My PVR9300T has served me faithfully for a few years however 2 things have happened which encourage me to move forward however I want to be cost conscious as I have retired.
The Humax started making loud pops and cracking noises and there were some transient effects on the picture which I wrongly diagnosed as a faulty 32" CRT Phillips TV which was 11 years old. I looked in the January sales and bought a new 40" full 1080P HD Blaupunk TV for £180 hooked up my PVR9300T and the duo have run perfectly for almost 2 months. The fault reappeared yesterday. I switched off for an hour and restarted and all seems OK for now.
There is another niggle I have on recordings when the sound sometimes becomes intermittent and this is worse when you rewind or wind forward to escape the adverts. So now I realise my old TV is still fine and probably only worth 99p if I flog it on ebay.
Could I make a wild guess and say the Humax PSU capacitors are showing signs of age and perhaps replacing them would revive the old Humax or should I move on and buy a new Humax which will ouput 1080p instead of feeding only 720? That pulls me towards a Humax with HD+ tuners.
Being a bit tight I looked on eBay at a used Humax unit or customer return, did some research and got completely confused as Youview has complicated matters. I suspect the recording functionality of the DTR models is not as sophisticated as the HDR models and I would say that most of my viewing is on BBC anyway and I do appreciate the quality and pleasure from HD. So I am leaning towards the HDR models.
Then there is the matter of which generation to buy. I am seduced by the HDR-2000T as it is nimbler than the previous 1000 generation. The 1800 model might even have enough memory even for HD recording.
Perhaps the only reason I am being seduced by the DTR approach is the rash of cheap boxes being pushed out onto eBay from BT customers. Why?
Help me please, do I repair the old 9300 or buy a new Humax. Is it HDR or DTR? Has anyone got a view on this based on their actual experience rather than just reading the net?