problems with the Humax freezing but I have had it go realy slow when changing channels which has been fixed by swithching off and back on again at the mains, but that has not happened for ages now so maybe that was a bug that has been fixed with one of the updates, or maybe it was down to the box getting hot. I have not got the TV stand so close to the wall now so maybe it was overheating and now there is more air circulating round it, who knows but I have not had that poroblem for ages now.

Reading the original post it just sounds to me that Sky offered him a deal and he was looking for reasons to take them up and to try and get his money back for the Humax.

If Curys did give him a no quible full refund after all that time he was very lucky, they were under no obligation to and they have changed their polocies of short, I cant see the Curys I have had dealings with in the past ever doing that. Cosco at one time always gave a full refund no matter when you bought whatever it was you were returning, but even they put a time limit on electrical goods now owing to people taking things back for no real reason other then to get a full refund and then buy the latest version.

From people I know with Sky he wont have a trouble free experience as they have issues too, especially since they have been issuing new cards and updated their EPG, but as he is a returning customer to Sky he should know about Sky issues.

All channels are encrypted on Sky+ recordings. If you no longer subscribe to a channel you can no longer view recordings recorded from that channel.

If you totally stop subscribing to Sky then playback of any recordings made from FTA channels like the BBC cannot be viewed either. Likewise all recording functions are unavailable without a minimum payment of 10 pounds per month.