Freesat PVR recommendations needed

[AC43]

As per another thread I can't get Virgin Media at my next house and would rather not give Sky/Murdoch any money if I can help it. The house does come with a dish so I thought I'd just get a couple of Freesat PVR's and augment them with some Chromecasts.

I'd like something black (to fit in with the stacks)and between 500Gb and 1Tb. Form factor not important.

There are various Humax's around and I like the timeshift idea.

Anyone got one and if so which one/what's it like to live with?

Thanks

[Adrian E]

My parents have an older Humax Freesat PVR and it's been perfect for a number of years - we've got the Freeview version and it's generally very good, but runs a little warm for my liking and the menus can be a bit slow to respond, but overall it does the job just fine.

These days I think Humax are pretty much ubiquitous for this sort of thing....

[anonymous-user]

Yep, I'm a 3x Humax household. Very reliable.

[anonymous-user]

I've got a Humax, the future Mrs S has a Sagem and a Manhattan pvr - before it broke, the menu on the Sagem was faster but had less functionality than the Humax; the Manhattan has terrible picture quality. I'd just stick with Humax.

[AC43]

Thanks all. I also used a Humax (Freeview) PVR before wandering over to Sky (unwillingly) and then Virgin (happily).

Back to Humax it is then.

[mp3manager]

My mother had a Humax freesat box and I thought it was incredibly slow and clunky and just awful to use, this was after using my series 1 TiVo from way back in 2000.

So I bought her a Panasonic freesat box, (not sure of the model now), but I have the Panasonic DMR-BS850 blu-ray burner and it seems fine after 7 years of hard use. Not sure if Panasonic even do a freesat PVR now.

[blueST]

Ive got the Humax 1tb Freesat box with timeshift thingy and all that. Can't remember the model number. Personally, for a non subscription service the I think it works great. The guide, on demand etc all function well. The menus can be a little laggy at sometimes but I think that's because they've really tried to make it look slick and perhaps the hardware is maxed out. Even the Showcase thing is good, suggesting good stuff to watch either coming up or on demand.

It has all the usual on demand apps, BBC, YouTube, Netflix, plus one called Wuaki, which lets you spend a couple of quid to watch a streaming film if you want to.

As you can tell I like it!

[PhilboSE]

I've got a Samsung of some variety and I wouldn't buy another based on the experience I've had with it.

It's great, when it works. Unfortunately it tends to hang after a few days of being on, and it keeps forgetting the output resolution I've configured and falls back to 576p. There's never been a firmware update for it.

Go with Humax.

[AC43]

blueST said:

Ive got the Humax 1tb Freesat box with timeshift thingy and all that. Can't remember the model number. Personally, for a non subscription service the I think it works great. The guide, on demand etc all function well. The menus can be a little laggy at sometimes but I think that's because they've really tried to make it look slick and perhaps the hardware is maxed out. Even the Showcase thing is good, suggesting good stuff to watch either coming up or on demand.

It has all the usual on demand apps, BBC, YouTube, Netflix, plus one called Wuaki, which lets you spend a couple of quid to watch a streaming film if you want to.

As you can tell I like it!

Good - going to get one of these for the living room - Humax HDR-1100S. Might get the 500Gb one for the second reception. Timeshift sound very useful. I don't watch much TV and usually forget to record the occasional thing I actually want to see.

[Adrian E]

If the current Humax boxes come with the YouView app it's quite handy - you can select individual programmes or series record anything you forget from a smartphone

[AC43]

Adrian E said:

If the current Humax boxes come with the YouView app it's quite handy - you can select individual programmes or series record anything you forget from a smartphone

Hope so. That's one of things I never got round to configuring on my Virgin set up. Phones and tablets are much better places for EPG's than remote-driven TV ones.

[AC43]

One think I'd like to be able to do is to record one channel while watching another.

I've read online that you need "two connections" to do this.

The place I'm getting has been cabled for Sky with 2 x coax cables.

Does that constitute one connection or two?

[blueST]

If you've got two coax cables from you dish, you can record two separate channels on the Humax. You need the Freesat app for your phone to remote record.

[AC43]

blueST said:

If you've got two coax cables from you dish, you can record two separate channels on the Humax. You need the Freesat app for your phone to remote record.

Thanks.

[jet_noise]

If you're after value for money (i.e. mean bugger like me!) then a 2nd hand Humax Foxsat jobbie from *bay is cheap £50-75 or so. That's how I did it. Wasn't sure whether the wok+noodles that came with the house worked.
I haven't felt the need to look for anything else so don't know how it compares.
I don't have a smartphone so don't know about remote programming.
I don't have it connected to t'internet - poor connection in my village,

regards,
Jet

[megaphone]

OP any reason you want Freesat, other than you have a dish? The Humax Youview 'Freeview' boxes are very good, and available on the refurb store at good prices, I've bought 3 now. All you need is an aerial.

[AC43]

megaphone said:

OP any reason you want Freesat, other than you have a dish? The Humax Youview 'Freeview' boxes are very good, and available on the refurb store at good prices, I've bought 3 now. All you need is an aerial.

I thought the satellite signal was better for some reason reason. Maybe not.

More to the point the new house comes pre-chavved with a dish already fitted and (manky) coaxes routed (badly) to the two reception rooms where I will put the TV's.

Might as well re-use what's there for now. And when I refurb the place tidy up the cable runs.

[jet_noise]

AC43 said:

I thought the satellite signal was better for some reason reason. Maybe not.

<snip>

Depends where you are. Again my village has very poor terrestrial signal. Some summer days it disappears completely.
One other difference is the channel selection - you don't get Quest or Dave on Freesat,

regards,
Jet

[anonymous-user]

AC43 said:

I thought the satellite signal was better for some reason reason. Maybe not.

More to the point the new house comes pre-chavved with a dish already fitted and (manky) coaxes routed (badly) to the two reception rooms where I will put the TV's.

Might as well re-use what's there for now. And when I refurb the place tidy up the cable runs.

Signal may vary from a area to area - dunno. But we have a Panasonic freeview plasma hooked to an aerial and a Panasonic freesat box feeding the same tv. During the Olympics I flicked between freeview and freesat and was fairly sure that freesat had a slight edge in picture quality.

[anonymous-user]

http://www.freesat.co.uk/help/get-freesat/compare/...

"We're both free TV services, but Freesat is different because we're broadcast via satellite. This gives us brilliant reception across the whole of the UK, and capacity for many more channels than Freeview.

We have over 200 TV and Radio channels, including many of the Freeview favourites and 13 HD channels. We also have brilliant catch up services such as BBC iPlayer, ITV Hub, All 4 and My5."

In short: Freesat is for winners.