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304 of 308 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Another solid Humax, 31 Aug 2009
This review is from: Humax PVR9300T 320GB Twin Tuner, PVR (Electronics)
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 don't forget apart from Sky 3, Sky News and Sky Sports News for some reason. (UPDATE - no more Sky Sports News)
As Amazon were the cheapest (£163.99 delivered), I bought there 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.
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 only drawback is that the EPG may take a minute or two to fully load from standby but this is not uncommon among any digi-box.
**UPDATE** a firmware update on June 11th 2010 may help this issue. Worth doing a manual update then (if your system is not set for auto already)
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.
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.
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63 of 64 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great Piece Of Kit, 20 May 2009
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!
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179 of 186 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Humax Improved, 29 Nov 2008
I'm happy to be the first to review this product with it's new software upgrade.
When I purchased this a week ago I was horrified at the ridiculously loud fan noise. After contacting Humax to see if it was a fault I was told an over the air upgrade was coming this week. What a difference it makes, it's gone from being the loudest PVR on the market to the quietest! So instead of telling people to avoid it give it five stars. The picture quality is superb with no blocking or freezing, it's a piece of cake to reord shows and even series. And it never misses the end of a show, a big improvement on my old one.
Sure there are a few ways I'd like the software to be improved but it's nothing you can't work round with a few clicks. Top marks.
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