Humax expands range of Freeview personal video recorders
Only the other day one of our Forum posters asked if we'd heard anything about the new Humax personal video recorders (PVRs). Well now we have, and can bring you more details.
There are two models to replace the outgoing PVR-9200T. The flagship is the £199, 320GB PVR-9300T, said to be able to record up to 200 hours of TV, which has twin Freeview+ tuners, HDMI upscaling, an eight-day electronic programme guide (EPG) and and twin Scart connections.
The cheaper £150 PVR-9150T model has a smaller 160GB hard drive, and twin Freeview tuners like its bigger brother – so viewers can record one programme while watching another.
Both models are also equipped with the following: schedule tracking, so recordings will automatically be adjusted if a programme starts early or finishes late; split recording, for recording two-part programmes (such as a film which has a break in the middle for the news); and alternate instance recording, which alerts the viewer if a clash occurs in their recording schedule and suggests an alternative time if the programme is repeated at a later date.
Series linking allows you to set the unit to record all episodes of your favourite shows, and you can pause and rewind live TV should the need arise.
Humax has thought about its green credentials too, as both models are said to have a power consumption of less than 1w in standby.
Both models go on sale in major high street stores from August 1st.
Comments
Do you know whether the twin tuners will require a twin LNB with twin download cables and will there be a loopthrough so that existing SKY boxes can still be used? Given that there is still no date for Five on Freesat, and one assumes that SKY channels will never be available on Freesat, so a loopthrough would be a very useful thing to have.
Recent Statement from Humax
Bob Hannent, chief technologist at Humax explains in a statement: "Humax has assigned one of its top development teams to the Freesat digital television recorder and they have completed the first stages of software integration and finalised the hardware design.
"Once testing of this stage of development is complete the more advanced features for Freesat will be worked on and tested.
“Because of the complex nature of the development of such an advanced recorder product Humax will dedicate an appropriate period to ensuring the good operation and stability of the product before releasing to market.
"It is currently estimated that the product will be available suitably in advance of the Christmas 2008 season.
He adds that the recorder will be a twin tuner satellite recorder with an appropriately large capacity hard disk, although the exact size has yet to be finalised.
The connectivity will be identical to the FOXSAT-HD, but unlike the FOXSAT-HD it will not have an analogue component output
Very nice but what about the Freesat PVR they said was coming? Any news/specifications on that?