| Product: |
Humax PVR 9200T |
| Date: |
05.02.07 (2270 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: Easy to use with a large memory
Disadvantages: Some minor niggles not resolved, noisy when working
We bought our Humax PVR-9200T not long after moving into our new house in December 2005. We decided on the Humax PVR as it came with a Freeview set up and the facility to record programmes along with a host of other minor functions. For those of you in the dark ages or still on analogue TV, PVR stands for 'Personal Video Recorder' and is essentially a computer type hard drive contained in a TV receiver box. This PVR is a link between my aerial and my TV so I can watch nice crisp digital TV, our PVR's work with cable or satellite TV. I decided to use the Humax for a year before writing a review on it, however I feel that I am now writing about something that is nearly obsolete with the recent push for High Definition TV (HDTV).
We chose the Humax PVR-9200T based a few things. First there was a glowing review of an older Humax PVR on this website followed by some friends tell us about the wonderful Humax that they had just picked up. We happened to be around their house for a Halloween party and managed to get a demonstration of this very model. The only thing we did differently to our friends was we went online and bought the Humax for around £215. This was over £35 cheaper than our friends paid for theirs three months earlier at a high street chain, so I was quite happy with my initial outlay. The box with our Humax arrived about seven days after ordering and after the usual checks to the outside of the package I opened it and pulled out the shiny silver box.
Setting up the Humax was really quite easy and I was able to plug all my other TV accessories into the box except my old VCR which this unit was really replacing. It has two SCART sockets at the back, a video socket with left or right audio sockets and two aerial sockets. Using all the SCART sockets I was able to plug in the TV and the separate surround sound unit. The instruction booklet really did help me work my way through the set-up procedure and get everything connected properly before I turned the Humax on.
It whirred into life sounding just like a home computer as the hard disc spun at a high pitch and a loading bar appeared on the TV screen. From here the PVR was able to distinguish that my standard TV aerial was picking up two different TV signal stations. On screen it displayed two bars for each tower, one for strength and the other for quality. Not being entirely sure what to do I used the controller to select the stronger signal. Next the Humax gave me the option of finding the channels automatically or manually. Having no idea which channels were available I let it search on automatic.
Within a few minutes it had found all the Freeview channels that were available to us and had saved them in a good logical order. By this I mean that BBC 1 was channel 1, BBC 2 was 2 and so on. Once I was happy with the way the channels were set up I checked to make sure I could watch DVD's and play CD's via my surround sound system without any interference from the PVR. Everything worked perfectly so I sat down and tried to work out how to record programmes.
Again the manual was helpful in explaining the different ways to record a programme. One way is to watch a channel and then press a record button when the programme is on the main screen. All well and good, but what about programming ahead? Well the Humax can do this too as it has programme guide which has a look ahead of seven days. Here you can go through all the channels to find your desired programme and then select the 'OK' button. Another way to find all your favourite programmes is to go to the Search feature and type in a search name. It is a good thing to have as it allows me to find obscure films. The search facility does have moments were it will select other programmes if you put in a short word like 'car' it will pick up a programmes with titles such as 'Care Bears' or 'Get Carter', basically any programme title with the word 'car' in it somewhere. This is a little annoying, but you can normally find what you are looking for if you are more specific.
Once you have selected a programme to record it will automatically save that programme once only. For more options on recording the Humax allows you to go into the main menu and pick up the Recording schedule. Here you can edit the schedule and set a programme to record one of three ways. Once (this is the default), Weekly or Daily. This is good if you have a series you want to watch and you are out or you want to keep a copy of the series. You can set the Humax to record on a regular basis so you get to see all of the programmes you want.
As this Humax unit has twin tuners there is something else that it will do and that is it will pause live TV. This is great if you are half way through watching a programme and the phone rings. By hitting a pause button the screen freezes and allows you to take the call. When you are done with the call you can hit a play button or press pause and the programme carries on again. This is one of my favourite things about this machine as it means I am not always using up the memory whilst I'm pausing live TV as it will delete the watched portion as soon as I'm done with it.
