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PVR reviews Humax PVR 9200T reviews
Freeview Humax PVR 9200T Review
This review of the Humax PVR 9200T Freeview DTT Hard Disk Recorder reviews functionality, usability and DVB-T reception sensitivity as well as listing improvements over the previous model (Humax PVR 8000T).
The Humax PVR9200T supersedes the PVR 8000T and improves on it by adding a twin tuner to allow simultaneous recording of two Freeview channels. In addition, a 160GB hard disk upgrade has been carried out, 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.Best Deals
You can currently buy a cheap Humax PVR 9200T Freeview receiver /
Personal Video Recorder from Empire Direct
at just (£179.99).
Humax PVR9200T Reviews
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. Click here for more information about VideoReDo and MPEG2 file conversion and high quality DVD authoring.
- 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? To buy a cheap Humax PVR9200T from Empire Direct, click the link below:
| Buy Humax PVR 9200T at Empire Direct |
Disclaimer
Our technical reviews of the Humax PVR9200T 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.
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