This may be somewhat premature as the HDR has only been around a couple of months and I've only had mine a couple of days, but it may also be timely.

In an idle moment, my mind turned to how Humax could improve on the HDR. I'm not talking about fixing known bugs and unwanted features. I'm thinking of the next freesat+ box that Humax will bring to the market in a year or so's time. What features would we like to see in that? Now might be a good time to speak up. It might not be long before Humax start thinking about the spec for it.

I'll start the ball rolling with my number one request.

- It should use the same archiving format as the HDR.

When I get the new box in a couple of years time, the HDR will be used in another room. I'll want to be able to move recordings between them. If I can't do that, I might as well look at what other manufactures have on the market then. That's another hint, Bob_Cat.

How about the swanky new DVB-T2 Humax 9999T triple tuner HD freeview pvr (1.5Tb HDD of course) with direct home network access to swap recordings and share HDD capacity with the Foxsat-hdr. We can dream can't we

Only 1.5Tb in a couple of years time? And why stop at three tuners?

But compatibility between freesat+ and Freeview+ archiving formats is a great idea.

It would be nice if recordings could be edited to remove adverts etc, like you can on DVD Recorders.

Would the TV companys allow that? Wouldn't they lose revenue from advertising if advertisers thought the adverts were being ignored?

Well it is possible to do it on DVD Recorders and although you cannot edit adverts you can skip adverts on the Humax HDR using the skip function with increments of 30, 60, 120, 240 secs.

I want to make a quad tuner HD PVR with DVB-T2 but it is a very expensive device concept and difficult to justify (the more expensive the product the less quantity is sold). I think it will come but it might not happen next year.

Larger drive capacities will follow as the market for HDD's changes, currently 320GB is the price break compromise however we often make 'X' models which boost the size as specials. Once the dust has settled and we have some production capacity perhaps that will follow for the HDR, I can't say for sure at the moment.

Deliberate advert avoidance is not encouraged because adverts pay for TV programmes to exist on commercial channels, however other facilities used under different guises do happen from time-to-time.

Bob

Humax seem to be market driven so whatever Freesat product is to come would depend on the progress of Freesat. I can't see Freesat requiring anything more than the already very 'future proof'-ed (except the size of the HDD) HDR...

As mentioned above, the next Humax product for the UK market, I predict, would be a box capable of receiving DVB-T2 - i.e. a box capable for Freeview HD reception and followed by one capable of recording too (i.e. a PVR)...

Those of us who are bright enough, can see a sense in a combo box for Freesat and Freeview reception (quad tuner - 2 Dsat and 2 DTT), but whether Humax can justify a market for, and make this box (once their DVB-T2 has been made and prefected)... is to be seen...

Meanwhile, those who want to build such a 'quad' hybrid can do so with PC technology for about £600... http://freesat-freeview-htpc.blogspot.com/

Or buy a Dreambox 8000, it has 2 Sat-tuners (and now Freesat support) and you can add 2 DVB-T tuners.
P.S. I am not in any way connected to the makers of the Dreambox, but I have one and I love it!
Last edited by Timo_Audio : 02-02-2009 at 16:00

Yes, if it ever gets released! With the Euro exchange rate (I got €100 for £93 yesterday!) this will cost £1000+

2nd generation should have:

1) at least 1.5Tb internal disk space

2) facility to add extra external hard disk space

3) freeview and freesat tuners (at least 2 of each)

4) a dvd recorder for permanent archiving.

4) should be Blu-Ray

I'd like to see:

1) Three tuners to handle the inevitable conflicts that crop up because of overrunning by a few minutes.

2) The ability to set padding as well as accurate recording. (Am I correct that this is not currently possible?)

3) A larger disk, obviously (that is assuming that HD content increases).

4) A really well designed and manufactured zapper. The current one is not exactly bad but the experience of using the box improved so much when I changed to a Logitech. Put all the buttons that you need to watch recordings on the front in such a way that you don't need to see them to find them all. Put the rest on a pop out 'drawer'.

5) Ability to set recordings over LAN.

6) Faster boot!

7) Built in DVD player so that you can get rid of one box (recorder for archiving?)


Some of these could certainly be achieved using the current hardware with an update.

Bob, do you hope to get DNLA certification for the HDR? Would solid state drives be a possibility as well?


Last edited by drevil666 : 13-02-2009 at 21:58

The skip buttons are an absolute godsend, its also handy that most ad breaks seem to be done in full minutes.

Editing them out all together on archived recordings would be fantastic.

I'm going to stop talking about upgrades, not because we aren't planning any, but because people are getting too speculative and we will be developing whatever is on our roadmap. I would like to discourage any wild optimism that I am writing down everything and adding it to a never ending list.

Bob

Bob_Cat wrote

Very sensible!
It wouldn't worry me if I never had any more 'upgrades'
For me the box is perfect.

Can always add upgrades to the existing box anyway via firmware.

About the only thing you can't change is the hard drive (unless you do it yourself). But there's nothing to stop Humax bringing the existing box out with a larger hard drive in the future.

When I started the thread, it was those features that can't be achieved by firmware alone that I had in mind. Most have already been covered - additional tuners, Freeview tuners and, as you suggest, larger disk. I'm somewhat surprised that nobody has mentioned a wireless interface to supplement the ethernet port, and I'm still wondering if there might be some less than obvious addition that could make a big difference to functionality.

One very trivial hardware change I would make would be to the front panel display. The bright, low contrast, blocky dot matrix display is not in keeping with the high quality of the rest of the box. I doubt if it is anything that would affect a purchaing decision, but it's a source of mild irritation to me. It's a good reason to use power saving standby rather than having an ugly clock dislayed.

Well put Bob!

Anyone reading these forums with some of the cloud cuckoo suggestions that appear could begin to believe that the Humax HDR operated on open source software which could be tailored for each and every individual user and all for less than £300!

If people want to do this they really should to look at a PC solution - probably using Linux with a satellite card. Then they might realise just how hard it can be just to get a basic set up working!

Oh and just for the record - I am not connected with Humax in any way.

I couldn't agree more!

Then you have a very unusual definition of 'perfect'.

I'd agree though that I wouldn't lose any sleep if Humax said they were not doing any further updates. It would be a little disappointing, though.

Tern wrote:

My definition of perfect: Does it do everything I expect of it.
Answer: Yes.

A number of off topic posts have been removed from this thread.

Please keep on topic at all times and refrain from arguing with others.

Thanks,

DS Forum Support

I don't think that was in any doubt