Humax HDR-FOX T2 Freeview+ HD Twin Tuner with 1TB Recorder

I was forced into buying this because my Samsung TV did not have a good enough Freeview tuner to do justice to the excellent display. I am so pleased with the Humax; using the HDMI interface in 1080p mode I can make the Samsung display the whole picture without over-scan cropping the picture. The HD pictures are superb, and the up-scaler from SD in the Humax is a very good one, without any of the silly and redundant noise-reduction features of the Samsung. And the Humax is a twin-tuner recorder too!

The EPG in the Humax is excellent, very easy to navigate, and one soon gets used to the fact that it also displays past programs as well - the time line at the top shows where we are. Normal detail navigation with the remote control uses the central four NSEW buttons around the select button; channel page jump is by using the program up-down buttons; time jump uses the >> or << buttons to go to next screen, and >>| or |<< buttons to see the same time on the next/previous day. If one is right handed the most used buttons all seem to be in just the right places for the thumb. A great feature is that while browsing the list you can still see and hear the current channel being shown in a small window on the left.

Initially I found the assorted time-stretching, time-shifting, recording, skipping forward, etc, functions complex and disconcerting, but that is partly because one is talking to a Linux PC inside the box, and there might have to be a few steps taken before making a recording, and partly because there are so many different options available. But you can also just press the record button on the remote control to grab what you are watching, just like with a VCR. After a few months, we have all found it really does work very well; if we have missed something it has become quite intuitive to use the << button a few times to roll back at 2x or 4x or 8x or 16x or 32x speed just to have another look, and then >> to roll forward through an advert or link to catch up. Slo-mo can be from 1/2, 1/4, down to 1/8 speed, and back to normal by repeatedly pressing the |> button.

The manual is comprehensive and quite well laid out, especially so when considering how much is possible with this machine. The more I have studied it and experimented with various functions, the more I have to agree with how it has been done. But there is a steep learning curve.

The Ethernet works well; hooked into my home network it does not require a PC as a host. It can just use the ADSL modem like any other computer for viewing things such as the BBC iPlayer. When I am more confident about its security I plan to allow it to look at my central server for music, home movies, pictures, etc.

The USB on the front works nicely; I put in my Test Stick with various patterns, music and a home video on it. All worked as hoped, more so than when putting the same stick into the Samsung.

The box as delivered had an old firmware within - January 2011, and the HD pictures were poor and breaking up. I asked it to do an OTA update, and fortunately there was a June 2011 version available, which took the best part of half an hour to download. After this finished the pictures were superb, and the Freeview+ option works - which allows you to flag a future program for recording if you see a green dot on the trailer.

One small niggle was that the eco-power-down is ON as a default, and set to two hours! I could extend the time to 10 hours easily, but it took slightly more digging to find out how to turn OFF the eco function.

I called up Test-Card W on channel 105 to see how much bandwidth was coming in, and was most impressed with the results, it is all there, and nothing is missing. It showed that the Humax up-scaler from SD to the 1080p display via 1080p HDMI was significantly better than the Samsung scaler doing the same job from SD (either 576i or 576p) via HDMI.

My Humax tuner is the second last receiver in a long string of other tuners fed from a distribution amp near a loft aerial in a fringe area, and it is giving the best and most stable of all the pictures. It has not glitched or locked up at all yet. (But see the later addendum below!) And it is future-proof for 2012 switch-over when there will be much more HD on Freeview. Roll-on the Olympics!

I will be adding to this review when I have played some more with the Ethernet, time shifting and other recording features for a few more weeks.

So far I think it is definitely well worth five stars.

Addendum 1. 9th Nov 2011

Ethernet.
This was easy to set up on auto, and yet allows manual selection of ip address. It all worked first try and was visible to all the tests on my home network. However I still haven't attempted to allow it to look into the rest of my system - and thinking about security I probably will not.

HumaxTVPortal.
After a very slow start - I kept getting an `application error' at the humaxtvportal website - it all suddenly worked immaculately. At first I didn't know why it was slow, because I had the latest software update; and thought maybe I had been too impatient and didn't give it long enough to sort itself out for that first contact. I later discovered the box needs to be turned Off and On again after the set-up for this to become effective.
The BBC iPlayer is super, and appears in full resolution on the screen with no visible artefacts, and this on a web connection typically running at only 3.5Mbits or less. This is a very worthwhile feature, recommended!
There are also You Tube (heavily sanitised), Flickr (poor access), Internet Radio (very limited selection), and Wiki TV (too much like hard work), none of which are a patch on the easy and intuitive BBC iPlayer.

