Regular readers of my fascinating missives will know that, annoyed by C4
HD leaving Freesat I vowed to add Freeview to my living room equipment.
I bought a Humax FVP-5000T 1TB receiver and because I'm incapacitated
Paul installed it for me. This was three days ago and so far I'm very
impressed by the receiver. Very fast to respond, very user friendly,
really good clear graphics. I haven't found any programming oddities. Of
course we downloaded new software. I miss the Freesat box's front panel
display though.
The new box feeds the TV via HDMI 1. The Humax Freesat box and a
secondhand FTA 13E box feed HDMI2 via an automatic switch. Annoyingly
the two Humaxes share the same remote handset codes. However I intend to
use the Freesat box only when I want to watch different BBC and ITV
regions, and I won't routinely be using it for recording, so it is
switched off on the rear panel.
The 13E box is a curious beast. It is a Zgemma H.2S. It came to us from
a customer who had been sold it by someone running the Sky scam. It is
very small but appears to be good quality and well specified. The
on-screen help is remarkably comprehensive. The menus are labyrinthine
and allow literally hundreds of options, almost all of which I do not
understand. However I found a very good video about it on YouTube.
My main use for the box is Swiss Classic Radio, but I do like to have a
browse though the TV channels now and then. We watched a Moroccan HD
channel the other night, for quite a long time. I was astonished at the
picture quality during a home-grown drama. It was significantly better
than UK HD. There seemed to be more colour shades available. Fine
differences in colour were visible. How can this be I wonder?

Bill

On 05/03/2018 08:36, Bill Wright wrote:

I bought a Humax FVP-5000T 1TB receiver and because I'm incapacitated
Paul installed it for me. This was three days ago and so far I'm very
impressed by the receiver.
Annoyingly
the two Humaxes share the same remote handset codes.

Some Humaxes have an option to change the codes they respond to.
I don't know if either of yours fit that category (only one needs to).
It would be worth checking in the user manuals, but don't expect the
facility to be indexed so you might have to read through.

Jim

On 05/03/2018 11:13, Martin wrote:

Some Humaxes have an option to change the codes they respond to.
I don't know if either of yours fit that category (only one needs to).
It would be worth checking in the user manuals, but don't expect the
facility to be indexed so you might have to read through.

See
https://support.icetv.com.au/hc/en-u...PVRs-in-1-room

Yes it worked. Thank you.Shocking that I used to sell Humax and I didn't
know!

Bill

In article ,

[Snip]

However I found a very good video about it on YouTube.
My main use for the box is Swiss Classic Radio,

Bill

Did you know thre's also a Suisse Radio Classique? Same music, but with
the announcements in French rather than German.

--
from KT24 in Surrey, England

On 05/03/18 08:36, Bill Wright wrote:
.. We watched a Moroccan HD
channel the other night, for quite a long time. I was astonished at the
picture quality during a home-grown drama. It was significantly better
than UK HD. There seemed to be more colour shades available. Fine
differences in colour were visible. How can this be I wonder?

That's because it is de rigueur for any drama on British TV to be made
in a cellar at midnight, using a broken bulb for lighting.

I'll bet the Moroccan station even made the basic mistake of making
speech clear, too.

--

Jeff

On 05/03/2018 08:36, Bill Wright wrote:
Regular readers of my fascinating missives will know that, annoyed by C4
HD leaving Freesat I vowed to add Freeview to my living room equipment.
I bought a Humax FVP-5000T 1TB receiver and because I'm incapacitated
Paul installed it for me. This was three days ago and so far I'm very
impressed by the receiver. Very fast to respond, very user friendly,
really good clear graphics. I haven't found any programming oddities. Of
course we downloaded new software. I miss the Freesat box's front panel
display though.
The new box feeds the TV via HDMI 1. The Humax Freesat box and a
secondhand FTA 13E box feed HDMI2 via an automatic switch. Annoyingly
the two Humaxes share the same remote handset codes. However I intend to
use the Freesat box only when I want to watch different BBC and ITV
regions, and I won't routinely be using it for recording, so it is
switched off on the rear panel.
The 13E box is a curious beast. It is a Zgemma H.2S. It came to us from
a customer who had been sold it by someone running the Sky scam. It is
very small but appears to be good quality and well specified. The
on-screen help is remarkably comprehensive. The menus are labyrinthine
and allow literally hundreds of options, almost all of which I do not
understand. However I found a very good video about it on YouTube.
My main use for the box is Swiss Classic Radio, but I do like to have a
browse though the TV channels now and then. We watched a Moroccan HD
channel the other night, for quite a long time. I was astonished at the
picture quality during a home-grown drama. It was significantly better
than UK HD. There seemed to be more colour shades available. Fine
differences in colour were visible. How can this be I wonder?

