Humax Foxsat HDR 500GB Freesat HD Digital TV Recorder (Requires Satellite Dish) (Old model)

I am really pleased with my recent purchase of the Humax Foxsat HDR 500GB. I have just recently found out I am going to be a dad for the second time and am doing the typical panic over saving money to help pay for ever escalating costs. I was paying £70+ for Sky and did a lot of soul searching to rid my life of Sky Sports but can do without all the rest - who needs a landline these days anyway all I get are calls about PPI insurance!!Anyway the product came as expected through the ever efficient Amazon and as per the other reviews it is exceptionally easy to set up as I just removed the SKY box and put the corresponding leads into the back of the HUMAX box. I was up and running in less than 5 mins and the picture quality I think is actually better than SKY. I had the old Amstrad Sky plus box and it did have a habit of crashing and freezing every so often. If you can do without the Sky channels then this is the future of TV as it has the best perks of sky plus (pause live TV, record easily a single programme or a series) and has no monthly subscription. Yes £200+ is a big initial outlay but I figured it would pay for itself in less than 3 months and I would save £840 per year on subscription charges - THAT IS MASSIVE!I would say the actual interaction of the system isn't quite as quick as SKY but just as intuitive and I don't tend to watch a lot of live TV these days as life is too short for adverts but series link and watch a lot of recorded films and programmes I want to watch. The 500GB drive is twice the size of the Sky system so no lack of space and again is easy to set, record and delete at will. I wish I had done this months ago as I have never been a fan of supporting the SKY monopoly anyway and this way I still get to enjoy TV the way I want to. Precious when you get little time to watch and you just want to enjoy the things you like instead of rubbish.I would also agree with a few of the reviewers in regards to the senstivity of the remote control which is a bit annoying but again you get used to it and I am sure there are ways to improve it. I would also say as a footnote that I have a colleague who used to work in the TV industry and he said that HUMAX were well regarded in the industry for good quality product that had little complaints.

Had this unit for around 8 weeks now to give it a fair trial before reviewing. If you don't want to read any further I will get to the point now - it's really a very, very good unit, not perfect (what is?) but buy it, you won't be disappointed.For those who want more comment - Before I bought I read all the reviews on here and I can confirm that all the 5 star comments are correct. I wanted to ditch my Sky subscription as I wasn't getting value for money, this will pay for itself in 7 months. The picture is easily as good as the Sky box if not better and the HD is excellent (when the broadcast is actually shot in HD, rather than some of the so called HD pushed out by some channels).As described in other reviews, installation is easy, you need two feeds from the Sky sat dish to be able to record two separate programs at the same time. The unit will work with one, but you will not get full functionality. The recordings are as good as the live broadcast both HD and non HD. Recording with the "Auto" start time setting has never missed a program yet, really easy to set a recording.The program guide has a slight delay in reacting to the remote keypress, but no worse than many freeview digital TV's guides I've used. I was getting a similar delay often with Sky's guide, so no difference there.Some reviews complain that they loose the picture when the guide is called up, yes you do, but a way round this if you just want to view the guide (or select a program to record from it) is to press "Schedule" on the remote (2nd up from bottom of remote on LHS) then press the "Red" button to see the guide with the program sound and picture behind. Also if you want to you can tune in "Free to air" (eg Sky News) channels as well as "Freesat" and switch between the two anytime via "Menu - Settings - STB Mode", but BE WARNED, if you stay on "Free to air" STB Mode, any future programmed recordings on "Freesat" will not be recorded, so remember to return to the "Freesat" STB Mode ASAP.There is a learning curve to using this unit, but read the user manual and just play around with the remote, make your own notes when you find a useful function and you will be amazed what this unit will do! The remote appears complicated at first, but it is actually really well laid out once you get to know it. The longer I use this unit the more impressed I become.The "not perfect" bit - You end up with two volume controls (you can program the remote to work your TV, DVD, VCR & Audio units using dozens of provided codes) and you need to keep switching between the "PVR" and "TV" selection buttons at the top of the remote to change between your TV volume or the Humax (PVR) volume. I recommend setting the Humax volume to full and just adjusting the TV volume via the "TV" selection button. Or use the Humax remote only for the Humax unit and use your TV remote for TV volume etc. So come on Humax, lets have a software update to give us the option to fix the PVR volume to full all the time so it can't be accidently turned down, then we'll have as near perfection as possible. Buy it, you won't regret it and Amazon delivery was also excellent as usual.PS. A tip for sport fanatics, Freesat has very little sport content other than that put out by the BBC, ITV or ITV4, so if sport is your thing look at the channels you get on each package carefully, you may just have to continue paying Sky's inflated charges.

This product has the honour of being the first to disappoint me so much that I feel it necessary to provide my very first personal opinion on it for Amazon. We have had two units so far but now given up and bought an EchoStar unit that is proving fantastic. The problem we experienced with the Humax was that it kept seeming to freeze and the only way we could get it back to begin working 'normally' again seemed to be to switch it on and off at the mains. Even when working 'normally' we found the product to be frustrating to say the very least. From a remote control which seemed curiously slow to respond (we never seemed to be able to press on the right thing at the right time) to frequent signal fall outs (often fixed by switching on and off at the mains).All in all it was with a massive breath of relief when we switched on it's replacement - an EchoStar HDS600RS - and found that this performed exactly as it should. A responsive remote, logical menu system, no freezes, a signal all the time, and - though again this is subjective opinion - the picture looks better to us. I am not sure why the Humax has such great reviews, but all I can say is that it proved nothing but an enormous disappointment and headache to us. On a positive note Amazon customer service was superb, as it has always been for us in the past.