Good news the hdr has programmeable skip buttons. The buttons have circular arrows just above the yellow and blue buttons. The settings are in the setup recording menu. Mine are set to instant replay 15 seconds, skip forward 120 sec. Great for skipping ads, skip forward till you are back in the programme and back to the end of the ads in 15 sec chunks

Thanks Graham

The HDR does seem to be a good match to the Sony Bravia range. We got the same impression when we got our HDR a few weeks ago. Having read all the posts complaining about poor SD PQ from the HDR, I was a little concerned as to what I would find. As a result, I was very pleasantly surprised as to just how good it is, much better than the Technomate it replaced. I'm glad you're having a similar experience.


Just to prepare you for some disappointments, don't expect this to last. It won't be the HDR's fault when it fails. Recordings starting and ending correctly relies on timely information being transmitted by the broadcaster. BBC are good at this. Other broadcasters can have there moments. In the past week I've had a recording from ITV3 cut short four minutes from the end of the programme. It looked as if they simply signalled the start and end of programme at the scheduled time not the actual time. Similarly for series link. I have ITV's Wild At Heart set to series record in HD. Last night I noticed that the recording schedule had not updated to next week's programme. A little investigation showed that next weeks programme is not identified as be part of a series in the EPG, nor is it identified as being available in HD (although it says it is in the information).

I have a BRAVIA KDL-40X2000 TV and agree that the pictures delivered by the Humax PVR are excellent.

Just one irritation - when I initially turn on the TV I always have to change the source to HDMI. Is there any way to set this source as a default?

I haven't found a solution, only a work-around. I've also connected the SCART. This does auto switch so that, if the HDR is on, it will automatically be displayed. This is fine if you want a picture quickly, and for my wife who is less fussy about PQ. SD PQ is a little better with HDMI but very watchable with SCART (RGB). Of course, for HD, you must use HDMI otherwise the PQ will be worse than SD as the SCART will switch to composite for copy protection reasons.

I have a sony and it seems sonys dont communicate well with the Humax so there is nothing we can do about it. Its manual switching and turning off and on for us.

That happened with us. We just moved the lead to another HDMI socket, and it worked fine

Sadly no, later sets (4000 on I think) remember the input used at switch off and restore it on switch on.

First impressions on the whole are positive.
1) It worked straight out of the box and it updated itself without problem.
2) On a mate's Sony LCD (@1080i) there were no major differences with his existing Grundig $ky SD box. The artefacts were just different!
3) BBC HD & LUXE picture excellent.
4) Really like the blue display! Not universally liked in this forum, but just what I need!
5) Handy having the red button stuff on BBC 1. Have only seen it on Freeview before!

On the knit picking side

1) Poor build quality / design. The top cover does not sit flush with the plastic front piece, there is a sort of ripple along the front edge of the cover. The red warning sticker was not stuck on straight.
2) Switching between Freesat and non-Freesat mode is a pain.
3) No sealing sticker on the back. Hope this does not give a problem if I need to make a warranty claim in the future! Handy if I want to put another hard drive inside though.

The stickers on the bottom.

Snigger.

Doh!

Is there not an option to do this?

I'm sure I read somewhere there was a user definable jump forward and back?

Yes, you can (as explained in the top post of this page )

I have had my Humax since xmas and love it. Both HD SD are perfect via my Tosh with HDMI.I output sound via Spdif to my YSP ( i hate wires all over the place and I am hearing impaired so cannot detect certain frequencies.But I know all the audio buffs will cringe at the thought of a sound projector) and the quality is very good. I have a very few glitchs mainly with remote and once when the led stayed on red for a few days evn when switched on ( corrected itself) So to sum up I can recommend the Humax. I am wondering what to add next any ideas and no not a 7.1 system I really like my Yammy

The sticker on the 'bottom' on mine is the serial number and product type. There is no security sticker that I can obsere. Hence my concern about the warranty.

Looks like you ain't got one then. It's normally stuck on the side and the bottom

The one I bought recently doesn't have such a sticker either.

True I set mine up last night!

One word on build quality, mine is fine. I also love the way the front panel display shows what your watching on playback of a recording!

I have to agree on the EPG front, features wise it's miles better than sky.

I'm also puzzled why sky haven't implemented watching a third channel when two are recording?

People are generally stupid and wont understand why they can watch a 3rd channel one night and not another night.

I think the best way of doing it is allowing it but not advertising the fact a 3rd channel can be watched just like Humax have done.

True, I suppose the technical support lines at sky would be inundated with simpletons.

I know.

It wonderful that Humax have taken their duties under the disabilities act so seriously and catered for Alzheimer's sufferers who cannot remember which programme the are watching for the whole of its duration. (And can't remember that if you press 'info' it will tell you all aboput it.)

What red sticker isn't on straight....I don't have one? Don't have a security one either.

Also, I'm using scart for better pic quality but someone here said to switch the humax to original but when I try original, 720, etc etc on the Humax, I can't see any difference on the SD picture quality at all....can anyone else see any difference?

Whatever setting you set you only get 576i out of the scart (which is all scart supports).
The scaler only works on hdmi.

Doh....I'm not that daft Graham! Of course I'm doing this on HDMI.....can't see any difference on any settings, they all look same to me

(Except BBCHD of course).