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Humax PVR9300T 320GB Twin Tuner, PVR | 
| Brand: Humax
Category: CE
Buy New: £144.99
as of 3/9/2010 15:21 CDT details
New (8) from £144.99
Rating:  reviews
Sales Rank: 82
Media: Electronics
Shipping Weight (lbs): 6.4
Dimensions (in): 16.2 x 13.7 x 4.5
MPN: PVR9300T
Model: PVR9300T
EAN: 8809095664546
ASIN: B00272N9PC
Release Date: April 20, 2009
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
Another solid Humax August 31, 2009
tallpete33 (London, UK)
304 out of 308 found this review helpful
Having owned one of the early Humax PVRs, the excellent 800 for many trouble-free years, I decided it was time to upgrade when I bought a Sony Bravia LCD TV for the following reasons:
1) Twin tuner
2) Larger recording capacity (up to 200 hours)
3) HDMI upscaling
4) Series Link
For those who are unsure what a Freeview PVR (Personal Video Recorder) is, it is essentially the free-to-air version of Sky+ i.e. it is a Freeview receiver with an internal hard disk that allows you to do everything Sky+ can do (record, pause and rewind live or scheduled TV) and in some cases better. No discs or tapes required. Obviously no Sky subscription means no Sky channels don't forget apart from Sky 3, Sky News and Sky Sports News for some reason. (UPDATE - no more Sky Sports News)
As Amazon were the cheapest (£163.99 delivered), I bought there again and super saver delivery was a decent 3 days. Out of the box, I was surprised to see it came with both a SCART and HDMI lead which is unusual, but welcome. Setting up was an absolute doddle, just a case of plugging in the power, co-ax input (from wall to box), co-ax output (to TV) and of course the HDMI to the TV. I then went to the menu to search for channels and was up and running in about 10 minutes. I was helped in the setup as the menu is very similar to my old Humax (I haven't needed to look at the CD manual) but with a few useful tweaks. A case of if it ain't broke.....
The box itself is fairly attractive in a black and understated way. The remote is also quite smart and sleek. The advanced buttons are hidden under a sliding flap at the bottom which is a good idea. Recording is very easy; just find the programme on the excellent (if slightly small) EPG and click ok. You are prompted for option of series link (which works brilliantly by the way) at that time also. Playback is just as easy, find the programme from your recorded list and hit play; as few as two button presses. If you only watch some of it, the PVR remembers where you left off, similar to most DVD players. Having a twin tuner, you can start watching programmes being recorded before they have finished which is very useful, as well as watch one channel and record another.
Unlike the Sky EPG (Electronic Programme Guide), the Humax shows a small picture of the selected channel (with sound) and has an excellent search facility that includes genre (e.g. movies, sport) or name search with an on-screen keyboard. The only drawback is that the EPG may take a minute or two to fully load from standby but this is not uncommon among any digi-box.
**UPDATE** a firmware update on June 11th 2010 may help this issue. Worth doing a manual update then (if your system is not set for auto already)
From power on, the fan is noisy for all of 5 seconds and the box then operates silently which I was very relieved about. Anyone suffering from a noisy fan should update the system firmware from the menu which should fix the issue. Standby power usage is 0.9w which is green enough for me.
The picture (you can toggle between 576p or 720p) is very good. Despite having a 1080p TV, I find 576p is more natural. It is better than my 800 but not massively so and has that slight "digitised" feel to it on occasion but it depends a lot on the age and format of the programme you are watching. The new series of Waking the Dead for example looks amazing whereas old episodes of Frasier are slightly blurry and washed out. If anything, the inbuilt tuner on my TV delivers a slightly clearer image but the features on the 9300 mean I will use that much more for general viewing. I get the occasional pause but only in bad weather when my ariel is taking a battering from the wind.
The picture-in-picture feature is under the flap and very useful and easy to use. You can move the small picture around to different corners or even have 50:50 - handy for when there's two games on.
