My Humax Forum » Freeview HD » Aura UHD

Should I buy a Aura?

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    ched999uk

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    I have been using a TalkTalk YouView box and it's OK but finding it needs rebooting once a week to stop it locking up and a few other issues. I also have Humax HDR (custom FW) and a few other Humax boxes that are fine although the 1100 seems to have had an hdmi failure!

    Looking around the Aura seems good in that it can record more than 2 programs and has support for android apps (kodi to play stuff from NAS).

    When researching it's always easy to find the faults people are having and there do seem a few issues but they may not be representative.

    My question is would you buy an Aura now, wait for something better or is there something better out there?

    Cheers for any suggestions.

    | Tue 8 Nov 2022 13:33:28 #1 |
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    Martin Liddle

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    ched999uk - 27 mins ago  » 
    When researching it's always easy to find the faults people are having and there do seem a few issues but they may not be representative.
    My question is would you buy an Aura now, wait for something better or is there something better out there?

    You are asking a very sensible question and I don't think the answer is clear cut. I have an Aura and whilst it has a few bugs, I don't see them often and generally it is reliable in recording and I prefer it to my HDR-FOX T2. I am sure you will get opinions from other people whose usage means they encounter bugs more frequently that I very, very rarely see. If you do decide to buy do it online so you have a right to return if you hate it.

    | Tue 8 Nov 2022 14:06:57 #2 |
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    Harters

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    I am very pleased with my Aura and would not hesitate to recommend it. As Martin says it has a few quirks, but nothing show stopping in my usage.

    I use Kodi to play old SD 80’s shows in the bedroom and it works fine. It will play HD too, but if you try and fast forward it stops playback, but if you just watch it will play no problem. To be honest I didn't expect it to play HD at all.

    As a PVR I find it a solid performer with a very snappy interface. I use YouTube and Plex everyday and both work great.

    I would say go for it and try for yourself.

    | Tue 8 Nov 2022 14:29:18 #3 |
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    ched999uk

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    Thanks very much for the info. The Aura does look like the best that's about at the moment even with it's issues.
    Thanks again.

    | Tue 8 Nov 2022 20:52:26 #4 |
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    Geoff_W

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    I've had my Aura for a year now and as others have said, it has its foibles. Nothing is a showstopper, just little irritations - but then, all makes of PVR's have problems. On the plus side, I really like its ability to record upto 4 concurrent programmes, even when watching a recording. The interface is very fast and the amount of programmes which can be stored is immense (mine's the 2Tb version). On a personal level I find the remote scheduling ability very useful, assuming the machine doesn't do anything stupid while I'm away on holiday.

    The occasional Factory Reset may be necessary to sort some issues, and I have recently discovered that one of my problems seemed to be related to Deep Standby, so I now only put the Aura into normal standby and accept the higher power consumption.

    | Wed 9 Nov 2022 17:05:48 #5 |
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    ched999uk

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    Geoff_W - 1 day ago  » 
    I've had my Aura for a year now and as others have said, it has its foibles. Nothing is a showstopper, just little irritations - but then, all makes of PVR's have problems. On the plus side, I really like its ability to record upto 4 concurrent programmes, even when watching a recording. The interface is very fast and the amount of programmes which can be stored is immense (mine's the 2Tb version). On a personal level I find the remote scheduling ability very useful, assuming the machine doesn't do anything stupid while I'm away on holiday.
    The occasional Factory Reset may be necessary to sort some issues, and I have recently discovered that one of my problems seemed to be related to Deep Standby, so I now only put the Aura into normal standby and accept the higher power consumption.

    Thanks very much for the info, very useful.

    | Thu 10 Nov 2022 21:11:39 #6 |
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    Finchy313

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    I've had my Aura for nearly two years. I don't think I'd recommend it to anyone simply because it's very buggy yet Humax have not updated the firmware since July 2021. My box crashes and reboots almost daily. I'm getting really frustrated with it, and have started going back to my older Nvidia Shield TV often. I can get Freeview on that via my HDHomerun, the downside is that it doesn't integrate as well as having a built in Freeview and hard drive and it costs £30 a year, but at least it's reliable and stable.

    | Mon 14 Nov 2022 12:53:17 #7 |
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    ched999uk

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    Finchy313 - 19 mins ago  » 
    I've had my Aura for nearly two years. I don't think I'd recommend it to anyone simply because it's very buggy yet Humax have not updated the firmware since July 2021. My box crashes and reboots almost daily. I'm getting really frustrated with it, and have started going back to my older Nvidia Shield TV often. I can get Freeview on that via my HDHomerun, the downside is that it doesn't integrate as well as having a built in Freeview and hard drive and it costs £30 a year, but at least it's reliable and stable.

    Thanks. It does get some poor reviews and as you say hasn't had an update in a long time. Pity really as it has the capability to be a really great box. I wonder if Humax is working on a new box?
    Cheers

    | Mon 14 Nov 2022 13:15:03 #8 |
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    lohr500

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    I have the same question/dilemma.

    I need to replace our ancient BT YouView recorder and I am at a loss as to which route to go down.

    I signed up for the Sky STREAM solution a couple of days ago, but when the hardware arrived, the remote was dead out of the box. A subsequent internet search revealed major problems with the Stream remote and tales of people waiting weeks for a replacement, only to then find the replacement failing within hours/days. Based on this, I have cancelled my Sky subscription and arranged to send back the equipment. I don't have time to be a product beta tester for Sky!!

    Until reading posts here about the apparent lack of commitment from Humax to develop Aura, I had shortlisted Aura as my 2nd option after STREAM. But now I am having second thoughts. The lack of Netflix is also frustrating, although not critical as we have a smart TV anyway.

    I could dust down the sat dish, fit a wideband LNB, some extra cabling and move back to Freesat, but that would mean a bit more work.

    Running out of options to find a simple and reliable solution to access the Freeview channels and a reasonable complement of on demand players including Prime Video and Netflix.

    Should I bite the bullet and go Aura, accepting the limitations and apparent lack of development?
    Are there any suggestions on the grapevine of an Aura replacement or equivalent from other manufacturers?

    The older FVP-5000 could be an option but I saw somewhere that ITV Hub was being discontinued and FVP-5000 won't support ITVX.

    Decisions, decisions!!!

    | Sat 3 Dec 2022 21:32:26 #9 |
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    Martin Liddle

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    lohr500 - 47 mins ago  » 
    Should I bite the bullet and go Aura, accepting the limitations and apparent lack of development?

    I think it depends what you want to do; if you just want to use it as a PVR and stream using the built in players then my experience is that it is a reasonable choice; by no means perfect but I can live with its flaws because of the impeccable sub-title handling, the ability to record up to 4 programs at a time and the general responsiveness of the box. If you want to be able to install other apps then life might be more problematic.

    For what it is worth, I certainly haven't heard any rumors about a new Android box.

    | Sat 3 Dec 2022 22:28:09 #10 |

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