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Humax PVR Reviews
The latest Humax PVR's are shown below. Products include:
- The Humax DTR-T2000 "YouView" digital TV recorder which includes "Freeview" (digital TV via your aerial). It has twin tuners and receives Freeview HD and Standard Definition services, has pause and rewind live TV capabilities as well as supporting catch up TV (over the Internet) from the UK's five main TV channels.
- The Humax HDR-1000S is a twin tuner "Freesat" PVR which receives digital TV via a satellite dish (an existing Sky dish can be used). It offers access to over 150 channels of subscription-free TV with functionality similar to a Sky HD box, including pause and rewind live TV. It receives Freesat HD services and has a massive 1TB hard disk for up to 300 hours of HDTV recording.
Best Buy PVR's
Humax DTR-T2000
Humax DTR-T2000
YouView Digital TV Recorder
- Pause and Rewind Live TV
- Record two channels at once
- Freeview HD compatible
- Receives BBC One HD, BBC Two HD, ITV1 HD & Ch4 HD
- Catch up TV compatible
- 50+ standard definition Ch's
- Connects to your TV aerial
- Satellite dish not required
- Massive 500GB Disk
- Up to 300Hrs of recording
- Remote programming/recording
Humax HDR-1000S
Humax HDR-1000S
Freesat HD Recorder
- Easy to use. No monthly subscription, 150 SD channels
- Replaces Sky Box
- 5 Free HD channels
- Requires Minidish at 28.2E
- Records Freesat standard def & HDTV Programmes
- Record 2 channels at once
- Pause and rewind live TV
- Twin digital tuners - two satellite dish cables required
- Full HD 1080i HDMI Interface
- 1TB disk holds 300Hrs of HD
Buying a PVR
If you're looking to buy a new digital TV recorder for free-to-air (non subscription) TV then it is sensible to check Freeview coverage and Freeview HD availability in your area, before you purchase. If you live in a weak signal area with poor Freeview coverage or an area of the UK with no Freeview HD availability until after Digital Switchover, then a Freesat HD PVR like the Humax Foxsat HDR is a better short term buying choice. It's a 'best buy PVR' in many independent PVR reviews and assuming you can fit a Minidish to your property or have an existing satellite dish installed for Sky, it offers easy installation. Read our comprehensive Foxsat HDR review for more details about this 'best buy' HDTV Freesat recorder.
To get the best picture quality from any HD DVR (whether it be Freeview or Freesat) you will need an HD-Ready TV (LCD or Plasma) with a 1080i compatible HDMI interface. The set top box should then be connected to the TV using an HDMI cable. The latest range of Humax set top box products compatible with the UK's new High Definition (HD TV) services on Freeview and Free sat are summarised below:
Humax Set Top Box Reviews
The following review of the Humax PVR 9200T Freeview DTT hard disk recorder reviews functionality, ease of use and DVB-T tuner sensitivity as well as listing improvements over the previous model (Humax PVR 8000T).
Note: The Humax PVR-9200T Freeview PVR is now superceded by the Humax DTR-T1000 YouView Digital TV Recorder (featured above) which has a larger 500GB disk and improved specification. However, small quantities of secondhand Humax PVR9200T PVR's may still be available at cheap prices as used items from Amazon.co.uk.
Hostorically, the Humax PVR9200T Freeview recorder superseded the PVR 8000T and improved on it by adding a twin tuner to allow reception and simultaneous recording of two channels. In addition, a 160GB hard disk upgrade was implemented, extending recording time to around 90 hours.
Humax PVR 9200T Review Conclusion |
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Best buy PVR for weak Freeview signal areas, good functionality and price.
Poor user manual, some hard disk noise, low quality Scart cable supplied.Cheap Deals
The PVR9200T is now obselete and replaced by the Humax PVR 9300T which offers many advantages over the old model - offering 1080i upscaling to suit an HD ready TV and the ability to record two digital channels simultaneously whilst watching a previous recording.
You can currently buy a cheap Humax PVR9300T Freeview receiver / PVR (the latest model) from Amazon at around £160.
Improvements
The twin tuner Humax 9200T Freeview PVR has a similar user interface to the 8000T it replaces, but many improvements have been made:-
- The PVR9200T has new menu options to start timer recording a few minutes early and finish recording a few minutes late, whilst capturing the correct programme name in the recording list.
- The playback search modes have been made less cumbersome to use (less keystrokes required) and a bookmark feature added for instant access and playback of certain part/s of a recording.
- The Humax PVR 9200T has recording file editing which allows the deletion of various unwanted sections of recording files and the splitting of recordings into separate files.
- Picture in Picture (PIP) has been added for simultaneous viewing of two Freeview DTT channels. The PVR 9200T allows the PIP window to be moved to all screen quadrants and two sizes of PIP are supported.
