After reading many generally very positive reviews, not only here but across the web, we took the plunge after many many years with Sky.
We don't regret it. It is a very well presented and polished piece of equipment and sits well with our plasma Tv and surround sound set up. Connecting it is honestly a doddle. All you need to do is take the two aerial plugs out of the back of your Sky box by unscrewing them and then screw them back into your humax box ( this is if you have a sky+ or sky HD box ). Turn on the power, type in your post code and you're done. Its that easy.
Like everything new it takes a bit of getting used to. I found I had to adjust colour saturation and contrast slightly on my TV to get a more natural picture but what a great picture when I did. Despite its minor short falls like the remotes design, it is much better than my Sky HD box. I think that the picture is significantly clearer in normal TV so much so that on some channels I've been asking 'Is this in HD?' to my wife. The menu isn't initially as easy as Sky but once you get into it there are more handy features which have been well documented in other reviews.HD on ITV and BBC are excellent.
One feature that is often overlooked is its ability to work as a universal remote. Again following the instruction ( which are not hard to follow despite what you may read in other reviews )it gives you a few codes to try for each manufacturers TV, DVD etc. It covers a lot of manufacturers and I was delighted to find I could control my Arcam surround sound amp with it. So 3 remotes have gone in a draw and now just one nice shiny and stylish remote does it all.
Remember to remove BOTH films covering the box when you get it for good remote function. Again well document on these reviews.
Iplayer is present with its own interface. I have it hooked up via ethernet and its pretty quick and buffers well for smooth playback. You get a choice of standard playback or higher quality ( almost the same as normal TV quality ) but those with a limited download amount per month will want to take care as these programmes can be 500Mb or so. Great to be able to use without having to watch on a PC or fiddle on connecting PC to TV.
The latest trick I've had with it ( which was a bit of a challenge I must say ) was transferring TV programmes onto a USB stick. I understand it won't let you do this with HD programmes but I've not tried yet. Then I used this USB stick to transfer to my mac. Then used software to convert this to mp4 format and imported it into iTunes and much to my joy now had TV shows on my iPhone! This meant I could play catch up on a recent plane flight and had lots of the kids favourite TV shows on it which when we reached our hotel I could hook up to their TV via a component cable ( also bought on amazon ) and watch on the hotel TV which had no kids programming at all. I could have done this just off the computer but this way all I had to bring was my iPhone which was coming on holiday anyway. I felt very impressed with my Humax box after doing this!
So in summary less is definitely more. Obviously check out what you usually watch and make sure its on Freesat. More channels are coming all the time and I've had a lots added since we got the box. BBC HD and BBC One HD and Channel 4 HD are recent additions for example.
So great looks, easy set up, works well, very quiet in use, energy efficient, universal remote and a better picture than Sky. Oh and a lot , lot cheaper.
I have no regrets!
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| Customer Rating | (682) | (4078) | (1916) | (20) | (0) |
| Price | From £89.99 | £49.00 | £199.00 | £289.99 | £279.99 |
| Sold By | Available from these sellers | Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.co.uk | Chigwell Satellite | Chigwell Satellite |
| Connectivity Technology | HDMI, Ethernet | scart, hdmi | Wireless, Ethernet, USB | Wi-Fi, HDMI, USB, Ethernet | Wireless, Ethernet, USB |
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