Humax HD-FOX T2 Freeview HD Set Top Box

I want to divide this review into three sections, firstly about the product itself, then the technology behind it and finally whether or not it's worth your investment.

The Product:

The Humax HD-Fox T2 Freeview receiver is the first box of its kind that allows HDTV into your living room without the need for any other external equipment or an aerial upgrade (Just remember to check the coverage in your area before you buy, some areas cannot receive the new signals until 2011)
You of course need a HD Ready TV, (most people have this these days) and true enough your TV viewing experience can be greatly enhanced with this rather neat piece of kit.
First up then, don't confuse this as a TV recorder, which it isn't. The Humax is simply a HD receiver and will not allow you to record programs. That said however, Humax have included a USB socket which potentially should allow you to record to external memory sticks or other devices, it will not give you full PVR functionally but in essence it would let you record.
Also, rather confusingly, Humax include scart sockets for older TV's although connecting to a TV this way would not give you the HD function, so that rather defeats the whole selling point of the product.
Once you have avoided these little niggles with the Humax, performance wise it performs brilliantly. Connected up to my 1080p Panasonic plasma the Humax upscales standard definition images very well, BBC and ITV HD look stunning also. (Channel 4 HD is due to launch shortly but is unavailable at the time of writing)
The onboard TV guide is also very clear and well laid out, very user friendly.
On the back of the unit Humax also provide an Ethernet port, which essentially should allow an easy Firmware update in future. Updating a unit's firmware is similar to updating your PC at home to the latest software; it usually fixes any bugs present in the system and keeps the unit running smoothly.
To be honest updating firmware can be confusing if you're not familiar with it, look out for updates from Humax who will provide instructions on how to do this.

The Technology

To be fair TV technology has come along way since digital TV first launched back in 1998. You cannot fail to have noticed the endless TV adverts for the digital switchover in the last few years, letters through your front door, and cold calls from companies trying to sell pay per view digital TV.
Why then do we now find ourselves potentially purchasing new equipment when we've all just finished connecting digital TV receivers, Blu Ray Players and recorders to our TV sets?
Well, simply put, if you want HD without paying a monthly fee. (Existing digital equipment can only decode the standard MPEG-2 compression technology, for HD this is now MPEG-4 which is twice as efficient)
The Humax is currently the only way in which you can currently receive freeview channels in HD without additional monthly fees, although to be fair the content is limited to BBC HD, ITV HD and Channel 4 HD.
Ideal timing for the FIFA World Cup due on these channels in the summer, but beyond the occasional drama in HD the line-up is somewhat limited.
I would bear in mind that if you buy this product then maybe in six months time Humax will probably have released the same product again but this time with a built in hard drive for recording. It'll cost you more, but it would then be the complete package.

The Conclusion:

Make no mistake about it, the Humax HD-Fox T2 is a superb product that offers great performance and is certainly feature packed. It's costly and the lack of a built in hard drive for recording may put some people off, but for cutting edge picture quality, freeview HD without a monthly fee, the Humax is your only choice.

I discovered an inherent fault on the box which results in sound being delivered via the Left channel/speaker only. When I tried to correct this in the settings menu it reverted back to the left channel/speaker very time I switched program. Humax Technical Support acknowledge the fault and say that it will be fixed via an `Over The Air' software update but it accepts that it does not have a fix yet and has no plans to release one in the near future! This is a software/frimware fault that affects ALL Humax Fox-2 HD Freeview boxes so if you already have one or are thinking of buying one then you had better get used to listening to mono sound via the left speaker of your TV.

This is the first generally available product that supports the new (December 2009 in the London and North-west areas) Freeview HD broadcast standard.

So is it any good? Well, it depends what you bought it for.

If (as for most people), you just want to watch the new Freeview HD broadcasts, then yes, it is very good.

If, on the other hand, you are expecting much from some of the product's other features, then I'm afraid you are going to be disappointed.

First, the good points:

Setting the box up was a complete doddle - just hook it up to your convetional aerial cable (you'll need an additional cable if you want to keep your TV connected as well) and to your HD-ready TV via the (included) HDMI cable, power-up and the set will tune into all the conventional and the new HD channels in fairly short-order.

The picture quality on the two available HD channels (BBC and ITV1 - Channel 4 is allegedly starting its own service in the near future) was excellent on my HD-Ready (but not 'Full HD' in my case) Panasonic LCD TV, although as others have pointed out, you do need good HD source material for this to really work.

The BBC appears to be producing most of its current output in HD (ITV appears to be doing so a lot less of the time) and watching the winter olympics, the six nations rugby and the Carling cup final in HD has been a revalation.

The box also seems to 'up-scale' output from the other standard definition channels to match up with the best resolution available on your TV, resulting in a noticeably better picture (less artifacts) for these channels than from the equivalent output from my TV's built in Freeview receiver.

The TV user interface on the Humax is largely intuitive - the TV guide, programme information etc. are all clearly presented and the remote control is of good quality, albeit rather large.

However, the Humax does not perform as well as this in all areas:

The maximum audio output level on the BBC HD channel especially is much lower than that from other sources used with my TV (the built-in tuner or a Sky box, for example), resulting in the annoyance of having to continually alter the TV volume level when switching between sources.

Also, no matter how hard I tried, I could not set-up the remote to control my fairly standard Panasonic TV (whereas I had no such problems in programming the Sky remote to do this), so that means yet another remote on the coffee table!

The Humax also comes with an Ethernet connection and the included blurb makes the boast of it being fully 'DNLA compliant'.

Unfortunately, the inteface and controls for accessing other DNLA devices (I have a compliant Network drive, NAS) are simply appalling - completely non-intuitive and very 'buggy'.

When you finally get down through all the levels and manage to access something, it really isn't worth the bother - the only video files it can read are 'DiVx' (supposedly a sub-set of AVI, but none of my AVI files work), I couldn't create a playlist for the audio files - you only seem to be able to sequentially play the files within a folder (normally an album) and the slide show facility for photos was like something out of the 1970's, with "Processing" flashing up on the screen between photos (very retro!).

The USB storage option is also only of limited use, as it is for playback only - there is no means of recording to the USB storage device.

It also seems that the aerial output from the box is turned-off when the box is in standby (whereas that on a Sky box or VCR, for example, would still be active), meaning that if you rely on this for the aerial input to your TV then it will 'die' when the Humax goes into standby - I guess there may be an option to change this in the command menu, but I haven't looked into this yet - I am just using a parallel aerial feed instead.

So in conclusion, the Humax HD-Fox T2 is a great way of getting HD broadcasts without investing in any additional hardware (e.g. a satellite dish for Freesat) or paying a subscription (e.g. Sky HD, Virgin Media etc.), providing you have a conventional aerial capable of receiving Freeview broadcasts and an HD-ready TV.

However, I certainly wouldn't rely on any of the 'peripheral' features of this product being of much use and you should also bear in mind that there will be other Freeview HD STBs available in the very near future, along with PVRs (doubtless Humax will release one themselves, as they are something of a specialist in this area) and fully-integrated Freeview HD TVs.