Overall, I am very happy with this box and glad I've upgraded though the 800 is still sitting under my TV whilst I catch up on old episodes of The Wire. Humax have fixed the fan issue and whilst it may take a bit of getting used to (if you haven't owned one before), it is an excellent alternative to Sky+ for price, features and recording capacity.
 Great Piece Of Kit May 20, 2009
Steve (UK)
63 out of 64 found this review helpful
Had this for a few of days now, after ditching my Thomson box, which just kept freezing and not turning on..only over a year old. Hughes direct were quick to deliver and had no problem with them, although as others have said they send this out in its product box, not within a brown box, but you could say they are reducing the impact on the environment.
The Humax pvr9300t is well worth the money and once you get used to the functional differences then it's straight forward to operate.
Set up it a breeze, just connect, switch on and its scanning channels
before you do anything else and then save them and you're there. Each channel is displayed in the led on the pvr itself (nice touch!) and the time is downloaded from the aerial and pretty close to the radio controlled clocks. Yeah. The EPG is slow to download, due to Humax beleiving that 9300t should have the most up to date programme inf and will adjust recording times if a programme's schedule changes, but leave the pvr, for 5 to 6 minutes, on BBC1 and all channels and days are populated or set it up to auto switch on before you're ready to watch.
Unlike other pvr's depending on which mux (multiplex) you are recording on you are able to watch a third programme whilst recording two other programs (whilst normally viewing TV just press OK to see the other channels available when recording), not heard of this on another box. Another nice touch!
If you're having trouble with programmes series linked on Channel 5 and find every occurence of a programme set to series link is recored (including the one's on FIVER), this is not the box but the interesting way Channel 5 have imbedded their series link data and can easily be overcome by manually setting a programme up to record weekly.
Finally. Fan noise..the software is fully up to date and this is a non existent problem..some old reviews may state it's noisey.
In summary. This is a great piece of kit.
**Update**
Had this now for a couple of weeks and I must say I am well chuffed with it. Watch it more than Sky+.
**Update...Update**
Had this nearly a month now and like McDonalds....I'm loving it!
Humax Improved November 29, 2008
Hugo
179 out of 186 found this review helpful
I'm happy to be the first to review this product with it's new software upgrade.
When I purchased this a week ago I was horrified at the ridiculously loud fan noise. After contacting Humax to see if it was a fault I was told an over the air upgrade was coming this week. What a difference it makes, it's gone from being the loudest PVR on the market to the quietest! So instead of telling people to avoid it give it five stars. The picture quality is superb with no blocking or freezing, it's a piece of cake to reord shows and even series. And it never misses the end of a show, a big improvement on my old one.
Sure there are a few ways I'd like the software to be improved but it's nothing you can't work round with a few clicks. Top marks.
 NOW NOT SO NOISY Humax PVR9300T... October 30, 2008
J. A. Verity (UK)
170 out of 177 found this review helpful
The PVR300T is as good as all the previous models, it is let down by a few things though...
The main thing you WILL notice about the PVR300T is the noise it makes... unless of course you have the latest update (27/11/2008 - v1.00.12), if not grab the update which WILL make a big difference!
The ability to send your digital channels via the RF cable is also missing, (even though the manual states you can, you cannot, appears Humax badly edited the manual from a previous model)...
also the RF loop through (for sending analogue signal to your TV/VCR) only works when the PVR is ON... but you can set the "Power Saving in Standby" (miscellaneous settings) option to "Off" and then it will allow you to watch analogue while its in standby). I also used to be able to send a digital signal to a second TV (on previous model) via the RF, on this model that is not possible via that method...
Humax also need to look into cacheing the 7 day guide to the HDD, so it dosnt need to be downloaded every time the device is turned on, and then it could update itself on the go... you can speed up your EPG download time by setting the PVR to turn on Automatically in the morning (for example) and switching itself to BBC1... this will allow it to update the EPG the quickest...
