Comments on: Humax Freesat+ PVR

By: trevor

trevor — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 17:04:47 +0000

i had an old 250gb external hard drive that i converted to fat32 so the humax could see it,i copied some films onto it and it plaved them back from the hardrive,i didn’t have to copy them back to the humax,i also copied a program onto memory stick,put it in my pc and it played on windows media player,a warning came up telling me that it didn’t recognise the file (its a ts file)but do want to try and play it and it did play it.
my only gripe with this machine is that it has no editing program,so the adverts stay and overuns at the end of the film,why they never included this software i’ll never know especially as you cant copy files bigger than 4gb,i have a film i want to archive but its to big,if i could have edited the adverts out it probably would have copied

By: James Stewart

James Stewart — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 15:44:25 +0000

Hi Pete,

Your site seems better than the user’s manual especalyy with the photographs. I have managed to transfer unencrypted files on to a 2gb Flashdrive and thence onto dvd. My PS3 recognises the format so can play the dvd on that. My question is-can I use an external device to copy files other than a 2gb flashdrive? I’ve been enquiring about a Seagate 500gb external HDD but I need to know what size hard drive does the Humax Freesat HD recorder support. Any comments?

Kindest regards

Jim Stewart

By: Chris

Chris — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 07:20:34 +0000

Nice site
Pete you seem like a man that know a thing or 2 about AV.
I have a HUMAX FOXSAT HD PVR – currently I use the HDMI output into the back of my Panasonic TV. But I want the Dolby Digital sound to be played thru my Panasonic surround sound DVD box. My SS box has a HDMI but no optical audio in ( only audio out). If I use a HDMI cable to connect HUMAX to SS Box will I get Dolby Digital audio? If so how can I connect Humax to TV – TV has a second HDMI but Humax only has one HDMI socket. Do I buy a HDMI switch box (not another remote please)- can I get HD thru SCART or yellow plug (I presume not). Or does HDMI “daisy-chain” the signals a bit like SCART did?
I hope this makes sense.

PS One of the best aspects of the HUMAX imo is the universitality of the remote control – the best I’ve ever experienced.

By: Pete

Pete — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 07:21:00 +0000

Well I don’t own a Sky+ box so I wouldn’t know but if your sub has been cancelled then your box will have reverted to a regular non Sky+ receiver as mine did many years ago when I cancelled Sky.

From what I can gather Sky used to charge £10 a month for the PVR functionality, although that may have changed. Best give them a ring and find out.

By: Kris Fraser

Kris Fraser — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 07:41:37 +0000

I know the sky + box is not as great as the humax, but at 300 quid i find it very expensive. i have cancelled my sky subscription, and wondering if there is any way of using the sky + box to record the free to air channels??

any advice would be appreciated

By: Pete

Pete — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 19:11:59 +0000

Thanks Mal, I was having an identity crisis there for a moment!

Well the box does have a card slot, but it’s for CAM cards and isn’t used over here.
If you look at the link to the manual I posted above you can see the slot is there.

By: mal

mal — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 18:14:13 +0000

Pete,
Sorry i called you Dave, thinking about someone else at the time
But while i’m on the Humax i have now has got a CAM slot and this made me wonder about the new box, at £300 i thought it would have?
Thanks for all the other info on your page, found it very informative

Regards
Mal

By: mal

mal — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 18:06:23 +0000

Dear Dave,
Regarding the Humax Freesat HDR PVR: I have been told by the shop i visited that this model has not got a CAM slot for Top up and Pay TV.
Is there any reason for this? and is there another way of getting this Pay for TV option?

Regards
Mal

By: Pete

Pete — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 17:14:44 +0000

Dave files are copied over using the File Manager utility.
http://www.humaxdigital.com/global/products/new_manual/UM_FOXSATHDR_100GB_101308_low.pdf check the manual here, page 56 shows some things.

Connect the drive, go to your Media list, press the Opt+ button and go to File Manager. You can copy over there.

By: Dave

Dave — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 15:58:43 +0000

Can you help? I have my “my book” USB FAT32 formatted hard drive plugged in and I can see it on the Humax PVR file manager ok. However I have not yet managed to transfer any files. I know the HD files are restricted but the SD ones are not. Can you explain simply how this is done and I will be so grateful.

By: JANE SMART

JANE SMART — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 16:05:00 +0000

Many thanks for that, very helpful and feel sure we will be getting one before the switch over. Thanx Jane

By: Pete

Pete — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 17:38:02 +0000

As long as you have two or more inputs from your Sky dish then yes you could have one cable connected to the Sky digibox and one to the Freesat box.
The channels are coming from the same satellite so you’re all set with that.

Plus you would still need to keep your Sky box to be able to watch Setana.
I would suggest if you want to go down that route to get a quad LNB put on your dish and run two cables into the PVR so you can record two things at once/watch one record another to save having to mess around swapping cables around.
There is still talk of Fiver and other channels coming to Freesat, it’s all down to licensing deals with Sky.

For the best possible information check out http://www.joinfreesat.co.uk. As for other PVRs, yes there will be others. Before May? Probably not. But after two months with the Humax I wouldn’t want to swap it for anything else.

By: Jane Smart

Jane Smart — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 16:33:29 +0000

Sorry to be a pain : but between now and May do you think there will be other Freesat+ PVRs out there? Thanx

By: Jane Smart

Jane Smart — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 16:32:40 +0000

Hi : just found this very good site. We are thinking of getting a Foxsat PVR before our May analogue switch off in Dorset. At present have a free to air Sky Digibox but don’t subscribe. Would we be able to still use the Sky Digibox if we also got a Freesat box so we could watch Fiver, Sky 3 etc. Also as we subscribed earlier this year to Sentanta for UK Racing which we get through Sky Digibox, we would need to be able to get Sky to watch it as we can’t get it through Freesat?

We don’t want to subscribe to Sky as we are happy with the channels we get, but want to continue to record different channels if we are out or on holiday which the Digibox want let you do (once analogue is switched off !) We also have a Sony Bravia HD telly so would look forward to getting HD channels with Freesat. Many thanks Jane

By: Pete

Pete — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 08:32:51 +0000

Ah now that’s interesting. I didn’t realise they were in .TS format, I had it in my head they were something else.
I’ll have to give that another try when I get home this afternoon, yes indeed VLC will play Transport Streams, and pretty much anything else you can throw at it to boot.

By: box

box — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 22:47:59 +0000

vlc player will play the archived sd video file ending in.ts

not tried the audio yet

By: Pete

Pete — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 19:50:24 +0000

You can’t. Unless someone knows any different, the files are in a special format that only the Humax can read so you can copy them to a USB device to archive them, and put back onto the PVR to listen or watch again.

By: Rita

Rita — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 19:46:14 +0000

Help!
have managed to copy a radio prog onto USB. Eddie Izzard from radio 7 14 Jan but am unable to transfer it to my Mac (OS10.4.11). Any guidance?

By: Fiona

Fiona — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 14:10:09 +0000

Many thanks for getting back to me Pete.

This seems a very clunky solution don’t you think? Perhaps next year Humax will produce a box incorporating a DVD player and recorder…

Hey ho.

Best, Fiona

By: Pete

Pete — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 13:47:40 +0000

I would say the “play on PVR and record to DVD recorder” is probably the only option. The only other way is to archive the files onto a device like an external hard drive (Formatted as FAT32) that you can then copy back to the PVR to watch as you can’t play them from an external device, but to the best of my knowledge you can’t do the whole “copy this show to a DVD recorder disk transfer style”.