Hi everyone great forum on here.This is my first post so i would like some advice please.I'm seriously thinking of getting rid of my sky hd sub and getting a freesat+ box.i'm currently paying £55pm for my sky hd sub we have the full package. Which is a lot really the wife wants me to get rid of it.The only thing i would miss would be the recording feature of the box but im not prepared to pay sky a tenner a month for the recording feature.How would you rate the humax box and is the recording feature as good as sky and is it worth £300 quid.Thanks any advice would be appricated

I'm in a similar situation myself...

The way I look at it...

Yes you're paying Sky £10 / month to record, but the alternative is a one off £300.

So you can get 30 months worth of HD recording on Sky, for the same price as a Humax box.

And what will the Freesat+ PVR market look like in 2.5 years time (30 months)?
There may be more choice of boxes, they might be cheaper.

I personally would have bought a FreeSat+ Humax box straight away if I could have got hold of one... now 2 and a bit months later they still seem quite scarce, so I may as well sit back, wait a while and see what happens.

I might end up giving Sky an extra 18 months money (£180), before I make my decision, let the early adopters iron out the bugs

I'd say the recording features are actually better than sky. Record a show in SD when an HD version is available and the software will ask if you wish to record the HD version. Also if you try and record something which clashes with other recordings the software searches for an alternate broadcast and suggests them.

@tiger4165

Welcome to the forum

You'll get lots of advice & opinion on here , it's great for help too.

I was in a similar position and decided to take the plunge and ditch $ky.

We really only watched the main 5 channels since the children left home, and I was still paying for the top package.

Akey puts forward a good reasoned argument for letting things settle down with Freesat+ PVR market before jumping in, and you should consider this.

For me, I just couldn't stomach paying $ky for the recording facility on a box that I had bought, even though they say the recording software is only licensed from them; but that is how I feel, personally, YMMV.

I think the Humax box is very good at what it sets out to do for the majority of the public out there, .i.e. to record programmes for viewing & deleting later. It is not perfect, e.g. the Deleting could do with being slicker, but it is perfectly useable. Some of the more "advanced" functions (to the majority of the public), like archiving, LAN, non-freesat, etc., provoke more reaction on here - it depends on what you are looking for, and what you will use most.

I'm sure Humax will refine the few "user interface" quirks with a software update in the near/mid future, and add further features after that.

I was worried that my wife wouldn't like it after being used to the $ky box & remote for many years. I was right !!..... but after about a week of finding her way around the EPG, Menu, Media, & Schedule, she changed her mind. She likes the "adverts" skip buttons, the much better search facility, the alternate recording options, the far fewer freezes & failed/corrupt recordings.

So, for me, I'm happy we made the move, and that my £300 was money well spent, but I was aware that I would be an early adopter.

Whilst I'm sure my post won't make up your mind for you, I hope it is helpful.

Rgds.


Les.

Akey does make a good case for possibly waiting - however, Sky HD doesn't just cost £10 a month. In order to record HD you also need to be apying the standard sky subscription.

I was also in the same position - I had Sky HD, entertainment and movies. I bought the humax HDR as soon as it came out and cancelled Sky. Whilst I occasionally see a programme on Sky 1 I might want to watch (or more like Dave) I haven't really missed the channels.

As far as the recorder goes it has been far more stable than Sky HD (which I had to reset every 4 weeks roughly, the Humax has been on since december with no problem).

The series link feature is much better than Sky and has always worked great. There are some niggles but generally I am very pleased with the move.

One more thing to throw into the decision making:

Do you use the sky box on just one tv, or is it also linked to a remote tv?

One of the nice features of a sky box is the RF OUT 2 that allows viewing on another tv and also allows you to control the sky box from that remote tv. Moreover another nice feature of this is they implement line 23 widescreen switching via the RF out, so if your remote tv is widescreen, it will switch widescreen modes correctly.

This is a feature sadly lacking from all freesat boxes, they don't even incorporate an rf modulator. So if remote viewing is a requirement, the sky box wins. The freesat box requires you to mess around with external modulators or video senders etc.

I got rid of SKY and bought the Humix,

I would rather pay £300 for the Humix rather than continue to pay sky for being able to record on a box they say is mine. Matter of principle Well that is £120 each year to sky for what ?

I looked at the costs of going HD with SKY but considering my main reason for Having Sky+ was for MotorBike racing and SCI FI on SKY 1 and not much else I already felt the £18a month I was paying for the basic subscription was silly as not using it to its full. So for me that was a £216 saving in year 1 by getting rid off something I wasn't using. That isn't taking into account any price increases.

