As an owner of a Hummy, and several other PVRs, for over two years I find it quite amusing to read all the negative comments about the PVR and the service from Humax. What other manufacturer will support a unit to the extent that one purchased two years ago is brought fully up to the specification of the latest model on sale by the simple, even automatic, OTA download. Most of the big names would be encouraging it's customers to ditch the old for their "latest model".

Humax have listened to their owner community and provided excelled support in my opinion.

I have a lot of experience of most PVRs on the market today and I can safely say that the Humax stands out as the best Freeview PVR yet. When compared with SKY+ and Virgin V+ it often outperforms on functionality. I am not going to bore my reader by listing the obvious advantages which are well documented elsewhere.

I agree that the Series Link occasionally misses a few seconds at the start of a recording but I'm sure that this will improve as more experience is gained by the broadcasters. The Series Link on both the SKY and Virgin boxes are notoriously inaccurate, frequently chopping off the end of recordings.

If it is true that the Hummy only searches for the start triggers every 30 seconds and it is this that leads to missed starts, then it's such an easy problem to put right.

As for all those who are defending Humax to the hilt with "they didn't have to add this extra software" - I think it was cheaper to write the new software for an established machine rather than designing, developing, prototyping and manufacturing a new FP box and trying to iron out all the bugs. They've had their HD box being developed for a while now so was it really feasible to bring out another SD FP box to stay competitive when they could throw a few Korean programmers at the problem?

Who still can't get it right - see the thread about .21 beggering up Auto-Padding. It has to be agreed that the 9200 has a lot going for it but it could have so much more!

I've gone back to .15 - that might not be "Freeview Playback" but it basically did what it said on the tin.

As a V+, Humax and Tivo owner I will continue to criticise the Humax for inability to have Series Link and padding at the same time. I have had this on my Tivo for 7 years, it is not rocket science. Series Link is absolutely fundamental to the way I use a PVR. Currently therefore I am having to live with losing the beginning of most programs, but I am not happy about it. I am currently phasing out my Tivo for a number of reasons, but my wife is resisting it because the Tivo is so much nicer to use and never loses bits of programs.

Sky+ has also had this functionality for many years without any drama.

Yes, and you have to pay through the nose for it.
You can't search for programmes either, which you can with the Humax.

But is patented ... why don't you condemn TIVO for not making their IP freely available to all...

Also, TiVo is Linux based and has a better CPU - not really the same level playing field as the 9200T. The comparison is invalid.

I also like the fact that you can only use 80Gb of the 160Gb with Sky+ for recording programmes (using their Series Link facility ) And as someone said already, paying Rupert through the nose for the privilege!

I really don't think the combination of Series Link and padding is patented by Tivo, seeing as both V+ and Sky+ have it.

I think the comparison is valid. If, as you say, 8 years on (given the advances in technology over that period) Humax have used an inferior CPU and also inferior O/S then that's just an indictment of their whole design process. It should be trivial by now to produce something superior to Tivo.

The way it does it is patented.

OR pay TIVO to access their EPG.

Sky is still the agent for TIVO in the UK.

Presumably in an effort to reduce cost. What did a Tivio cost new?

Are you sure the Humax CPU is inferior to the Tivo?

I'm not 100% sure of the relative speeds; but the Tivo series 1 is based on a PowerPC chip, at 54MHz, with separate MPEG hardware.

The Humax is based on NEC's EMMA2, which has a MIPS core, clocked at 133 or 167MHz, and dedicated MPEG decoding silicon on the same chip.

Series 2 Tivos use a variety of chips, but those have a MIPS core too, as do many of the popular SoC designs these days.

There are certainly some advantages to using Linux as the OS for a box; I will quite readily concede that there are a number of good reasons why it can form a more useful base than the core code presently in the Humax. Of course, there are also reasons why manufacturers do go for a specialised RTOS rather than Linux.

However, I am genuinely curious about this assertion that Humax (and by implication Topfield, since it's the same EMMA2 part) are using an inferior CPU.

