Had my box a few days. latest firmware update to .20.
After recording several programs in Freeview SDef, there's a consistent sound bug that intermittently causes the recorded sound on replay, to come out with a second or two of a copy of the sound track delayed over the top of the first.
After carefully studying the playbacks, I'm now convinced this problem happens every time just before the recorded picture content moves into a video dissolve transition.
Those who understand MPEG and have done any HD vid. editing, will know that the bandwidth and processsing speed demands required to cope with bit reduced recordings of MPEG data streams, become huge during video dissolves (mixing of two sources).
Often a problem may be just a momentary video 'glitch' as the two sets of changing data hit the worst point and can go unnoticed for realtime replay. But sound problems before or during transitions never go unnoticed.
Manufacturers will always compromise between recorded compression levels, picture quality and storage needs. These days large hard disc storage is cheap. I would have liked to see Humax offer the option to set low compression rates or record pure streams, rather than take what the factory think is an acceptable threshold for picture quality. That may be unacceptable in households where there are several users, but for some like myself, I would happily trade off storage for more transparent picture and sound quality likely to have less glitches and fall over during more complex picture scenes.
Think about your still camera and JPEG compression. When they first came out, manufacturers increased picture compression to make their cameras more compatible with affordable memory capacity. Now most canny users will be selecting 'High Quality'or 'RAW' with least compression and using cheaper memory. I'd like to see PVR manufacturers offering the same options, especially for those with large screens.
