I received my Humax Foxsast HDR at last and after
a few days of experimenting I can definitely recommend it as a wonderful receiver.
It only took me ten minutes to get it up and running without any hitches or problems.
Here are some of my main impressions so far.
The EPG is outstanding; it's pleasing to the eye and packed with useful and intuitive features that are miles ahead of Sky's EPG. IMO.
A full seven days guide for radio stations (including Irish stations, RTE1, 2FM, Lyric and Radio na Gaeltachta) is another nice feature.
I am using a loop through cable which gives me limited dual tuner functionality and again this is another big advantage over Sky boxes.
Recording to the hard drive is easy and the stored recordings offer a wonderful array of helpful features.
The HD pictures on my Panasonic Viera LXD700 from BBC are absolutely stunning - looking forward to the rugby in HD this afternoon.
And now for the downside. As many posters have already mentioned the SD picture quality is disappointing I also have a German-made TechniSat Digicorder S1 (six years old!) and its SD pictures on all channels are far superior.
Humax are definitely going to have to do something about this as it is a blot on an otherwise superior receiver.
In the meantime, well done Humax and Freesat. All I need now is for RTE to live up to its public service obligations and add its TV services to Freesat.

As has also been mentioned before, some posters, myself included, get an outstanding picture on SD. I would normally recommend very careful adjustment of your TV but if you have it set up for another box that could be a problem.

Have Humax commented on this?

Try using a rgb scart for sd (if you are not already), many report that this works best with their TV.

Thanks for that advice. I'll try the scart and some finessing of the settings. The TechniSat was connected with a scart so that might make a difference.

Well with my Panasonic LCD SD seems to be better with HDMI. Colour is more what I like and when I got up close the RGB picture had a definite fringe round parts of images/text.

Set the output of the Humax to original. The inbuilt upscaler isnt very good. Use the TV upscaler to improve the picture.

I assume this is why people say use the scart although Im not sure if you have to do that or just do it my way to get a better picture.

Some TV's won't accept 576i over hdmi so you have to at least let the Foxxy do some video manipulation. You always get unadulterated 576i for SD from the scart.

Best advice is to try it and use whatever you prefer. As it happens SD on my Sony TV looks best to me over scart but as I use freeview for SD it's pretty academic in my case.

My TV accepts it fine so this is what I do and only need 1 cable and one input and the hassle of switch back and forth if you switch HD/SD channels.

Can't see the point of this you obviously prefer the picture over hdmi others don't.

http://www.avforums.com/forums/8853486-post723.html

It's not any help to the OP is it, he still needs to make up his own mind

You dont get it, its the fact that its the upscalers that are the big difference, not what lead you use.

You can achieve the using of the TV upscaler to improve the picture over HDMI.

Judging by this post it does look like Humax is applying noise reduction, even when outputting original which in theory should be untouched. There really should be an option to turn that off or reduce it, it shouldn't be forced on the user. I don't use any NR on my HTPC and disliked the results whenever I have tried using it.

I think it's you who does not get it. I already explained that some tv's don't work with a 576i signal over hdmi. Even those that do will sometimes produce better results from RGB analogue from the scart rather than rgb digital from the hdmi. Most TV's have scalers not upscalers they have to work both ways. The only way to tell is to actually try it not slavishly stick to your own theories. I guess you are one of the misguided many who think because it's digital it's got to be better.

Calm down sparky.

Changing the output to original is a lot easier than setting up different inputs for HD and SD.

The analogue wont be better than the digital, the TV upscaler when using the analogue will be better than the cheap Humax when using the digital. You are still missing that.

Of course using the TV upscaler on the digital is the best option.

I may be thick but I have not a clue what this means.

Analogue is often better than digital, SD analogue TV still has more picture information than digital due to the compression and bit rate comprimises required. The foxsat-hd outputting analogue HD 1080i50 over component has a much better picture than the same transmission connected by hdmi.

See here

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/s...7&postcount=39
Last edited by grahamlthompson : 15-02-2009 at 14:57

See my post above- it looks like the Humax is forcing NR on 576i output over HDMI, Humax should be allowing users to turn NR off....

True, but even so opinion as to which is best in practice seems to be fairly evenly split. As you can see I am in the rgb scart camp but that's purely based on my own observations. Others clearly think the opposite. Like I said why not try it and see rather than trying to foist what works for you on everyone else.

Simply, a good upscaler plus scart will be better than a poor upscaler plus HDMI.

You think its purely because of the scart, I think its purely because of the upscaler.

I also think digital is better then analogue for cables. After all, the best audio cables are optical or digital coaxial.

TV broadcasts dont even come into it when comparing analogue v digital connections.

I think no such thing, its the same scaler that is used for hdmi or scart. It's entirely down to how well the TV handles RGB analogue from scart as against RGB digital from hdmi. And as you appear to totally ignore the fact that pure 576i is not output from the foxsat hdmi. I have never said that one is better than the other just that like many others, on my TV I get a better picture from scart, others don't it's as simple as that. I have also never said that you experiencing the opposite is wrong I entirely agree that may be the case. But you seem insistant that your experience applies to every TV which is rubbish. There is no such thing as a digital coaxial cable. its simply a standard 75ohm interconnect which can be used for any signal transfer digital or otherwise. If anyone tries to sell you a digital audio coaxial cable you are being conned.

I use optical on my connections, I only said it was digital coax to distinguish it from the optical.

I believe all the high price cables are a con.

Anyway, if the OP cant tell the difference between original HDMI and scart, hes better off using original HDMI as it negates the input switching on the TV every time you change to or from an HD channel.

The OP has not reported one way or the other. Incidentally why do you insist on calling the tv scaler an upscaler. A HD Ready TV has to scale HD 1920 x 1080 or 1440 x 1080 to around 1360 x 768 hardly upscaling is it.

Were talking SD here via scart or HDMI, of course it has to upscale it to the HD screen size.

Not talking about the process but the physical device that does the scaling. Guess you could call it an upscaler/downscaler but that would be plain daft. It's a scaler, my AV amp has an excellent one (better than my TV) made by Faroujda. You said the TV upscaler, it's a scaler.

Call it want you want if you want to be pedantic but my TV does not down scale anything. It only upscales.

I can't be bothered with this anymore, once again you equate your own experiences to those of others and assume yours are right. You clearly have a full HD TV, by far the majority of HD capable TV owners do not. Your responce once again reveals because that's what happens on your TV it must apply to everyone. Others in this thread have tried in the kindest possible way to indicate the flaws in your argument which basically is "THIS IS MY EXPERIENCE IT MUST BE RIGHT". A forum exists to give a balanced view, how more balanced can a view that says make up your own mind can be. I leave it up to the forum readers to decide who has the right attitude. Some will decide your view is right, personally I don't have any view as it entirely depends on whatever equipment you use and your personal preferences. All this stems from a simple statement try both and make up your own mind, how can this be bad advice ?

We got our PVR this weekend, and we love it. I've never seen our Bravia's pictures look so good in both SD and HD, even better than the inbuilt tuner. The colours look rich and natural. Everything looks gorgeous.

We are so happy that we won't have to use our awful Topfield PVR anymore, and will be using the Humax from now on. The only thing we miss from the Topfield is the skip buttons with different skip times for each button (and one skip back button), but the Humax is so good, we can live with that.

The recorded programmes start right at the beginning, whereas we had to pad with the Topfield. The series link works perfectly too. The unit is very quiet. We live in a very quiet house and even the clock ticking can be blooming annoying, but we can barely hear the Humax. It does everything it should do and we are very happy with it, although it's probably a little overpriced.