Humax PVR9300T 500GB Freeview+ Standard Definition Digital TV Recorder

Having owned one of the early Humax PVRs, the excellent 800 for many trouble-free years, I decided it was time to upgrade when I bought a Sony Bravia LCD TV for the following reasons:

1) Twin tuner
2) Larger recording capacity (up to 200 hours)
3) HDMI upscaling
4) Series Link

For those who are unsure what a Freeview PVR (Personal Video Recorder) is, it is essentially the free-to-air version of Sky+ i.e. it is a Freeview receiver with an internal hard disk that allows you to do everything Sky+ can do (record, pause and rewind live or scheduled TV) and in some cases better. No discs or tapes required. Obviously no Sky subscription means no Sky channels and also note THIS BOX IS NOT HD but SD (Standard Definition) only.

As Amazon were the cheapest I bought here again and super saver delivery was a decent 3 days. Out of the box, I was surprised to see it came with both a SCART and HDMI lead which is unusual, but welcome. Setting up was an absolute doddle, just a case of plugging in the power, co-ax input (from wall to box), co-ax output (to TV) and of course the HDMI to the TV. I then went to the menu to search for channels and was up and running in about 10 minutes. I was helped in the setup as the menu is very similar to my old Humax (I haven't needed to look at the CD manual) but with a few useful tweaks. A case of if it ain't broke.....

The box itself is fairly attractive in a black and understated way. The remote is also quite smart and sleek. The advanced buttons are hidden under a sliding flap at the bottom which is a good idea. Recording is very easy; just find the programme on the excellent (if slightly small) EPG and click ok. You are prompted for option of series link (which works brilliantly by the way) at that time also. Playback is just as easy, find the programme from your recorded list and hit play; as few as two button presses. If you only watch some of it, the PVR remembers where you left off, similar to most DVD players. Having a twin tuner, you can start watching programmes being recorded before they have finished which is very useful, as well as watch one channel and record another.

From power on, the fan is noisy for all of 5 seconds and the box then operates silently which I was very relieved about. Anyone suffering from a noisy fan should update the system firmware from the menu which should fix the issue. Standby power usage is 0.9w which is green enough for me. Unlike the Sky EPG (Electronic Programme Guide), the Humax shows a small picture of the selected channel (with sound) and has an excellent search facility that includes genre (e.g. movies, sport) or name search with an on-screen keyboard.

The picture (you can toggle between 576p or 720p) is very good. Despite having a 1080p TV, I find 576p is more natural. It is better than my 800 but not massively so and has that slight "digitised" feel to it on occasion but it depends a lot on the age and format of the programme you are watching. The new series of Waking the Dead for example looks amazing whereas old episodes of Frasier are slightly blurry and washed out. If anything, the inbuilt tuner on my TV delivers a slightly clearer image but the features on the 9300 mean I will use that much more for general viewing. I get the occasional pause but only in bad weather when my ariel is taking a battering from the wind.

The picture-in-picture feature is under the flap and very useful and easy to use. You can move the small picture around to different corners or even have 50:50 - handy for when there's two games on.

Overall, I am very happy with this box and glad I've upgraded though the 800 is still sitting under my TV whilst I catch up on old episodes of The Wire. Humax have fixed the fan issue and whilst it may take a bit of getting used to (if you haven't owned one before), it is an excellent alternative to Sky+ for price, features and recording capacity.

** UPDATE Due to persistent signal problems (nothing to do with this box) I have changed to a Humax FOXSAT-HDR Freesat+ which is an excellent bit of kit also (review on page 10 or so of my profile) **

Had this for a few of days now, after ditching my Thomson box, which just kept freezing and not turning on..only over a year old. Hughes direct were quick to deliver and had no problem with them, although as others have said they send this out in its product box, not within a brown box, but you could say they are reducing the impact on the environment.

The Humax pvr9300t is well worth the money and once you get used to the functional differences then it's straight forward to operate.

Set up it a breeze, just connect, switch on and its scanning channels
before you do anything else and then save them and you're there. Each channel is displayed in the led on the pvr itself (nice touch!) and the time is downloaded from the aerial and pretty close to the radio controlled clocks. Yeah. The EPG is slow to download, due to Humax beleiving that 9300t should have the most up to date programme inf and will adjust recording times if a programme's schedule changes, but leave the pvr, for 5 to 6 minutes, on BBC1 and all channels and days are populated or set it up to auto switch on before you're ready to watch.

Unlike other pvr's depending on which mux (multiplex) you are recording on you are able to watch a third programme whilst recording two other programs (whilst normally viewing TV just press OK to see the other channels available when recording), not heard of this on another box. Another nice touch!

If you're having trouble with programmes series linked on Channel 5 and find every occurence of a programme set to series link is recored (including the one's on FIVER), this is not the box but the interesting way Channel 5 have imbedded their series link data and can easily be overcome by manually setting a programme up to record weekly.

Finally. Fan noise..the software is fully up to date and this is a non existent problem..some old reviews may state it's noisey.

In summary. This is a great piece of kit.

**Update**
Had this now for a couple of weeks and I must say I am well chuffed with it. Watch it more than Sky+.

**Update...Update**
Had this nearly a month now and like McDonalds....I'm loving it!

My PVR arrived earlier than the original estimate, allowing me time to set it up and play with it over the weekend. Setup was simple and intuitive, but the main manual, for the more advanced features, is on a CD-ROM, which is just plain inconvenient. I didn't find the sliding panel on the remote control until I had looked at this on my PC.

I have a 720p HD TV, which is the max output from the Humax: maybe people with 1080i/p HD TVs will feel hard done by, but to be honest, it's still a very good picture, and big improvement on my previous Freeview tuners.

The EPG initally looks very basic, showing only 2 hours duration and about 5 or 6 channels at a time; but the keyword and category search functionality makes it one of the most useful systems I have used.

You can set up a favourites list, which you can arrange as you please, and I set it up to miss out all the TopUp, TV shopping, Quiz and kids' channels that we don't watch. Once set up and selected, that becomes the default list for both the EPG and the Channel List.

The Channel List allows you to quickly switch channels, if you know which one you want without having to refer to the EPG, but it ALSO has a pop-out panel that tells you what's currently showing on each channel as you browse up and down. If you're just looking for something to watch right now, that's probably quicker than the EPG. Excellent feature.

If the box has been on Standby, it takes a couple of minutes for the EPG to load, but that's the case with all set-top boxes. Just remember to fire it up before you start settling down to watch, and it'll be there ready for you.

But it's in the recording features that this machine stands out: it has a HUGE HDD, and the intelligent scheduling system is stunning.
It will:
- automatically adjust the recording time if any programme's broadcast scheduling is changed;
- warn you if a program is split around another one (e.g. a film split around the news) and automatically record both halves, missing out the intervening programme;
- if it misses a recording for any reason (e.g. a scheduling clash) it will automatically seek out another broadcast of the same programme and record that (this hasn't happened to me, but I assume it'll warn you that it's going to do so).
etc.

This review is getting too long so I'll end here, but in summary, this is top of the range kit at a very reasonable price.

Oh, and the fan is practically silent, so they've well and truely solved that issue!