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

I am not particularly technical but I had this installed and in use in no time. Very easy to work and so useful! I'm already wondering how I lived my life without it. I was a bit hesistant about buying it because I do find all the different kit quite confusing but I have absolutely no regrets. And, maybe I'm not particularly sensitive to noise but I can't hear any background noise which is in the slightest bit intrusive.

Some PVR-9150T's are freezing/locking up/unresponsive since national retune. Humax are working on the issue with broadcasters. They say they are to release an OTA download in november '09 to correct the fault. The problem came about due to the retune which happened a few weeks ago. Contact humax on 0844 669 8800 for details. Other model affected seems to be the PVR-9300. Hope this helps.

After many many weeks of reading reviews on Amazon and other places i decided to plunge for the Humax PVR9150T. I really wanted the earlier model after reading 'it was perfect in every way' but could'nt seem to lay my hands on one, to be honest, it took me almost 2 months to lay my hands on the 9150T, nobody had them in stock. My Daughter phoned me one day from Tesco's in Stockport "Dad Dad !!! you'll never believe what ive just seen in Tesco's, that thing your after !! "Get me one quick".
Anyway she brought it down to mine and we set it up, it was so easy, plugged it in, it downloaded all the channels and the channel info and before you knew it we were watching tele through it.
Just One thing i missed out there...WHAT FAN NOISE ?? When we powered it up the most elegant, soft, little whisper of a fan was heard for approx 5-10 seconds then that went to silent, i never heard that soft little whisper again until i powered up the next day and again, for only 5-10 secs.
I just cant understand how some poeple think it sounds like "a hair dryer", Ridiculous.
I would recomend this machine to anybody, ive had no trouble with it at all, Especially the fan noise. The people that are having trouble should try an 'over the air' update, Humax give details about these on their web site.

I had deliberated over a few days whether to buy this recorder or not. I was unfortunate enough to have read most of the reviewers' criticism of this product. In the end I decided to go for it, inspite of the critisms.

I believe that this recorder is better than all the previous recorders I've had or ever used.

Critics have unfortunately failed to own up to the fact that their aerial signals and set-ups were below par! But I have found none of their failings in my experience of this product. This is indeed the best recorded in the lower price range in my opinion. Take it from me, I just happen to be very long in the tooth and have a great deal of experience with sound and audio equipment. Buy it - you'll not regret it!

Robert

GOOD POINTS
Very quite (virtually silent).
Unit looks nice.
Good picture quality (not quite as good as the Topfield in my opinion).
Responds quickly to remote control button presses.
Single aerial input socket (unlike Topfield where you have to use two aerial inputs).

BAD POINTS
Freezes - I used this for up to an hour a day for one week and it froze at least once on each occasion, requiring a reboot.
No USB connection - no way to archive recordings, other than recording them to a VHS or DVD recorder via the second Scart socket. Apparently, Humax could not get it the USB functions to work, so they simply removed the feature entirely.
No audio outputs - you cannot connect this to your sound system directly.
Very large remote control; useful buttons such as the TV/Radio button, screen ratio, picture-in-picture, etc are hidden under a slide-down panel (which extends beyond the bottom of the remote and is prime candidate for breakage if not closed after use).
EPG is reloaded every time the unit goes into standby (or crashes) and this takes around ten minutes to load.

MINOR POINTS
No printed manual (comes on CD as PDF).
Recordings have to be assessed by going into the MENU and selecting RECORDING, whereas Topfield has single button press (ARCHIVE). Actually playing a recording is quite an awkward process - you have to press EXIT to go out of the RECORDING section rather than PLAY.
When switching between TV/Radio, it returns to radio channel 700 (Radio 1) everytime, and not the station you were previously listening to.
No HDMI connection.
Could not record two consecutive programs on the same channel, despite having a twin-tuner. The program was listed in the Recordings screen but was not present. An error message stated it was unable to record because of a schedule clash.
When fast forwarding through a program, it will return to the very start of the recording after being paused, losing your place.

CONNECTIONS
Aerial (input and output for passing analogue signals through to your television)
Scart (two - output to TV and a recording device)
PC serial connection (one - for updating software; cannot be used to transfer programs)
There are no audio connections
There is no a USB connection