The Humax HDR can already read from an external drive, and can also access files over 4 gig in size due to the ext3 format of the external drives. If Humax could get the unit to read MP4 or AVCHD/MKV files this would really boost the units sales, after all the unit has hardware to decade H264 (mp4) so should be possible.

It would make an amazing low power and high quality media player as well as an excellent freesat recording box.

I think there is a massive demand for such a unit and Humax are missing a trick by not updating the firmware to support this.

There's a utility here that can create the necessary support files

http://www.hummy.org.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=6468

Loopie

I agree with you partly. I can watch my homemade HD films on the Humax, but it takes quite a lot of preparation.

Firstly, I edit the films with a suite called PowerDirector which is an excellent package.

Then I use the software to produce the footage in the H264 AVC format. This, of course, as it stands, will not play on the Humax. The next step is to use AV2HDR (recommended by Grahamlthompson) to create the files necessary to play on the Humax.

Once the file is ready it can be played on the PVR, but you would be advised to use an external USB drive to store the films. I use a 1tb seagate HDD, not to do so would soon fill the internal drive.

One drawback with being able to play the films directly is that you would not be able to edit them first.

So really, in my opinion you might just as well take the longer route, but play and store a nicely edited film.

It's a matter of personal choice, but if you want to play homemade films on the Humax, the way I have suggested works very well and the quality is first class

Robert

Thanks for the link to AV2HDR, after reading a bit I'm not sure it supports MP4 i.e. "Supported containers for A/V streams are .TS .MTS .M2TS .MPG and .VOB". anyway more conversion is never ideal native support of them would be better and the hardware should easily support it.

A media box upgrade would be nice as it's been a while since the Humax launched and these kind of extras are appreciated by the owners and help bring in new sales. Many people buy Playstation 3's as media boxes but they don't support Ext3 or NTFS so it's impossible to use files over 4 gig, plus they use a lot of power and more noise than the Humax.

I notice that the TechniSat Freesat box recently had a usb drive and media update so I'm sure a humax box could support it.

The containers listed have support for mpeg4 (HD TV is a form of mpeg4 called H264). Only conversion required provided source footage is suitable pixel count and frame rate and audio mp2 or AC3 is entirely lossless. If conversion is required a PC will do a better job anyway as it's not confined to real time operations. AV2HDR works with footage from a Panny HD camcorder without conversion and give brilliant pictures.

The Humax HDR will not accept Mp4 files created with Handbreak, and the program listed would not accept MP4 files either. In the end I just purchased a West Dig HD box off Amazon for £67 and it will play anything, shame Humax could not offer the upgrade to the box as who wants to mess about re-encoding etc.