New 1010s user
I thought it would be nice to give a report on my experience of installing a 1010S and raise some requests/questions to other users, Humax and Freesat.
(This is the 2G (second Generation) unit with Free-time, On-demand and wireless internet connection). p.s. - I have no affiliation to any company past or present.
Firstly I am/was a SKY user and advocate of over 21 years to SKY so why did I switch? Simple, finances dictates. I wasn’t getting “value”- by that I mean the program offerings of late haven’t been my taste and the few that were just don’t come close to justifying the £52.50 / month + impending price increase Sep 1 (£1). I don’t have multiroom which would have cost me another £1/month so byebye SKY. Shame, their service, innovations etc. put them out in front.
Why did I choose the 1010S:
1. Hard drive size : my SKY HD box filled up in no time -SKY did nothing in the way of long term customer rewards, recognition or upgrade of equipment.
2. Ability to load on my vid/mp3/picture collections to the hard drive (more later on this)
3. On demand and catchup services available, 4oD has just launched and 5 is supposedly available soon too!
4. More channels than Freeview – (The government is aiming to get rid of terrestrial TV in the not too distant future so your only options will then be satellite or internet.)
I bought it from Richer Sounds (great service btw). I asked questions (via email) to Humax who also responded very quickly (a good sign). I also asked questions in forums and had some very knowledgeable responses, again a good sign of on-going support. My service from SKY stops in just under 2 weeks so I wanted to have time to get it up and running and any problems sorted so there were 3 “swap abouts” whilst trialling/setting up and getting the last out of my subscription.
Initial install= perfect!
Software update= perfect -gave me 4oD (also gave me the annoying Freesat logo startup I didn’t think I had before! Power on to programme on screen time is slower than SKY!!)
I needed ( I already knew and had ordered one) a UHF modulator to send the signal to my TV’s in the Kitchen and bedroom.
Comparison and comments v SKY box for facilities (lets face it that’s the standard)
1. The Humax fast forward, skip is much better when playing
2. The On demand and catchup usability is better than SKY ( but not the content breadth) I can live with the obligatory 4 commercial prefix as the program is continuous (no ad breaks. You cannot skip these ads. But better this way I think, I hate ad breaks!) This is my experience so far of 4oD remember so other On demand/ catchup will be different
3. You can’t save catchup/ ondemand you have to watch it there and then. Unlike SKY.
4. The Humax manual leaves a lot out that it is capable of! (and how to do it) The “Extra” stuff that some of us like to squeeze out.
5. The front and back USB ports are great for playing media AND transferring your own on and off (not recorded though! Yet!?) from pendrives and external HDD’s. SKY’s USB port does nothing. It was planned then abandoned, for now anyway, I believe.
6. You can stream media from a DLNA server devices (win7 and 8 computers are capable of being this with a few settings in Media Player. Once set up you control the playing from your Humax box. It is not capable (yet) of being a media server to stream TO other devices. Talking of playing media- I often get “this file type is not supported” I know .avi is only a wrapper for many formats but is there anyway to add support (codecs) as you do in Windows? Request for some very nice person writing custom software!! Or even Humax!
7. The menu and remote takes a bit of getting used to after all these years with SKY ( I do admire their remote- it is very well designed ergonomically) but is on the whole good (Not fantastic) and will probably get better as I get used to it.
8. The series link is brill and the alternative recording times presented, fantastic, if trying to set a timed recording that clashes with 2 currently overlapping! I also noticed that when trying to set a series recording a day or 2 in the future, if an earlier episode in that series existed it would set that first and then subsequent ones. It confused me at first as I didn’t know it did that but is fantastic! (unless I’m really going potty and getting confused. I wondered where the extra recording was coming from at odd times I knew I hadn’t set)
9. Switching to non- Freesat mode is not obvious and does not gain a lot of extra channels AND whilst in this mode the box is not able to make it’s preset recordings. But it is nice to have this.
10. You cannot lock, with a pin, recordings to prevent accidental deletion (HUMAX please add this in a future firmware!) the built in lock only prevents auto deletion when the HDD is approaching full. This is a must to prevent little fingers accidently deleting my favourite prog whilst trying to get Thomas, Noddy or Neighbours (wife!) Undelete would nice also.
11. When in TV guide mode the Time (clock –top left) keeps appearing/ disappearing when accessing information about the programmes. It would be nice if that was permanently on view (I suffer from goldfish memory for time whilst hunting for programmes to record/view- is there 58 or only 2 minutes left?)
12. Control from another room would require a lot of extra bits, wires and devices(power bricks) plugged in. So I have forgone this (for now at least) SKY eyes are much simpler (off topic-SKY are supposedly turning off the power out facility on UHF2 on their boxes soon for those that don’t know) So many are going to need some way of injecting D.C.power up the RF leads to other T.V’s and Eye’s – my amp/dis box for the does it anyway so I would have been alright but I’m sure many will be caught out. It is a pity the Humax box cannot respond to commands received back from the “SKY magic eye’s ” in the other rooms.
13. It would be very nice if I could connect from my office pc and transfer files (vid/music/pics) onto/off the box like I do with my phone. Technically my guess is it should be possible using something like WinSCP as I do with my IPhone. I did briefly try and got “connection refused” not a long wait time out so it appeared to be communicating, possibly just need the right settings. Maybe one of the custom softwares (when written) will allow this? If it is possible now please let me know how! It will save a lot of faffing about with memsticks or external HDD’s. Fat32 memsticks don’t allow large file sizes (greater than 2gig)
14. Talking of custom software/s what extra facilities would/ do they provide? Is there some sort of top 20 list for essential/useful/ desirable etc. for these type of boxes. I don’t believe any is currently available yet for the 1010S.
15. Missing those channels that are on Freeview but not Freesat ( I know this is mostly down to contractual reasons with SKY, loss of revenue from SKY , audience figures etc) Would love to see Dave, davejaVu, Gold, Really, Quest and a few more movie channels e.g. movie mix.
16. The apps are O.K. only too few (yet?) Of those available only very few are compatible with this box, yet. I would like to see some media streaming capability from the internet (sites of my own choosing) (again if poss let me know how) even the addition of services like Netflix would be fantastic. Take note Humax and especially Netflix you are missing an opportunity here.
17. The sound level output seems quite low. You have the volume output of the box (SKYboxes don’t- on the remote) as well as the TV volume on it’s remote but getting it right to supply all TV’s is a juggling act. At present ,2 days in -of real use, “quite to very high” on the Humax seems about right and final setting on the individual T.V’s. I have to have the Kitchen T.V on full and this leads to some noise (hiss).
I have done this list for all those considering switching to this or a similar box. 1 week in I am still impressed and discovering the odd tid-bit. Pls let me know any errors, comments and suggestions. I have typed all this from my failing/aging memory so some errors are guaranteed. Also many thanks to Pollensa1946 and REPASSAC for their help. See my other post re questions. http://myhumax.org/forum/topic/1010s-lots-of-questions?replies=1#post-19274