Addendum 2. 03 Dec 2011

Freeze-up.
We've noticed that after a few days it can lose functions and eventually lock up; you can only watch the channel already selected. The first warning is when the annoying 'Red Button' graphic in the top right hand corner has gone away (yay!) without having to press the green button, but alas, so has the Text facility. Changing channels away from BBC at this stage can sometimes restore correct operation. Soon after losing the Text facility, though, it will refuse to change channel, and locks. Switching off and on again at the mains does a cold-boot and everything is OK again.
We have also noticed that if it is left tuned to a non-BBC station this might never happen, so I think there is possibly a bug in the BBC's Red Button software, perhaps causing a memory leak that eventually fills up the RAM and crashes the internal computer. But of course, this is just my speculation, and could be completely wrong.
(edit 6/1/2012) We have also seen this problem in the last few days on a couple of different makes of HD Freeview+ TVs, first symptom being unable to find the Test Card with the magic button sequence on Channel 105.

Addendum 3. 11 March 2012

HDCP.
I've tried to plug the HDMI output via a Blackmagic HDMI To SDI converter into an elderly (but very good) SDI-only plasma display. Alas, the HDMI connection carries HDCP (High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection) even on 576i (lowest definition output, selected via V-Format button), so I am unable to use the Humax with my biggest display, and only end up with a blank green screen. Note that this will also prevent copying programs at full quality via the HDMI output.

Addendum 4. 10 April 2012

8K mode.
It works well with the new 8K mode used on the BBC London multiplex since the April 4th Switch-over.

Humax has always been the quality leader in PVRs, ever since they entered the market. Our aged PVR-8000T died over Christmas after years of good service, so after a disappointing experience with one of the competitors we upgraded to a HD-FOX T2 PVR. We got the 500GB version, but the 1TB should be identical apart from disk size.

First, a warning: when shopping around make sure you get the right thing. Humax also sell a "HD-FOX T2 Freeview HD Set Top Box" which looks the same and costs a lot less, but doesn't have the hard disk, and hence has no PVR functionality. Humax should stop giving products such confusing names.

Moving on to the device, the user interface is much improved in many small ways. For instance, if you want to search for a programme title you can enter the letters using either the old "keyboard" system (navigate to each letter using up-down-left-right) or the "SMS" system (multiple key presses on the digit pad). Search terms are now saved, so you don't have to keep re-entering them every time you want to look. Programs recorded as a series are kept in separate folders, so you can keep the whole run of "Teletubbies" without having to page through them all the time, and when your little darling grows out of them you can delete the lot in one swell foop. Overall the UI is straightforward and simple to use, and definitely an area where Humax leads the competition.

The front panel has a USB port into which you can plug a thumb drive or external hard disk drive, and then either export recorded programmes or import other stuff you want to watch or listen to. Now you can bore your relatives with your holiday pictures on your HD TV, or just put your entire collection of MP3s on random play. Media files can be viewed direct from a USB device, so you don't need to copy the files over before starting the show. Interestingly, the box runs Linux under the hood, so as well as the normal "FAT32" format for USB devices (the one they all come formatted in) you can also use the Linux "EXT2" disk format, which will please Linux users. Firmware updates can also be done via USB key too, which makes life a lot easier. Incidentally it seems that the over-the-air updates are only being put on an HD channel, and as we don't get HD yet we aren't getting the automatic updates. Check the version shipped against the latest on the Humax support site and update if there is a more recent version.

One minor irritation is that exported files are in ".ts" (Transport Stream) format. This is the data format used to wrap video and audio for broadcast transmission, and it contains extra information to help the player recover from interference. Most media player software can play this unchanged, but not all, and having to extract the original MPEG data is a nuisance. It would have been nice if Humax could have done this themselves as part of the export system.

The back panel also has an Ethernet socket, and the latest version of the firmware can view BBC iPlayer and other similar services, moving this device firmly into the "Internet video" space. If you don't have an Ethernet socket in your living room then you can also get a wifi dongle that plugs into the rear USB port.

I've had an old Humax for about 8 yrs, one of the first freeview PVRs around, and it still works great, but with single tuner, 40GB disk and no HD it was time to upgrade - so when this came out in 1TB, and I saw it also did iplayer, I went for it.

Loads of great features. Latest upgrade has "trailer booking" - when you see a trailer, you press the green button to book it for recording - fab!

Nice touches, like series-record automatically creates a folder.

The iplayer interface is a little slow and only does iplayer, so no 4oD or SeeSaw (yet?) - but once it starts playing it all works fine. I have no doubt this is a feature Humax will extend in the future.

Humax is about the only PVR I've seen (freeview box?) where people don't complaine about it locking up and having to be rebooted / power-cycled - they are totally reliable, they just work - they are a little more expensive than average, but worth the extra.

Lovely interface - very easy to use. works very well streaming movies from my Western Digital media server, with enough zoom options to get the picture just right. Playing photos from my media server doesn't work quite right, but I'm sure they'll fix it.