Totally understand. I'm in IT myself. You could mention some new feature on a thread that may end up getting ditched if it caused unforseen circumstances elsewhere. Very wise.

As another poster said, good to see a company taking such an interest. If other companies do such things then they keep very quiet about it!

Hi BC. I know you can't comment on new features, but are you able to clear up the delete-while-recording function query?
OnlyYou has now said that he has no problem deleting while recording, but he hasn't updated yet. Could you state if this was something that was intentionally removed in the update? Did it cause issues?
If you can't/won't respond, I understand.

I wasn't aware of this 'feature' until it was found here and I don't know what the view is on it.

Bob

Strange. Thanks for replying anyway. It's great you are a regular reader of this forum. It's nice to know Humax are reading our posts.

Not that strange, I don't get much of a chance to actually play and I don't get all the testing results. Too busy working.

How about being able to show the time as a small, unobtrusive DOG? We have got very used to having the time on display in that corner of the room, of course when the FOXSAT gets turned on, it is replaced by the channel number. I know we only have to press "i" to find the time, but a choice over whether it is displayed as a DOG or not would be very nice, if a very minor wish.

I'm not overly keen on the way series recording puts the stuff in folders - I'd rather see a complete list of every recording on one screen that I could then order by time or alphabetically.

Other than that (and the minor oddity with my signal readings - see other thread) I'm dead chuffed with the box.

I think this ought to be an option. That way, we choose the way we prefer. After all, there will be people who will prefer to have folders automatically created too.

I think it would be a great addition to allow video playback via the usb port, as is already available for music and photos.

If you can archive tv shows recorded from the Foxsat HDR then surely the technology is there. All we need is the correct settings for encoding and the ability to add tags to files so the box can see it as another archived recording.

Pretty please Bob and chums.

I agree with you, Sgt Dibbles, if it's not possible to save the video on the hard disk then allowing playback through the usb would suit me fine too. I have all my camcorder clips on a small portable hard disc, so I'd be quite happy just to plug it in to the HDR as needed.
There must be a reason why these modern devices are sold to play mp3's & view jpg's through USB ports but not to play videos: my Philips TV has a USB port - no problem with reading music & photo files, but it won't play any video file. It seems strange as showing moving pictures is what TV's are designed for, aren't they? I would like an explanation for this strange set of affairs if somebody could kindly provide one.

I think it may be because the signal transfer rate (even using USB 2) isn't fast enough.

When I'm capturing video footage for editing it has to be done via a Firewire connection.

I guess your video files must be HD quality. My SD quality 4:3 DivX files play OK direct from a USB key through a Philips PVR that I have. The problem is that I don't need two PVR's, so am hoping that one day the Humax will be able to do the same thing so I can put the Philips box on Ebay.

I'd like the following features, or amendments, made to the current version...

1) When you use the up/down arrow buttons while watching a program I'd like it to scroll through to show what is on the other channels, rather than actually changing channels. I know I can do this if I press the "i" button first. Just seems a waste of time as I can use the Prog +/- keys to change channels if I wanted to.

2) If the HD option on an ITV program is removed I'd like my scheduled recording to record the SD version instead. I know this has been mentioned before, but just thought I'd add my two penny worth.

3) While watching a recorded program I'd like the "OK" button to pause or play the recording. Saves having to search for the small pause and play buttons on the remote in a hurry (and easier for my kids as well )

4) If I delete a series recording from the schedule, and there are no programs from that series left in the folder, I'd like the folder automatically deleted.

This is only a minor wish list and would like to add that I'm really pleased with the product

I echo all four of the above!

No, I just deal with 4:3 DV or DVCAM tapes recorded in SD quality.

DivX encoding (Google tells me) compresses the original files considerably. Perhaps this is what enables them to go via USB?

Just guessing really - I'm no expert!

Enough of my niggles, and time for some feature requests based on the first few days of use. These might seem picky, so I first want to reiterate that I think the overall design is fantastic; there are many little touches which delighted me when I first saw them -- my favourite being the record indicators in the top left when the i-plate is onscreen, with segmented circles showing the progress of each recording. Genius!

Folders Others have pointed out annoyances with folders. I also like the idea of any folder that was automatically created being automatically removed again when emptied. Actually, I'm not sure why empty folders need even be on the Media list; can the box not just hide them until they have programmes in them again?

