I purchased my Humax HDR S 1TB from Humax Direct on 30Oct2012.
My immediate impressions were positive and I was impressed with the EPG especially the speed which the data populated the viewing grid.
My honeymoon period has been relatively short and I would like to raise some issues:
1. The first point that I would like to make regards information displayed in the end-box label, here it states that You Tube is available via the Portal, this is not the case, certainly not on my machine.
2. The following points are made with the advantage of a direct comparison with my Humax HDR FOX T2 which co-located with my HDR 1000S 1TB. The HDR FOX T2 is fed from my Plusnet Internet Router via Cat 5 Ethernet cable. My Plusnet connection provides me with a download speed of approximately 4900kbps, well in excess of the iPlayer threshold for ‘HD’ video display of 3500kbps. My HDR FOX T2 streams iPlayer HD content without problem but this is certainly not the case with my HDR 1000S 1TB.
a. BBC iPlayer HD content using the HDR 1000S 1TB is unwatchable because of continual ‘buffering’.
b. When the transition from HD to SD is made there is a short period when the ‘buffering cycle’ period extends and the image and sound displayed settles down to a normal format.
c. As stated earlier, this phenomena is peculiar to my HDR 1000S 1TB and as the up-stream infrastructure is shared with my HDR FOX T2 I believe that the fault lays within the HDR 1000S 1TB.
3. The next problem is manifest when using BBC Text especially when displaying the weather forecast information.
a. All appears well until you select the option that requires the whole of the screen to be populated with text and graphics. At this point the sound stutters and then becomes mute. If you leave the display in this mode an ‘error’ message appears in the top centre of the screen. This message states “Audio/Video decoding buffer is underrun.”
I have two other Humax products other than my HDR 1000S 1TB a HDR FOX T2 and FOXSAT HDR, both of these breeze through this task faultlessly so once again the fault is with the HDR 1000S 1TB.
May I proffer a suggestion?
I wonder if the two faults aren’t inter-related and it is all down to data transfer and buffering within the HDR 1000S 1TB, a fault that can be fixed with a firmware update?
If this is the case I wonder why this fault wasn’t picked during bench testing or was this curtailed so that the HDR 1000S 1TB could hit the Christmas market. Of course, Humax also has the new Freeview YouView to sort and maybe their
resources are being spread too thinly.
Despite its shortcomings I like the HDR 1000s 1TB especially the almost immediate populating of the EPG but this is probably because I have the HDR FOX T2 to step-in to make up for its iPlayer and text presentation deficiencies.
I would like to make a further observation.
When the HDR 1000S 1TB is in single tuner mode and the signal data is accessed the tuner that is “off line” is described, I believe, as having “No Data”. Despite there being text stating that both tuners are connected this is confusing.
Confusing to the extent that I went through a substitution routine checking my sat. feeds. All became clear when I set one tuner to record and the second to off-air monitoring.
This confusion could be cleared up with a proper User Manual or was this a causality of the “Get it to market” syndrome.
The situation is ongoing and I would like to make a further point:
a. I cannot activate Slow Motion despite following the instructionsand trying many times.
I will close by saying that I have tried contacting Humax Support by phone and email but have been totally unsuccessful, apart from being inconvenient this is disappointing as hitherto Humax have been a model of efficiency in this respect.
I sincerely hope that the much heralded firmware update sorts my issues and the others that have been described elsewhere on the web.