What exactly is inferior about the MIPS core, compared to the PowerPC one? Does the MIPS core offer a lower overall speed than the PowerPC, in spite of the higher clock speed in use? Is there some architectural reason why Tivo's series 1 PowerPC is superior to the MIPS CPU core of the Humax?

Nigel.

This is just rubbish. I had given you the benefit of the doubt by not putting an example in the post... but you fail to grasp the idea here. The example I was going to use was: it is like comparing a Ford Focus with a Ferrari Testarossa... both are cars but there is no way the Focus will out perform the Ferrari!

To slag off Humax because they use a different CPU than TiVo is to also put down every other PVR manufacturer on the market!


It isn't just the speed of the CPU that you have to consider... As you touched on it - the fact that the PPC CPU can run Linux - is a hint that it can do more. (Is it possible to run a Linux kernel on the EMMA2?)

It is also to do with the fact that programming skills & know-how and development tools are readily available for the PPC CPU affords the manufacturer to design and produce a better product...

As I said, the EMMA2 has a standard MIPS core; and yes, it's perfectly possible to run Linux on it, just as with many other MIPS-based products - which is probably one reason why they're so popular.

MIPS isn't some obscure thing; it's a very widely used CPU. And yes, there is an EMMA2 based Linux system, from Siemens.

There are also plenty of tools available for MIPS and EMMA; there's a whole Linux/MIPS web site for you to explore, and then there are the specialised companies like WindRiver and VxWorks who provide tools for embedded applications.

In fact, I think it was you son_t who originally said Tivo has a better CPU; and I really don't think that's the case. I suspect there's actually better performance in terms of the throughput of the MIPS than the relatively old PowerPC. If the MIPS architecture itself was in some way inferior, then I doubt Tivo (and many other STB makers) would have switched to it.

The difference is the software and the intellectual property; and decisions taken by different companies in terms of what they wanted to bring to market, and how. Tivo's strategy not only offers them income from the products, but also from licensing and subscriptions, and that affords much more in terms of resources for developing new features.

Humax doesn't have the luxury of that ongoing stream; and in the UK, I suspect that after Tivo more or less flopped - for which we can thank Sky in large part - few people were willing to bring a product to market that, for a TV system promoted as free, required an ongoing subscription.

That will have a much bigger impact in terms of what resources are allocated than people trying to claim one CPU or OS is innately superior to another. If you have a reference platform from the SoC manufacturer that you can use and enhance to provide the features at a relatively low cost, you'll probably go that way, for speed and cost reasons, rather than spend ages developing or licensing from elsewhere, unless you are absolutely certain you'll recover your costs.

'My CPU is better than your CPU' is a pointless, irrelevant argument. There's nothing inherent in the MIPS core or the EMMA2 design that means it couldn't do Tivo-like things. But there's a world of difference between adding features at the start in a system that you control - including the EPG - end to end, and adding those to a design that wasn't built around them in the first place. That's the real issue.

And I do think it's silly to blame Humax or Topfield or anyone else for making design decisions when they introduced products that turn out not to have anticipated changes that would be made years later. And it's also a bit much to expect that they'd suddenly throw away years' of investment in their platform software and completely re-engineer around a different core OS.

Nigel.

Are you saying that both Virgin and Sky pay license fees to Tivo to have the combination of padding and Series Link ? I'd be very surprised.

If you want to talk technical then fundamentally both the CPUs have the same RISC architecture (if you say the EMMA2 chips are MIPS)...

Maybe a direct comparison of CPUs and saying one is superior is probably incorrect... What I am trying to say is that the TiVo uses a CPU that is primed for 'computers' whereas the EMMA2 is geared towards 'CE' devices... so a direct comparison between the facilities - 'computer-like' functions - that the TiVo can do with ease and the 9200T which is a CE device trying to do computer-like functions is going to be incomparable because the CPU inside the TiVo is superior at doing this...

