Hi there.

I'm looking for a box that has certain features and I hope with your help I can buy the correct piece of kit!

1. A facility to have a max amount of shows that can be recorded. Which means say if I set a max of 3 recordings of the Graham Norton show. I would have the 3 most recent. When there is 3 and the 4th one is due to record it'll auto delete the oldest and record the most recent.

2, I can manual set it to record 5 min early or 5mins late.

3, I can access YouTube, BBCi player etc by connecting it to my wi-fi or Ethernet at least.

4, also no lagging while navigation menus. I heard the old humax was very slow at this. Are boxes more faster now? How would they compare to Tivo and Sky+ boxes?


Also can you tell me about any pros and cons you have spotted and think I should know. nowadays paying 200 quid for something is a big deal (it was before, but even more so now). I basically don't want to keep paying Tivo for the M+ service.

This is what I'm keeping an eye on:
http://www.freesat.co.uk/products/free-time/

How do you rate this piece of kit?

Good box but it can't do your first requirement. I don't think any Freesat+ kit has this capability. It can be set to delete your oldest recordings automatically (you can protect recordings you don't want deleting), when the HDD is getting full.

Well your certainly not going to find a box that will tick all those boxes.
The best of the bunch at the moment is the Humax HDR1000s(HDR1010s has built in WiFi) <Free Time> box.
1: You can set to record series of program's. It will not auto delete in the way you describe, as it will auto delete old shows once the HHD limit is reached unless you've selected to keep a recording.
2: You can either preset at 2,5 & 10 mins before or after. Setting to Auto uses Auto tracking relying on the broadcast data to start and finish a recording.
3: BBCiPlayer, ITVPlayer, YouTube are available now. 4OD & Demand 5 are coming soon. There's a possibility of other on demand features in the future which may include Netflix.
4: Menus can be a little laggy, but that's something that will be worked on in the comming months.
Richer Sounds sell the 500GB box for £239.95 at the moment.

Thank you very much gents!

Point 1 isn't essential for me. It would be nice to have I guess.
It's just that I like to watch the same show back to back. I suppose I can still do this, but I just have to delete in manually.

HDR1010s seems to be the best bet.

Does anyone have more info on that? The major cons and pros compared to other machines, say?

The 1010 model is only available in white, no black option. The 1000 is only available in black, no white option.
That means if you want black and wi-fi you need to buy a dongle. Also ITV Player is not available in the Scottish broadcasting region, it's barred via postcode.

Just about to buy one for home and leave my Sammy at the caravan.......so worried about having no ITV player as live in Scotland. I find this very strange as the HUMAX You-view box offers STVplayer here!! So if I want to use the ITV player do I have to retune box to a Border TV region postcode?? (still in Scotland I know but linked to ITV)
Seems a big let down for Scottish purchasers!!

Yes a borders postcode should give you itv player (and presumably ITV-HD). . Afaik STV-HD isn't on the freesat epg yet either.

That's correct. No ITV Player or STV Player and no STV HD. Even my basic model Panasonic TV slots STV HD into 103 on Freeview. Surprised to learn that STV Player is on Youview, guess the no-show on Freesat is a result of betting the house on HTML5.

From STV in response to my query regarding STV Player on Freesat...

Thank you for contacting STV.
Unfortunately STV Player is not yet available on the satellite platform.
Please be assured that we are working to have this service up and running on satellite as soon as possible however cannot confirm a date at present.
We thank you for taking the time to get in touch.