Now the memory for his PVR was one of the largest when I bought it last year at around 160 GB. According to the manual it will hold over 80 hours of footage which is a lot and a year later and I'm only now just getting over 50% full. I have been good and I have been deleting programmes as I have watched them, but it does allow you to record several different series all at once onto the disc without having to hit delete too often. The memory edit function is very easy to use and even Mrs Cad has been good enough to delete programmes that she has watched.
The Humax does have a range of other functions which I have to admit I haven't used. Firstly it can connect to a PC via a serial socket, however this cable didn't come with the box and my PC and TV are at completely different ends of the house so I have never bought them together or found out if I can connect them. Further things I have not tried is downloading JPG or MP3 files onto the PVR. I have not done this for two reasons, number one was no lead and secondly I was keen not to fill the hard drive with pictures or music files which I have on a decent PC elsewhere in the house.
Well I have waxed lyrically long enough about how good the Humax is, so there must be some bad points and there are a few. Firstly if you have this in an area where you sleep it can get quite loud even when it is on stand-by as it may suddenly turn on and do an automatic update check or you are recording a programme late at night. I only found this one out lately as I moved it upstairs whilst I was redecorating the lounge and woke up at 4am wondering what the noise and flashing lights were. It was the Humax trying to do an automatic update, which I was able to disable for the short term and reset once it was back in the lounge.
Another item which was resolved after a few months was the Humax would clip programmes at the end if they ran on. I think an update around May 2006 cured this, but it was annoying watching a programme and then having it ending about five minutes before the end. It still has a habit of clipping programmes a bit at the beginning as I think it starts on the exact time the programme begins rather than adding a few minutes on to the beginning, but the endings have certainly been sorted out by the update.
The final item is the most annoying and one that irks me most. Even when on standby the programme guide takes an age to load up. If you fire up the Humax and select a channel it will only load up the first few programmes for each channel. This takes around five minutes, which is a long time considering it's been on stand-by. Only once this is done it will gradually pick up more and more programmes for the guide to display. For example if you want to turn it on just as you are going out and you want to save a programme in say an hours time you may have to wait around ten minutes before you can see it displayed in the guide. Only once it is displayed will you be able to save it. This is really annoying if you are in a hurry, but it can be speeded up slightly if you select the channel your desired programme is on. For some reason the programme guide loads the future programmes for the channel you are watching before the others. Either way the programme guide can be annoyingly slow to load.
So in conclusion then I think the Humax PVR-9200T is a wonderful machine, but due to the minor problems it drops a notch to make it a good buy not an excellent one. As for the recommendation goes I had a massive psychotic dilemma and I could not decide whether to recommend it or not. As an electronic product for 2005/6 the Humax was a brilliant machine. True I had a few minor teething problems with it one of which was cured by a manufacturers update, whilst the other problem wasn't. Now we are in 2007 and I can help but think that this unit is old technology. I'm not sure if it can receive HDTV signals, but as Sky users need a new box I think that for me to get HDTV I will need to do the same. Also I'm sure that Humax have not been sitting on their laurels and are working on a new model which could even be on the shelves as I speak. The Humax PVR-9200T is a very good machine, but a year down the line I have a feeling that there are better, bigger more capable PVR models on the market the this one.
So after wrestling with my two personalities I have finally recommended the product, but only if you can find one cheaper than the £215 I paid for mine. You will get a good PVR unit that receives Freeview channels and has an ability to record to a hard drive in various ways. On the other hand you might be better to look around and find something more up to date than this venerable PVR unit.
(c) 2007 Cad
This review can be found on other websites under the same user name and is written by me.
Manufacturers Website: http://www.humaxdigital.com
Summary: A very good PVR for Freeview digital TV.
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