More importantly for me is for folders to be sorted amongst files rather than before them. I already have to go down to the second page in Media before I can even see my latest recordings and this will only get worse as more series-link folders build up.

The OK button Pressing OK when viewing brings up the channel list. As far as I can tell, this exactly the same functionality as the 'List' button. I would love the option to set the OK button to duplicate 'i' instead in viewing mode. Years of using a Sky box has made this very intuitive to me, but it would also make it easier to navigate by feel.

Now and Next It seems odd that the i-plate shows the current programme, but not the next one (when it first appears). The i-plate looks great and has more information than the Sky equivalent, but lacks Next programme information -- which seems quite fundamental to me. Having the programme start time before the name would be easier too.

Programme info A second press of 'i' brings up the text description for whatever programme is currently listed on the i-plate (which is fantastic compared to Sky boxes). But is there any chance that this second page could be sized dynamically so it doesn't obscure the whole screen to show a couple of lines of text?

I did say that I was being picky!

(Note that I have 1.00.01 so it's possible some of this might have changed already.)

I was watching TV last night and paused for 10 minutes. After watching for a while the ads came on and I changed channel and lost my 10 minutes. I think it would be a good idea to have some sort of warning when changing channel during chasing play mode.

USB2 is plenty fast enough for playing back video. The Fortec Star PVRs use an external hard drive for their recordings and can stream HD video just fine over USB2.

Steve
Last edited by Steve-R : 29-11-2008 at 09:44

...so it's nothing to do with USB speed. Perhaps Bob_Cat can tell us why the HDR doesn't include a few video codexes (or is it codeces?) so we can watch our camcorder clips off a USB key?

There is a post by Bob_cat in another thread somewhere (I can't find it at the moment) explaining it. I think it was sort of along the lines of Humax has a hardware video decoder (probably off the shelf, not their own design) that only decodes H.264 and MPEG2 broadcast transport streams and won't decode video that most of us use on PCs. That said though, it's not that hard to convert video to these formats therefore allowing the Humax to play them.

Steve

Thanks Steve-R, I must have missed the other post. I'd like to hear from someone who has got this to work, please: I see that I can convert to H.264 "ts" type file (using VLC, for example) but to get recognised by the Humax I understand that two accompanying files are required. These files are generated automatically if you record off the satellite onto the hard disc, but will be needed for recognistion from another video source. I can't yet test this out myself as my Foxsat HDR hasn't arrived yet.

Thats because the file you are transferring is dV avi it's much less compressed than the mpeg2 or 4 files used in digtal TV. (around 4GB for 20 min) Usb2.0 is easily fast enough for mpeg video including HD

Yes, I think that's the biggest problem, trying to get it into a format that the Humax assumes has been generated by itself. I think I miss worded my last post, it should have said "in theory" at the end

Steve

Five days on, and I've more or less got used to the Foxsat HDR and like it very much. PQ is very good and it does most of what TiVo and Sky+ do or did, plus more besides.

Accurate recording, on channels that support it, is the biggest step forward IMHO.

One or two 'features' are still works in progress, though.

In particular...

The remote is far too directional and IR reception poor. It works fine when controlling other devices but not the PVR itself. For me, this is the biggest issue.

Deleting programmes is far too difficult. As well as fixing the bug that prevents deleting while recording, the box should have an auto disc management option, as TiVo and Sky+ do. In particular, it should be possible to edit a series recording to tell the box to keep only the most recent n episodes. TiVo does this and it prevents the box filling up with innumerable numbers of daily children's cartoons, for instance.

It should be possible to filter the EPG by favourites only. This may be a general Freesat issue; nevertheless to most consumers it will reflect badly on the HDR. And what is the point of the channel list, exactly? Am I missing something here?

The front panel display should be capable of being dimmed or switched off. Mine is covered by a piece of PVC tape.

As reported elsewhere, there is a bug that causes some folders of TV programmes to also appear in the radio list. This seems random: some folders are empty, others not.

Finally, it would be terrific to be able to play video, as well as audio and photos, from the USB socket.

That's my ten cents.

EDIT: My ten year-old can use it easily but the wife can't. Make what you will of that.

What about an ability to add non-freesat channels onto preset epg numbers like 0101 and stuff?