Me too, and back to the original programme when pressed again so that you can alternate between two channels.

Me three.

I emailed Humax about this so hopefully it'll be implemented. Feel free to email them and add weight!

Yep, it is a feature that's growing on me a bit. I just don't like the idea of losing the buffer due to the wrong button press.

Another request - it's bordering on a bug report, but looks like it may have been by design. When watching a channel
in channel, if a program starts recording on the same channel, the buffer is emptied and only what has been recorded is accessible.

An explanation of what happened:
I started watching something at 8:30, and at 8:45 stepped out of the room for about 20 minutes with the intention of rewinding back to where I was when I came back in. At 9:00 something started recording, and at that point I was only able to rewind back to 9:00 despite the fact that the channel had not been changed

I haven't tested further, but I'd be interested to know what would have happened if I was already watching from the buffer in this scenario.

Also noticed as many others have that watching a program whilst it is still recording jumps back to live TV when the program stops recording.

Still a great box!! I'm amazed at how feature rich and how few problems there are on the release of something like this, paticularly as it's the first on the market.

In "List" view on the Guide, there is space to show seven programmes on the screen. But three of them are wasted, because it centers on the current programme. What's the point of telling me what I've missed already?

OK you can scroll down but it makes using the guide rather cumbersome. I've ended up sticking to the freeview guide in my telly and only using the foxsat one when I want to record something.

A few more ideas...

Allow the user to put a 'star' against a recorded program to represent a favourite show - useful on a series where you've watched some and want to remember which one you wanted to keep.

Show the 'new' icon in the File Manager as well. (As well as the new 'favourite' icon.)

Not sure if this is already mentioned: but if you manually initiate recording a program, continue after the news breaks!

Taliska

Extra Record Option

At the moment the box only allows you to record or watch.

What happens if you want to record and watch?

No one seems to have thought about the possibility that you might want to watch a programme but record it for future viewing also.

I know you can manually switch channels, but that relies on you remembering whilst watching something else, which is why the "watch" option was introduced.

Improved Upscaling

My tv continues to upscale SD better than the Humax.

I don't know whether its hardware or firmware limitation but you guys should look at the Denon 1940 DVD player. OK DVD is a much better signal to start with but its upscaling is outstanding - House of FLying Daggers on DVD looks as good as Blu Ray (I have both type of player).

There might be something to be learnt that can be applied to the Humax box. as the upscaling is diappointing quality at the moment.

However, note this might also be tied in with the soft SD picture.

I entirely agree I have a Denon 1920 DVD player and a AVR4306 amp both having the same faroujda scaler. SD TV from a Hummy 9200 and Toppy 5800 look amazing scaled to 1080i by the amp, significantly better than the TV internal freeview tuner and miles better than the foxsat sd picture. I also have a blue ray player and some SD Dvds are hard to tell from the blue ray versions. I have posted this before but you will always get the sceptics that have not tried a really good scaler.

Can you play the Humax HDR through this upscaling amp?

Are the results good?

I'm not sceptical that my picture could be improved, I just note that the Humax SD is as good as Sky HD and they are both very acceptable.

Not easily as the amp, SD dvd, blueray DVD and freeview pvrs are 10m from the TV and foxsat. The hdmi output to the TV and digital sound sound and composite sound and analogue audio outputs from the foxsat to the amp are all buried behind the skirting boards. As I only use the foxsat for HD it would not be worth the effort.

Forgive me if this has already been covered. I would like to have the text smaller on the Guide so I can see more without scrolling. Now that Five has come along I can't span the gap between BBC1 & BBCHD without scrolling down. I could easily handle the text size being two-thirds the current size. This won't suit everyone, so why not have a "zoom" function for the guide?

Im with you there, anyone with decent eyesite can read it but we have people moaning about the guide and them not being able to see it as it is.

Even more annoying is the way the guide doesnt stop scrolling when you reach the end of the channels so you allway get the radio at the top and bbc1 halfway down and have to spend time getting BBC1 back to the top.

I have thought of a way to illustrate the value of a good scaler.

Take a look at the adverts on a ITV HD transmission as compared to the same adverts on a SD transmission on the Foxsat.

The ITV ads scaled by the Denon from a freeview pvr look the same as the ITV HD ads on the Foxsat

Graham, can you just explain what one would need to buy to be able to interpose the upscaler you are talking about between a Foxsat and a TV?

Would such a device also be able to upscale the signal from a cheap and cheerful DVD player?

Thanks

The problem is, you'd have to keep changing the Foxsat's output signal. Whilst you are outputting out 1080i, then the foxsat's own internal scaler is messing up the SD signal and the damage is done. So to get any benefit, you'd have to set it to 576i for SD videing and change it to 1080i for HD viewing, which would be a bit of a fiddle. EDIT: thinking about it, does the Foxsat have an Auto setting for the output signal? If it does that would be OK.

And even this wouldn't completely fix it because the foxsat will still be scaling the 576i output - there's no way to turn the internal scaler off. I would expect it would be better than outputting SD at 1080i though.

The other factor is dedicated scalers are not cheap. The DVDO Edge is at the low end of the market but that is still circa £600.

I'm guilty of complaining about readability, but I also think more could fit more on - the readbility is poor because of (a) the lack of decent contrasting colours, lightish grey and white are not suitable to use together (b) insane font for the start/end time at the top of the page, not a space issue (c) top area too large (wasted space).