But I knew I would miss SKY+ recording features and had been monitoring the progress of the HDR so when it came out felt it was a worthwhile replacement with HD facilities as and when they get to FreeSat.

For the initial poster thats £660 year your paying. Are you glued to the screen to make it worthwhile ?

After having the HDR 2 months would I go back to SKY+ --- No is the simple answer.

Errrr... I was under the impression that you can cancel the whole shebang, and keep Sky+ recording facilities for £10 / month AND still get the FREE HD channels (BBC HD, Channel 4 HD, Luxe TV HD).

So HD Recording would still only be £10/month... have I got this wrong?

Yeah but in 2.5 years you could have bought an HDR, its simply not worth it.

You would need a Sky HD box, and I bet that sky would not let you have any HD channels for free.

No, that's quite correct. The only thing I'd argue with in your piece is the timeframe. 18 months???

The Humax works beautifully as a PVR although there are a few rough edges around the user interface. You may want to wait for a couple of months and see what the next software revison brings. On the other hand, as it works in every important aspect (and works reliably) you can be quite confident in ordering now.

One last thing: your electricity bill will go down if you swap from Sky to Humax as the Sky box is 'on' even when it's 'off', if you see what I mean.

The OP already has a HD box.

And... yes I believe if you cancel you get the FREE HD Channels.

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/s...65&postcount=4

I meant that, personally, I may continue to pay Sky £10 / month for 18 months, and see what the FreeSat DVR market is like then.

So over the next 18 months I would have spent in total £180 for recording HD channels off of SKY, rather than paying £300 for buying a FreeSat+ box.


Hmmm.. yes, but think how much interest my money could be earning if I put the £300 in the bank

Seems a hell of a long time to wait.

Most people would monitor the market during that time rather than make a specific decision to wait for so long.


ROFLMAO!

At the current interest rate and energy prices I suspect you would be saving more in electricity than you were making in interest - seriously!

One other thought occurs. The price of the Humax was set before the current currency fluctuations. So far, despite a significant fall in sterling they have kept the same price. Given that the pound is still falling it might not be advisable to wait as you may find there is a significant hike in the price quite soon.

Yes, I will too !


You started it...

I think my electricty cost savings when it comes to whether Humax or SKY is switched on is going to be minimal anyway..

A SKY+ box uses 17 watts all the time.
A Humax box uses 24 watts switched on, 1 watt in standby.

Now... if I work that out over a year... assuming that the Sky box is switched ON the whole time, it'd cost me (at 10p kwh) £14.89.

The Humax box switched OFF all the time would cost £8.76.

No, you are perfectly correct - free channels are exactly that, FREE!.

It's not easy to see what improvements (by any manufacturer) will become available in the timescale being discussed. See this thread for some ideas. Larger disk seems the most likely. Combined freesat and HD Freeview box is a possibility, but maybe not in that timeframe. Competition could drive some price reduction but, as pointed out by Tern, this may well be more than offset by the decreasing value of the pound.

Of course, this assumes that Humax fix the current bugs in the HDR and deliver the promised LAN functionality. But, if you are not willing to take the risk, you shouldn't need to wait more than a few months (hopefully) to be sure of this.

I was always under the impression that for sky HD you had to pay an additional £10 per month. Is this not correct?

How does that work then, the Sky box uses 17 times as much as the electricity as the Humax in your example yet is only twice as expensive.

Anyway the Sky box is 17 watts ff and 34 watts on according to another post on here.

hi, newbie here. am in the middle of diching sky hd and muti room (sky+). just bought a humax hdr, as above just stick of paying 63 quid a month for watching repeats!

Started what? No one complained about your mentioning electricity.


Minimal or not, they will still be greater than the interest you would make.


As already pointed out, your figures are nonsensical.

Even if correct, with the current parlous state of interest rates, you would nowhere near cover your increased energy costs with interest paid by sticking with Sky.

Sorry.. It's friday afternoon... Humax switched OFF all the time for a year 8p... not £8

BBC HD and CH4 HD is not Sky HD they are on the Sky epg but are subscription free. You need a Sky card for CH4 HD as its encrypted but free ( you but don't need a subscription)

yes you do, i have got sky down to a fiver a month for 6 months.

You pay £10 SUBSCRIPTION for the HD subscription channels, you don't pay anything actually for HD - which works perfectly fine for free (as it has to).

It's people here who keep wrongly calling the HD 'subscription' an HD 'charge' that causes this confusion.