- A Top Up TV card slot and an improved remote control added.
- A customisable "commercial skip feature" has also been added to quickly skip through advertisements when playing back recordings (30 second advance).
- A USB interface has been added to download MP3 and photo images to the Humax PVR 9200T, allowing it to be used as an MP3 jukebox (5GB limit) or to present photographic slide shows via the TV interface.
- The same USB interface can also be used to upload video files from the PVR to a computer. The video file can then be processed by VideoReDo software into a video format suitable for burning onto a DVD. Corel Software also offer ULEAD DVD Factory Version 6 Plus which also provides this functionality, although you'll need a PC with lots of memory (1GB of RAM or more) to process large files. Some users report that the Humax PVR 9200T USB interface is slow to transfer large video files onto a PC hard disk.
- As a Freeview twin tuner PVR, the Humax 9200T now allows two channels to be recorded at the same time (these can be overlapping programmes on different channels), or one channel to be recorded whilst playing a previously recorded programme from the hard disk.
- A preview feature has been added to the Recorded Programme menu
| Humax PVR9200T Functionality |  |
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A summary review of Humax PVR 9200T functionality is provided below:
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| Humax PVR9200T Specification | |
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A review of the Humax PVR 9200T specification is provided below:
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Build Quality Review
The Humax PVR 9200T is finished in silver with a mirror front panel and overall build quality is excellent. Although the Humax PVR9200T has a twin tuner architecture, both tuners are sensibly integrated into the design without the need to externally daisy chain the tuners with patch leads like on the Topfield TF5800 PVR and Goodmans GHD8015 F2. This made the Humax PVR installation neater and reduced UHF loop through signal losses compared to rival products. Unlike the PVR8000T, the PVR 9200T has a sealed case with a near silent rear panel fan for ventilation.
Ease of Installation
The Humax PVR 9200T found and installed all DVB-T channels during first time installation (even in bad Freeview reception areas). However, some problems were encountered with the automatic installation at locations which could receive several DTT transmitters.
Since the Humax PVR has excellent sensitivity it would often add the out of region DVB-T channels to the channel list. These could either be deleted by editing the channel list, or a manual installation carried out by entering each UHF multiplex channel number. Multiplex channel information is available (for each DVB-T transmitter) is available here.
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User Manual
The user manual supplied with the Humax PVR9200T is very poor. It has procedural omissions which make it hard to operate certain functions (like the recording file editing) and even basic functions are inadequately explained.
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Freeview Reception Test
Alongside the Humax PVR 8000T, the twin tuner 9200T proved slightly more sensitive - even though (strangely) the signal quality readings on the 9200T were lower! When tested with a weak DVB-T Freeview signal, the PVR9200T proved to be the best PVR of the group for use in poor Freeview reception areas. The Topfield TF5800PVR, Sagem PVR72160T and Goodmans GHD8015 all proved less sensitive in comparison. Other reviews of the Humax PVR 9200T seem to confirm its weak signal performance.
During our tests, the Humax PVR9200T even provided reasonable Freeview reception of Crystal Palace Mux 1 (UHF Ch25) at our office in Newbury, on a Hannington facing aerial which (when measured) produced a very poor 32dBuV DVB-T Freeview signal from Crystal Palace Mux 1. In comparison, no reception was possible with the Humax PVR 8000T on the same aerial or any of the other PVR's.
In short, if you live in a poor reception area for Freeview with weak DTT signal coverage, then the Humax PVR9200T or the non-PVR enabled Humax F2-Fox T Set Top Box both represent a 'best buy'.
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Picture Quality
Picture quality on the Humax PVR 9200T was good, although it didn't seem quite as pin sharp as the Humax PVR8000T. On our Toshiba 36ZP38 test TV, the best picture was obtained by using S-Video through the TV Scart connector. Disappointingly, the Scart cable supplied with the Humax PVR was inadequately screened, so replacing it with a quality individually screened Scart cable brought big improvements in picture quality.
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Humax PVR9200T Review Conclusions
This review concludes that the Humax PVR 9200T builds on the successes of the PVR8000T Freeview PVR hard disk recorder, offering improved functionality and flexibility through a clever twin tuner design. The product's main features all appear well engineered and easy to use. In addition, Humax PVR 9200T software appears stable, but a few problems have been experienced with system lock ups and instability on old software versions. Since launch, several Humax software upgrades have been made available from the Humax Digital website to add new functionality and to fix software bugs.
Buy Now!
Impressed with the review? You can buy the latest model Humax PVR - the Humax PVR9300T at cheap prices with fast delivery from Amazon. The current best price is £159.99.
Disclaimer
The technical reviews of Humax PVR's on this web page are provided in good faith and are accurate to the best of our ability. No guarantee regarding accuracy of information contained in this PVR review is provided.