The clipping of recordings at the front of some programs may occur on some channels (also some say they can miss the end too)...
USB port?... this PVR has a USB port, one slight problem, you cannot do anything with it... HUMAX sort it out... give us the ability to Transfer the data TO our PC's and Mac's
UPDATE: This product is MUCH better its now near silent... face the fact Humax before this update the PVR9300T was Noisy... even my computers made less noise... Now worth a 4 Star Rating... Not quite worth all five stars as the device still has flaws...
Good but with a few flaws October 24, 2009
Mr. Paul Holmes (uk)
15 out of 15 found this review helpful
I sent back a Goodmans box I had because it kept freezing. After reading reviews, I decided to invest almost twice the price of the Goodmans box in this.
The Good:
1) It looks quite nice with a clear display on the front which also shows TV station.
2) It is virtually silent in operation.
3) The remote is very nice- a bit clunky but good quality with a good click on the buttons. There are more buttons under the sliding lid which is initially quite difficult to slide back- but it is there.
4) It has been generally reliable- much better than the Goodmans so far and so I am getting series actually recorded this time instead of missing them. However, see below.
5) The menus are generally quite easy to use, and it is easy to record a programme- just select it in the EPG and press select and it then asks you if you wish to record the whole series. Same, basically, as all Freeview + recorders.
6)The tuner picture quality is good. I would say there is a slight improvement in the picture on this when it is set to 720P when compared to the internal tuner on my Panasonic TX70 42" plasma.
7) The EPG has a search function which is brilliant. Make sure the EPG is all loaded up (see below) then use an on screen keyboard to type a bit of the programme name and it will hunt it down and bring it up- brilliant when you know something is on, but not when. Also you can have the EPG show you all the films, or all the drama etc, albeit this is only as good as the EPG Data tags put in by the broadcaster- Channel 5 insist on listing all Home and Away and Neighbours as Movies for some reason! I have found this very useful in looking at lists of movies to record the next week.
The Bad:
1) In just over two weeks use, it locked up once. It would not switch on. Many others are complaining of this and it has to be turned off at the power switch to reboot it. Of course, it will have not recorded whilst in its locked up state. I have researched this and there is no clear answer as to what could be causing it. It may be corrupt data from the EPG data (or MPHEG?), it may be an issue with the auto set up entering rogue channels and there may be an overheating issue caused by the fact that the new firmware turns off the fan because it was too loud. I have not got to the bottom of it, but I moved it to a cooler bit of the shelf (not on top of my Sky box) and did a manual retune to clear out any rogue channels from other transmitters, but I do not think there were any. I have also deleted some of the channels I do not use, including 800. Since then (a week and a half ago) it has not locked up, although when I was watching it last night it did become unresponsive for about 30 secs but then came back. I will see how it goes. If it starts locking up again, I will send back.
2) The EPG takes ages to load each time it is switched on- however, it is quicker if it is set to BBC1 when it is switched on.
3) I cannot see where it tells you how much space you have on the hard disk. I am sure it must be there somewhere.
4) When you want to play a recording, you can either go into menu, then recording list and get it there and you get a preview of each programme recorded in a window as you select it. However, a bit long winded. Alternatively, there is a button under the flap which brings up a list of recorded programmes when you press it- the list has programme name, date and time. However, you may have a long list with loads of, say, Simpsons, and you want to know what each episode is about as you may have seen it. Pressing the "i" button when selected you would think would bring up the EPG info for that recorded programme, but it does not- instead it reverts back to the information for the programme currently showing live.So it is difficult to get the usual Freeview synopsis of the programme for a recorded programme- a little frustrating- something my old Goodmans box had no problems with.
Overall it is a good box and probably one of the best. If it had not locked up I would probably have given it 5 stars despite its other faults. If it does lock up regularly it is only worthy of a 1 star, because my Goodmans did that and it makes to box pointless. Let us wait and see.......
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