HDR FOX T2 Boot times « My Humax Forum

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HDR FOX T2 Boot times

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aks100

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I have just purchased a DTR-T1010 Youview box, but the 2 minutes boot time is too slow for me. The alternative of keeping the HD whirring away is also unattractive, so I'm sending it back.

I discovered the boot times here too late :(.

So, reading a lot about HDR Fox-T2 I might try that, but only if it can boot quickly. Humax support suggest it take about 60 seconds. Does this sound correct, and if so, why does it take so long to boot / does the custom FW reduce this time at all?

Thanks for any advice.

| Wed 19 Mar 2014 22:44:35 #1 |
chrisdaniels

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From a cold start, yes 60secs sounds about right.
Custom firmware does not speed up boot times.
The humax is essentially a small Linux computer, and needs time to load up.

The youview boxes are notorious for the long boot times and other quirks, you would be best testing a replacement box in a store before taking it home if this is something that bothers you.

| Thu 20 Mar 2014 0:03:40 #2 |
aks100

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Thanks. By cold start do you mean from standby?

All these boxes are Linux based it appears, but my old PVR-9200 takes about 15 seconds from off/standby to display the channel picture, and about 12 seconds to silence when turning off again.

The newer boxes must have improved processor platform, blimey it's not that difficult, is it !

| Thu 20 Mar 2014 0:39:02 #3 |
Barry

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60 seconds for a HDR T2 - no way.

Just booted one from standby, 22 seconds to video and audio booting to BBC 1 HD.

| Thu 20 Mar 2014 0:59:53 #4 |
Martin Liddle

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aks100 - 23 minutes ago »
All these boxes are Linux based it appears, but my old PVR-9200 takes about 15 seconds from off/standby to display the channel picture, and about 12 seconds to silence when turning off again.

I have just timed our HDR-FOX T2 running 1.03.12 and it takes about 22 seconds to boot from standby to display of a picture. I would expect some difference between different makes and models of TV due to different HDMI implementations.

| Thu 20 Mar 2014 1:09:43 #5 |
damian

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The hdr-fox-t2 is a brilliant box, made just about perfect with the custom firmware; however YouView (YV) with the ability to rewind the last week in EPG and play a selection of major programmes that you may have missed on catch-up is something else. I know this can be achieved with iplayer, 4OD etc. etc., but the EPG makes it ever so simple and child's play.

No one's explained why it takes so long for YV to boot up, I've always assumed it was populating the EPG, someone's sure to correct me, but I would have thought it was possible to wake the box up with a reminder or similar at a time before you'd want to use it to reduce the boot up time.

hdmi/hdcp handshaking can be a real problem, particularly on older equipment and can slow the time to display a picture down or even fail to display a picture at all. I guess most people who were affected have moved on to newer more compatible equipment or found a work around.

I'd think really seriously about the benefits of 7 day catch-up EPG against the 2 minute start up issue, if 2 minutes really is too slow then you can't go wrong with a hdr-fox-t2, but the ease of the 7 day previous EPG on YV takes some beating. Quality on iplayer is good, itv catch-up quality and implementation appalling and you're forced to re-watch adverts - to give you an example, I was half way through watching live itv having already seen live adverts when the channel was changed, found it in the EPG, played it, forced to watch 5-8 minutes of adverts and pre-amble, fast forwarded to next block of adverts, forced to watch next 3-5 minutes of adverts and so on, absolute nightmare, one advert for 'premier inns' seemed to freeze the box, it had some sort of 'click here' button on the screen for more info, absolute nightmare took over 10 minutes of freezing and slo-mo to get past Lenny Henry! This is crappy crappy itv player though and not YV. bbc iplayer through the EPG brilliant though, a shining example.

I have both the hdr-fox-t2 and YV, both have advantages, it really does depend on where your priorities lie. All makes of YV boxes, afaik, take forever to boot up.
I can live with my hdr-fox-t2 without the YV, I don't think I could live with the YV on its own without the hdr-fox-t2, but I'm a bit old school, use my mobile to talk to people with and not twitter, horses for courses

| Thu 20 Mar 2014 3:50:26 #6 |
chrisdaniels

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60 seconds for a HDR T2 - no way.

Just booted one from standby, 22 seconds to video and audio booting to BBC 1 HD.

lol ok maybe my guesstimate was a bit off

| Thu 20 Mar 2014 10:04:07 #7 |
Luke

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I also get about 23-26 seconds for boot up times. I've got power saving in stand-by turned off on the 3 that are currently installed.

I don't recall that if HDR-FOXC T2 power saving is turned on that it takes any longer to start up. Is that the case or have I just not noticed?

| Thu 20 Mar 2014 13:50:23 #8 |
aks100

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I'd think really seriously about the benefits of 7 day catch-up EPG against the 2 minute start up issue

I thought I'd like the Youview catch-up, but in fact I don't like the adverts, I generally record what I need, I mostly use iPlayer and have that in my TV, and can always watch essentials on the PC. So, I'm just less convinced about the feature set, and the YV box is much less and the slow boot finishes me right off. It's just poor design one way or another. No DLNA no archive etc etc. I should have guessed since it's early days, just like the old PVRs from years ago.

itv catch-up quality and implementation appalling and you're forced to re-watch adverts

This is especially bad, and I'm not even sure they force this on the web catch-up. But I rarely use ITV catch-up, in fact I think I have only done so once, and never used 4OD or 5OD. iPlayer is the one for me.

On the YV box, I find the on-demand players actually stutter right at the start of playback. On my TV, iPlayer anyway, does not. That was the very first irritation I had with this box.

Thanks for all the tips, I really should have asked again before the impulse buy in John Lewis. I expect them to have this back (hopefully without any drama).

I'll get a Fox-T2 and I'm sure it will make me happy :-).

| Thu 20 Mar 2014 21:34:14 #9 |
aks100

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Picked up a Fox-T2 from Humax direct yesterday, installed last night, and happy with the initial use. Boot up from standby is 23 seconds to displaying TV pictures, and shutdown to standby is about 7 seconds to disk silence.

Now I'll investigate further capabilities, i.e. archive content. I already pulled a recorded program from the Fox-T2 to my PC and played it with VLC.

| Sat 22 Mar 2014 20:06:57 #10 |