PVR recommendation

[RogerS]

We have a variety of PVRs. The best one that performs virtually flawlessly is the elderly TiVo.

The Hitachi needs to be rebooted every so often else it develops a memory leak or summat and the programmes get recorded with stuttering. The user interface is also a bit pedestrian.

We are on our replacement Humax PVR9300 due to stuttering on playback. I now here rumours that one can get stuttering on playback of certain programmes and this is inherent in the encoding/decoding of this box.

So.....any recommendations? I'm after a basic Freeview device (not FreeSat). Neither do we have fibre/cable or any of those other new-fangled connections. So bog-standard Freeview it is.

TIA

 

[Harbo]

We have a Humax 1Tb HDR-FOX T2 - had it for about 2yrs and no problems whatsoever and it gets lots of use.

We still have an earlier Humax PVR-9200T, now in a spare room, that we've had for many many years and that still works

Rod

 

[Sheffield Tony]

I find Panasonic to be the best of the bunch for this sort of stuff. My Hitachi DVD recorder was temperamental too. In fact everything I've ever had made by Hitachi has failed to work properly - I'm kind of glad I don't live near Wylfa !

 

[Racers]

I have a Humax 9150 that works very well.

Pete

 

[nev]

FWIW - If and when my 2 humax (1x sat 1x freeview) require replacing I will go for humax again. (and that from someone who was working in a Hifi / TV shop at the time of purchase and went somewhere else because we didnt sell Humax.)

 

[RogerS]

Which models do you have, Nev?

 

[nev]

Which models do you have, Nev?

foxsat - hdr http://www.amazon.co.uk/Humax-FOXSAT-HD ... B001L5YU36

and

PVR9150 http://www.amazon.co.uk/Freeview-playba ... 2_edpp_url

We use the foxsat (constantly) and the lodger uses the 9150.
The 9150 is not as slick as the sat, but functions much the same.
Both a few years old now and superceded I think, but I imagine the newer ones are as good or better.

and for anyone else reading this and interested the freesat box works with your (old) sky dish so if you've had sky in the past you should be good to go.

 

[themackay]

We have 3 Humax boxes 1 x Freesat and 2 x Freeview never had a problem with the Freesat one, slight glitch with the most used Freeview box now and then probably caused by recodings clashing overall happy with Humax.
Alan

 

[RogerS]

Looking at the customer feedback on Amazon i wouldn't touch Humax again with a bargepole. The 9150 gets 47 (out of 501) ratings get 1* and all seem to be down to unreliability.

 

[themackay]

I have read various reviews people having problems with Humax I can only go on my experience I bought mine on the basis of reviews in tv/hi/fi type mags reviews where humax have been consitently grtting the best review unfortunatly all these devices have their flaws.
Alan

 

[Racers]

Looking at the customer feedback on Amazon i wouldn't touch Humax again with a bargepole. The 9150 gets 47 (out of 501) ratings get 1* and all seem to be down to unreliability.

Just ignore them and look at the 248 5* revues, mine has worked fine, they did have a firmware upgrade which solved a lot of problems, so the bad ones where possibly before the update.

Pete

Looking at the dates of the 1* then all seem to be before the update.

 

[Mr_P]

+1 for Humax

Unhappy customers are more likely to leave feedback.

 

[Harbo]

Mine is rated 4 star on Amazon with 315 5star ratings - where are you getting your pessimistic info from?

I've had a Humax ever since On-digital gave up with their FreeView box - never had any problems

Rod

 

[RogerS]

Harbo...I was looking up the 9150 that was mentioned. Not the 9200 (which I also have but developed the stuttering fault).

Interestingly I looked at the overall feedback for some other manufacturers are none stood out. Some had more negatives than positives. Regardless as to whether or not people with a negative perspective are more likely to post or not, the Amazon customer service metrics are a good base to start from, i think, since it should be a level playing field for all. So if you have a product with 80% 4 and 5* and also several hundred reviews then that gives one a pretty good idea. But then you look at the 1* and see that Humax, for example, clearly have QA problems.....Pete...reading those negative reviews seems to be more hardware related and not firmware-updatable.

 

[Myfordman]

We have two Sony PVRs that have not missed a beat over 3 years or so.
The only maintenance is the occasional de-fragging.

 

[Racers]

Hi Rodger

The firmware controls how the hardware acts, so IMHO firmware.

Pete

 

[RogerS]

There is an inherent problem in the Humax 9200 and the 9300 and I would be very surprised if it wasn't in the 9150. Namely it does not follow the on-air programme start and end codes properly. It always misses the first few seconds at the start and sometimes curtails the end. A known problem but will never be fixed now.

 

[woodfarmer]

I have two humax freesat boxes. bought the second one because I was so impressed with the first.
They have both been running for some years now and 2-3 years ago we bought anew TV. it had hdmi input so i connected that. I did not realise that the humax boxes upscale every thing into HD. absolutely wonderful picture quality.

Why not stick up a dish, I put a 90cm one up with an 4 way LNB. each box allows me to record two channels at the same time plus the ability to watch anything recorded or a limited choice of live TV, or record any program and watch any other live program. You can edit the start stop times of each individual recording or repeat recording as some programs/channels transmit wrong times.

in my view they are the bees knees.

 

[RogerS]

...You can edit the start stop times of each individual recording ...
.....

I know you can pad out the start and stop. But then you lose the series record option. The Hitachi we have works perfectly and starts recording when it is supposed to. So why can't Humax get it right?