Basically they should look to rip off the complete look, feel, layout etc of the Topfield "MyStuff" EPG, its streets ahead of anything including Sky. This group of users/programmers have looked at nothing else but producing the perfect EPG and it damn near is.

See screenshots http://www.toppy.org.uk/~mystuff/cgi/SkinLibrary.cgi my favourite skin was this one http://www.toppy.org.uk/~mystuff/cgi...ext=jpg&logos=. There is a setting to pack even more channels on if your TV is big enough to cope, think you could switch it to 12 rows rather than 8 - 8 was good enough for me.

Like most AV amps scaling on my Denon is provided for composite (best), s-video and composite sources to HDMI. HDMI sources are not scaled but digital sound can be extracted, the hdmi video input is passed direct to the amp. If your DVD player has component out then no problem. To use the foxsat you would need a rgb to component converter for best results although s-video would work and as many satellite transmissions use lower bit rates and lower pixel counts than freeview the results may well be disappointing.
Such amplifiers are not cheap though (Mine cost over £1000.00) so you would expect it to be good. Ask around much cheaper amps with scalers are available these days, but no idea how they compare to the more expensive options.


If you want the best playback for SD DVD look at the Denon scaling DVD player range which have the same scalers as the amps at a much more reasonable price .
Having said that my Sony Blue Ray (BDP-S350) does a good job scaling to 1080p, not quite as good as the Denon (which only offers 1080i) and the Denon sounds much better with CD's

This has been mentioned by so many of us so many times that I really can't believe they've not had a look at it and learned some lessons. The next firmware update will no doubt tell us...

I think they all look really nasty. I like the current setup of the EPG, we just need more channels and schedules on each page or at least an option so we can set it up how we want.

People with large screens can put more on there because it will be bigger and people with small screens can keep it as it is if its too hard to read.

I agree - low resolution and colourful efforts tend to get tiresome on the eyes...

I've no idea why people keep banging on about Mystuff - I can't see it ever being implemented on the HDR!

Humax don't necessarily have to reduce the text size on the EPG: I reckon they could squeeze in two more lines per page by reducing the rather spaced layout they have to give the time, date and programme information, and there is a whole black area across the bottom that isn't used for anything.

If you hunt around the Denon 1940 can be found for as little as £120. Given that they're not selling these at a loss, its obvious the faroudja scaling chipset isn't that expensive it couldn't be fitted to a Humax box. That said, it wouldn't help any of us existing users to have it fitted unless Humax offered a cheap upgrade option for existing owners eg. £30 fixed fee.

With this in mind therefore, what interests me more is if Humax can squeeze much better SD scaling out of the existing Humax chipset. Whilst my £1,800 Pionner plasma is a big improvement on the Humax, it doesn't even come close to the Denon.

In fact the Denon is so good, the upscaled pictures on my Panasonic BD35 Blu Ray are poor in comparison (although Blu Ray is great!). So much so I actually miss my Denon!!!

I'd really like to see a vast improvement on scaling performance from the Humax as at the moment I'd rate it mediocre at best.

Colours, like much else on MyStuff, are configurable.


You would if you'd used it. Forget the colours, it's functionality is absolutely the very best. It makes the Foxsat+ look pretty ordinary.


That would be something to be regretted.

I still prefer it the way it is.

As Ive said in other thread, people just tend to prefer whatever they are used to, no matter how good or bad it is.

Im not denying the Humax EPG needs to be tweaked but it would be a step backwards to make it look like that.

This thread is getting rather long to easily see a complete picture of desired features.

My top three are;

a) Timer recording in non-freesat mode.
b) EPG driven recording in non-freesat mode.
c) 7 day EPG availability in non-freesat mode (e.g. tvtv epg as on the i-cord; the HDR's "brother") for other European networks.

I know Humax consider the foxsat HDR to be aimed at a freesat public who don't have the interest or skill to use non-freesat features to receive multiple satellites but there are plenty of people interested in international programming who are currently caught out between the I-Cord and the FoxsatHDR: I want to buy one of these but the HDR cannot do the above listed activities in non-freesat which are inate to the original icord. The I-Cord cannot show UK epgs except now and next (and may not be enabled to work with i-player in future).

The German and UK sections of icordforum.com have been pleading for EPG improvements beyond German language programming with no responses from Humax D or GB on the subject via forum or to email requests.

Yes, you would need to appreciate that there are different technical standards for epg transmission and that if you are in one mode your recordings in the other won't go ahead but why spoil the I-Cord non-freesat features when creating the Foxsat.

There was a firmware update due last week, but we never heard what was to have been in it or why it has been delayed.

Ideally the HDR is the product I want but not if it is closed off to more widely interested users. It does still benefit from Humax's friendly user interface for non-techies.

Other desired features;

d) Buffer save recording from start point of viewing.
e) Web server presence via ethernet as in the Topfield.
f) I-player introduction. Would this be live or via download to hard drive?
g) wider CAM compatibility and information on compatibility(Seca/Mediaguard is of interest to me but has been rumoured not to work well/at all?)

Finally, would it be an idea for a consolidated list of the feature requests to be abstracted from this thread, listed for all to see and maybe vote on and for submission to Humax?