Home > Consumer Reviews > Humax Freeview playback Digital TV Recorder PVR-9150T 160GB Twin Tuner PVR

After reading these reviews and other reviews on other pvr's, I decided to take a chance and bought it. What can I say? I'm delighted at my choice!
I find the remote a bit too big, but then again I do have small hands....
I have not yet found out how to get the recorded films/series onto DVD. Does that function at all? I recorded the darts world championships for a good friend in Germany...how do I get it to him now?
I have no problem what soever with any fan noise. In fact I can't hear anything at all except when the hard disk starts when I turn it on. After that...silence! I have the October software on it, maybe they had managed to iron out the faults mentioned by other users.
All in all I am VERY satisfied with this new gadget of mine. It has changed the way I watch tv!

I bought this as my first pvr and loved using it, but unfortunately the constant "low volume but obtrusive" fan noise eventually distracted me from enjoying the programs ( I ended up listening to the noise!)- what a shame. After a month's use, I returned it back to Argos for the reasons explained (am I allowed to mention this store on this site? - I will as I am also a happy Amazon customer).

Hope this helps Humax to do something to iron out this irritation.

Had almost given up on all this free digital viewing by terrible service and reception. Heard about the Sony VTX-D800U as being the best for quality reception and realiable service, but come to purchasing seems it was end of line and no were to be bought (seems Sony do not have a replacement either).

Scanned through the comments on all the free views on here and found the Humax 9150, took a chance and bought it. Well wow, instantly plugged in scanned all and saved the channels, beautiful reception and not a pixelated nor frozen screen in site, been 2 weeks now and still not a blip. The recordings are great, very easy to understand and program. Ausome quality with some nice features for skipping adverts etc. Some cool 'on screen' gadgets too, being able to watch dual screen action with either other channels or my recordings.

Only negative points are a slight fan noise, but meh I only hear it at 6:45am when the world is deathly quiet when i get up. (The comment by the other person about returning it due to the fan noise I really cant understand) Also I cant seem to get film 4, but compared to my other freeview that found it with no reception and it just mocked me with what a could be watching!!!! argh...... I really dont mind.

Firstly I'll cover the points raised in 1-star feedback:

The fan only comes on when you turn it on, and lasts for about 4 seconds. Totally quiet after that.

There is indeed no male-female RF lead (required if you want to use your TV's own tuner). I reckon you can get one for about 99p in Wilkinsons.

The guide does take a while to load. Hard to put a distinct time on it as I tend to not scroll through to the next day, but I reckon under a minute for the current programmes and the rest is built up from there and takes a few more minutes. Guide is lost even when left on standby, but this may be a side offect of the low power consumption during standby (0.9W). At least you can watch TV and see whats on whilst the full guide is uploading. In my opinion low power in standy is more important than retaining the guide. Scheduled recordings still works in standby.


Timed recordings generally starts when the program does. I have found that I have might have lost the first few seconds of 1 or 2 programmes though.

OKay, so now my review. (I have had this 10 days so this is still work in progress)

The unit is brilliant, even does things that a Sky+ box doesn't such as picture in picture.
You can search for programmes, to see when they are on again if you've forgotten to record them. Searches all channels over the next week (and may be beyond).

Fairly straight forward to use.

No HMDI output, just Scart. So this doesn't 'upscale to 1080p', whatever that means. Well I think it means that if you had a HD TV then you wouldn't benefit from an enhanced picture. Possibly one to think about if you are buying a HD tv. If you wait a couple of years you could probably get an equivalent device that receives HD freeview anyway (which would be better than 'upscaling' current digital transmissions anyway).

I got a included a 5 year guarantee with mine (not an Amazon purchase) However, you should only anticipate electronics to last 2 years before they get outdated anyway. If I get 2 years use out of this I would consider it a good investment.

Buy it now.

**There is no USB slot. There appears to be some sort of mistake with the manufacturer's description on this site**

Update June 2009:
No real probs with this. Although about once a week it locks up, this can be resolved by turning off and on at the switch at the back (that old magic trick!), but I have also found that after leaving it for a minute and pressing off and on on the remote fixes it.
No big deal really. Just don't turn it off at the rear switch while it is recording, because the recording stops!
This is still a brilliant unit.

Update September 2009.
The unit is malfunctioning, the image is stretched and slightly distorted across the screen. Not really noticable until I get the guide up which then shows how its all distorted. I am not sure whether this is a one-off or what.

I bought my 9150T 2 days ago and was very disappointed with the noise of the fan but then I checked the Software Version in the Status option in the menu and found that my box had a version from Sept 08 installed.

After initial difficulty with the download Error E-HW encountered when downloading the software update, which I managed to resolve by following the instructions in the Humax website, I have now loaded the software version 1.00.14 Loader version a4.35 from 17 Dec 08 and the fan noise has totally vanished. It seems almost that the fan has been disabled - presumably that's technically OK to do - only time will tell.