I have read a lot on here and other forums about getting video content from a Humax Fox T2 HD and the extra-ordinary lengths people go to achieve this.

Tonight I copied a film to a DVD simply by playing the Humax output through a DVD/HDD recorder then using the same machine I edited the recording and copied it to DVD. The recording has to be done in real time in this case 95 minutes and the editing took another half hour.

Very little of this time was spent attending the machines and I do it out of the way so do not understand the problems people are having.

The copying from the Humax box was done using Scart leads (not my favourite audio/video connection method). The DVD, when played back on my laptop, would give HD a run for it's money.

As a matter of interest I am assuming copying this way you lose the HD quality which is noticeable when watching the recording screen but when played back later the picture quality would, as I said above, give HD a run for its money.

I was pleasantly surprised as I fully expected the HD recordings from the Humax box to fail due to Humax's encryption.

Copying the actual digital content gives a a 100% perfect copy as no decoding and recoding takes place.

It doesn't tie up the machine for a real time copy, you can continue to use the box normally.

Transfers take place much faster than real time

You don't have to burn content to DVD blanks, it can be stored on flash memory devices and played back (in HD) on a wide variety of kit including tablet PC's (no need for a DVD drive)

Hi-def content sent to the Scart socket will be downscaled to 576i so it is effectively converted to Standard Definition and is also converted from digital to analogue before being re-digitised in the DVD recorder, so there will be a loss of quality

This kind of SD copying does not and can not give full HD (on an HD broadcast) a run for its money. Horizontal resolution will be 720 pixels instead of 1920, and additional encoding and transmission artifacts will be introduced as well.

If you can't see much difference between it and HD on your computer, that's an issue with your computer or you're not comparing it with true HD material.

You can of course use your method to copy video in SD from most if not all recording devices with a video output, even Sky+ HD boxes who shall be nameless , so it's a helpful post for those who didn't know this.

HD files (and SD ones - a glitch) recorded on a separate USB drive using a HD Fox T2 are encoded so they only play back via the original box. SD files from an HDR Fox T2 exported via USB can be played in the way you describe.

The custom firmware allows HD files to also be decrypted when copying to usb. Just needs a single flag in the sidecar .hmt file setting. Foxy will do the same for a HDR FOX T2.

There is a package to make a HD FOX T2 think it's a HDR FOX T2 to do the same trick for both SD and HD recordings. (not tried this though).

You're so missing the point.

Most TV watched is not HD. When I say give HD a run for it's money with the quality of TV's these days the picture I get from my recordings when played back on my TV using a DVD player are superb.

Of course they are not HD, I know that, but as they were recorded from an HD source they start out as high quality recordings and so have no exceptional deterioration when recorded to DVD.

I am merely pointing out that for those of us who are not geeks there are ways of getting acceptable copies of HD recordings from a Humax Fox T2 HD box.

I can't comment on the quality when played on the computer as I rarely watch TV or DVD's on my computer.

My only reason for downloading recordings from my set top box external drive is because it was filling up and I like to keep space for future recordings.

Hi Y Me,
Could you let me know which SCART socket you used to play out from the Hummy? In the past, I have tried this, but keep getting the "encrypted" flag, even when I try to copy off radio recordings.
MTIA

Hi,
OK, so this time I connected it all up (RGB out of Hummy to RGB in on DVD recorder) & it all seemed to work perfectly well. That having been said, the picture quality, whilst quite acceptable, was clearly not a patch on the HD broadcast - & that was on merely an HD-Ready set. Just happened to have Galaxy Quest on at the time & the alien make-up was noticeably softer on the RGB line.

I am surprised with the quality of the recordings made with Scart leads.

The leads I use are flat individually screened leads and happen to have gold contacts inside a metal body. I don't think the gold is important here but I am sure that the metal bodied plug and flat individually screened leads are.

I only say this because I used cheap round leads with plastic bodied plugs as a test and the recorded picture quality was crap.

My advice - don't scrimp on your Scart leads. You won't get HD quality of course but you will get a good picture but all this is only if you get a good quality signal to start with of course.

The other thing which affects the quality is how much you try to cram onto one DVD the lower the quality of the picture. Which is why I start with an HD recording.

It is quite a trivial exercise to get the video off the box with the CF loaded. All my content, HD and SD is automatically decrypted by the box, so I only have to copy it off via FTP, USB or CIFS.

Do you have an HD or an HDR? This thread is about the HD.

Sorry, my bad, an HDR!

What do I enter in my Humax Fox T2 HD Freeview+ box settings page and what do I enter in my router settings to get my Humax to stream non HD content to my computer?

One step at a time please in words of no more than 2 syllables as I am a Wi Fi virgin and totally incompetent.

Assuming it's HD FOX T2, then all recordings are encrypted. Secondly there's no DLNA server, only a client. Without running Custom Firmware you can't stream to anything.

B*gger!