I have had a Humax PVR (Foxsat) for some 6 weeks now. Works very well and is easy to use. But......

HD viewing, darned if I can see any real difference, even though the PVR is outputting 1080 to the TV.
My TV is a Toshiba 42X 3030D and only the HDMI lead connects PVR to TV. Am I not getting the full picture!

I don’t know why? But the sound for adverts & music is much louder than for normal viewing etc. So the volume is set to 65 or 70 for normal use then has to be hurriedly turned down for the adds or where music is played. Why???

The power to my PVR/TV etc is all turned off after use rather than leaving devices in Standby mode. The Humax wakes up with the mains powering up, but can’t be used. It sits there waiting for (Whatever?) then goes into standby after about 30-40 seconds. Switch it on it then goes through a ‘Boot’ period of some 40 to 60 seconds. All of which I find annoying.

Anyone else experienced theses little annoyances? Are there any fixes for the sound issue?

You should be able to tell the difference between SD & HD on a 42" TV, even with some of the dodgy HD that's been around - Last night's The Restaurant on BBC HD was good. You are watching an HD channel, aren't you? Had to ask. Other than that, is your TV properly calibrated? Try setting the v-format to "Original" and see whether you can see any difference.

Not sure about your sound. I can understand having the sound levels different SD vs HD, but not ads/music within the same programme.

You should not be operating your PVR in the manner of switching it off completely, PVRs were not designed to be used like this. The power usage in Low Power Standby is minsicule. What is happening is that putting it in Standby, then switching the power off, is simulating the "Power Cut Issue", whereby it loses its clock until manually being brought out of standby, when power is returned, as you have found. Leave it on in Low Power Standby, but be aware what to do if you unfortunately do get a power cut.

Rgds.


Les.

Firstly welcome to the forum!

Fortunately I have the same TV as you so I might be able to help with some of your observations.

The HDR is designed to be plugged in and left on standby 24/7. It uses less than 1 Watt of power doing this and enables the PVR to do some housekeeping which is usually scheduled at 3am every morning.

When you then activate the HDR it will display "BOOT" and is ready to use in about 25 seconds. It is best to leave the Toshiba off until this process is completed. Then power on the Toshiba and you are ready to do what ever you want.

The upscaler in the HDR which gives you the 1080 output is not the best available. This is a compromise for cost. The upscaler in the Toshiba is better. Thus for some channels it is better to have the HDR resolution set to "Original" and let the Toshiba do the conversion. The downside to this is it takes longer to see the picture if you swap from say BBC HD to ITV2. You will need to play with this to find a setting which suits your needs best. Like you I leave my HDR on 1080 and change to Original as required.

For me when viewing an HD channel I usually switch the Toshiba to Exact Scan. Although I have not had much time to play with this it seems that since the software upgrade on the Humax the TV will now recoginse HD content and gives Exact Scan automatically

The differing volumes are a bit of a pain. It seems more marked on some channels than others and also seems worse if the programme is rather old. The Toshiba does have a setting to stop this by giving constant sound, but it only seems to work on (German) terrestrial TV.