Bill


Compared to the Humax Fox T2, which I've had for several years, the
FVP-5000 is nowhere near as good. The response to the remote is very
slow and the user interface rubbish. I've yet to find a way to check my
recording schedule with less than SIX key presses - Fox T2 just two, and
just one when scheduling recordings from the guide just to make sure
I've got them all. It's also got a very noisy hard drive. The 5000 is
now relegated to hot spare if the Fox T2 fails.

Phil M

On 05/03/2018 13:51, charles wrote:

Did you know thre's also a Suisse Radio Classique? Same music, but with
the announcements in French rather than German.



Yes.

Bill

On 05/03/2018 19:48, Phil M wrote:

Compared to the Humax Fox T2, which I've had for several years, the
FVP-5000 is nowhere near as good.Â* The response to the remote is very
slow

Mine is very fast

and the user interface rubbish.

I think it's the best interface I've ever encountered.


It's also got a very noisy hard drive.

Mine is so quiet I can't hear it in a silent room.

Bill

On 05/03/2018 08:36, Bill Wright wrote:
I bought a Humax FVP-5000T 1TB receiver and because I'm incapacitated Paul installed it for me. This was three days ago and so far I'm very impressed by the receiver. Very fast to respond, very user friendly, really good clear graphics. I haven't found any programming oddities. Of course we downloaded new software. I miss the Freesat box's front panel display though.

Thanks for your recommendation. We're thinking about getting a new video recorder to replace one that must be nearly 10 years old and won't do HD and has an annoying bug besides. But I'm bemused by the fact that the Humax models seem to come in two flavours: one which will do Freview but not Freesat, and the other Freesat but not Freeview. I have a TV that will receive both and we use both systems when necessary since, as you say, some channels are on and not the other. Also it's nice to have a bit of redundancy.

Can there be some technical reason that Humax doesn't produce a single box with both Freesat and Freeview tuners, or is it simply laziness on their part? That also seems unlikely, for the same reasons that most companies nowadays produce consumer products that e.g. cope with 120v and 240v mains - it's just easier to have one model that suits the whole world.


--
Clive Page

On 06/03/2018 10:55, Martin wrote:
On Tue, 6 Mar 2018 10:10:25 +0000, Clive Page wrote:

On 05/03/2018 08:36, Bill Wright wrote:
I bought a Humax FVP-5000T 1TB receiver and because I'm incapacitated Paul installed it for me. This was three days ago and so far I'm very impressed by the receiver. Very fast to respond, very user friendly, really good clear graphics. I haven't found any programming oddities. Of course we downloaded new software. I miss the Freesat box's front panel display though.

The thing I find missing on current Humax PVRs is some way of locating quickly
something you have recorded once the 1TB starts to get full.


Thanks for your recommendation. We're thinking about getting a new video recorder to replace one that must be nearly 10 years old and won't do HD and has an annoying bug besides. But I'm bemused by the fact that the Humax models seem to come in two flavours: one which will do Freview but not Freesat, and the other Freesat but not Freeview. I have a TV that will receive both and we use both systems when necessary since, as you say, some channels are on and not the other. Also it's nice to have a bit of redundancy.

Can there be some technical reason that Humax doesn't produce a single box with both Freesat and Freeview tuners, or is it simply laziness on their part? That also seems unlikely, for the same reasons that most companies nowadays produce consumer products that e.g. cope with 120v and 240v mains - it's just easier to have one model that suits the whole world.

Which programmes are on Freeview that are not on Freesat, and are worth
watching?


C4 HD, it would seem. :-)