If you want to talk about the 'architecture' of these processors, then you must think about it in terms of designing devices centred upon the CPU. How easy can you build in networking, modem comms, video encoding, USB comms, with a PPC CPU or EMMA2 in the centre controlling everything and whether your engineers have the skills, etc to do this and program it... I'm saying that the PPC has been in many 'computer' solutions from Cisco products, to Lexmark printers... hence the knowledge, skills, examples, etc is readily available...

I think technical talk about MIPS, RISC, etc architecture is beyond the scope of this discussion (and beyond my knowledge...) Also my knowledge about CPUs and chipsets in CE is very limited... but in terms of PVRs how many manufacturers use the EMMA2 in their devices..?

Whatever the patent, copyright, and intellectual property situation is... why do you think...

TiVo calls it 'Season Pass', Sky calls it 'Series Link' and FP calls it 'Series Record'?

I would be surprised if V+ calls it any of the above (but I am willing to be surprised )...

Well, the EMMA2 is also found nestling in the Amstrad Sky+ boxes, of course.

The EMMA2 isn't the CPU - it's the SOC design, with a MIPS core. And the MIPS core crops up in lots of places; lots of different SoC designs for digital TV, it's also in plenty of Broadcom devices, such as wireless routers like the Asus WL500g; MIPS is a general purpose CPU - just like PowerPC.

You'll find a MIPS powering the mail server sitting in my equipment rack; you'll find a PowerPC inside this Mac I'm using; you'll also find PowerPC inside plenty of automotive embedded systems, as well as powering Tivo.

As I mentioned, there's Linux on EMMA2 based devices, such as the ones from Siemens; there are Topfield products that include TCP/IP stacks in them. Neither processor is in any particular respect better than the other for these purposes - and that's my point.

Saying Tivo or Humax has a "better processor" than the other is ultimately pointless. (And even more so, given that later Tivos have the MIPS core powering them too). What makes the difference is the software, and the design decisions taken about which platform to build the PVR on.

Tivo went with Linux right from the start; Sky+ didn't, but they arguably knew where they wanted to get to and could arrange the meta-data, so they didn't have to engineer it into an existing design in quite the same way that Humax and Topfield are having to do. I wouldn't be surprised if, even if it wasn't always there in the early versions, the roadmap for Sky+ outlined what would be coming.

That's where the real differences lie; not in "my processor's better than yours," or even "my os is better than yours."

Two systems - one on each processor, one Linux and one not, were designed with around an end to end EPG controlled by the operator. Others were not, and have had new features reversed into an existing design, and without the benefit of a guaranteed revenue stream

But there's a difference between having some copyright on the name, compared with copyright on the function. The name is irrelevant, it's the function that matters.
The only reason why Humax haven't got Series Link and padding together, is because they haven't got their act together.

That's the best bit - Mr Murdoch ain't getting a penny out of me

I was pointing out that the FP SR is completely different to TIVO's which is patented.

You got to have a name - even if it is just a function, a concept or a theory... hmm... let see if Apple didn't call its white MP3 player with hard disk and jog dial then... iPod could be a NASA term or something...

I think Humax didn't go down this route because it wasn't/isn't worth while for them - after all the people who have more money than sense have already got their Sky+ and V+... so why get a FP PVR? (Maybe just to whinge about lack of SR+AP for the sake of it.)

You are avoiding the question, what's the big deal with implementing AR and padding at the same time, seems such an obvious requirement when the broadcasters can't get their act together.

On your issue of more money than sense. Yes, I have enough money to have both Humax and V+, but for me it makes sense. You actually get me wrong, I currently choose to use the 9200 as my primary PVR (since retiring Tivo last week). I actually like it - yes let me say that again - I actually like the Humax in preference to V+. In particular I like the navigation controls and the way programs are recorded and recalled - the V+ is just that bit clumsier in this respect. However, and this is a big however, I just cannot live with constantly losing the beginnings of programs and I am definitely not prepared to lose Series Link (having had that functionality for the last 7 years in Tivo) so as a result I have V+ primarily to record all the same programs via Series Link and padding so when I need the beginning of a program I can choose to see it. If V+ increase HD content significantly, then I may choose to live with its UI shortcomings and make that my primary PVR, but not at the moment.