Home > Consumer Reviews > Humax PVR9300T 320GB Twin Tuner, PVR

Having had a PVR 9200T for 18 Months I bought the new model as a second unit for the back room. After 1 hours use I packed it up and took it back for a refund. The hard disk / fan are just too noisey. I have instead bought a second 9200T which is still available from Humax Direct at £99. I am so surprised this new model has been released making as much noise as this.

I bought this Box 3 days ago and are so pleased with it have decided to add this review.
First of all I would like to say that I did allot of research before parting with my cash.. I always read these kind of reviews to give me an insight of what to expect.
Before purchasing this I made the mistake of buying a sony dvd recorder/pvr/freeview big mistake less said about that the better it went back the same day and I swapped it for this marvelous machine.

Picture:
Outstanding almost as clear as sky HD (I am not kidding) The built in up-scaling kit is perfect and does a fantastic job (this kind of technology is always tricky to get rite as many engineers will tell you)

User interface:
Pure genius and fantastic looking.
you'll learn how to use it in an afternoon (I did) it is very similar to SKY's interface but the Humax system makes sky look about 20 years old and cheap and nasty it is also noteably quicker than SKY, bringing up recording lists and info in a instant.
I used to have to wait for sky to catch up on many occasions.
I have not experienced any lag in loading up guides as some reviewers write
perhaps they have a signal issue?
The search feature is fantastic and finds things quickly (unlike sky)
I really like using it perhaps the death of a paper TV guide?
when choosing a program to rec it asks you if you want to rec the whole series of something without any non sense, just one click you don't have to wait for this (unlike sky)
another great feature of this box is: when you choose a prog to rec and it clashes with something else that you have already set to record. it cleverly looks for other times the prog is on and selects another time to rec it. it's just genius!
added with it's great looking interface, various picture on picture viewing modes and it's compact box it pisses all over sky in every way.

The Fan noise:
yes it's there but a small price to pay for what this piece of kit can do.
once you are using a decent sound system through the Humax's audio digital out, you won't notice it. Also I think you have to upreciate the upscaling uses allot of processing power and the fan is cooling the machine down to stop a thermal cut out. the machine is very compact and therefore has a very small fan. to composate for this it spins faster hence more fan noise it's previous older brother doesn't have the benefit of being compact, The box is bigger and therefore a bigger cooling fan inside witch doesn't need to spin as fast.
So Don't be put off by the noise You'll be enjoying this box too much to notice it. a real pleasure to use.

summary:
To sum up Humax have done a great job on this little baby it's well made and they have thought allot about how it will be used and what interfaces it should have.
With the addition of great features like
being able to use it as a radio without even turning your TV on.
and the smart slick user interface. you'll be grinning all over thanks to owning one
Top job Humax
Will certainly buy other Humax products in the future
Buy one you will love it.

My PVR arrived earlier than the original estimate, allowing me time to set it up and play with it over the weekend. Setup was simple and intuitive, but the main manual, for the more advanced features, is on a CD-ROM, which is just plain inconvenient. I didn't find the sliding panel on the remote control until I had looked at this on my PC.

I have a 720p HD TV, which is the max output from the Humax: maybe people with 1080i/p HD TVs will feel hard done by, but to be honest, it's still a very good picture, and big improvement on my previous Freeview tuners.

The EPG initally looks very basic, showing only 2 hours duration and about 5 or 6 channels at a time; but the keyword and category search functionality makes it one of the most useful systems I have used.

You can set up a favourites list, which you can arrange as you please, and I set it up to miss out all the TopUp, TV shopping, Quiz and kids' channels that we don't watch. Once set up and selected, that becomes the default list for both the EPG and the Channel List.

The Channel List allows you to quickly switch channels, if you know which one you want without having to refer to the EPG, but it ALSO has a pop-out panel that tells you what's currently showing on each channel as you browse up and down. If you're just looking for something to watch right now, that's probably quicker than the EPG. Excellent feature.

If the box has been on Standby, it takes a couple of minutes for the EPG to load, but that's the case with all set-top boxes. Just remember to fire it up before you start settling down to watch, and it'll be there ready for you.

But it's in the recording features that this machine stands out: it has a HUGE HDD, and the intelligent scheduling system is stunning.
It will:
- automatically adjust the recording time if any programme's broadcast scheduling is changed;
- warn you if a program is split around another one (e.g. a film split around the news) and automatically record both halves, missing out the intervening programme;
- if it misses a recording for any reason (e.g. a scheduling clash) it will automatically seek out another broadcast of the same programme and record that (this hasn't happened to me, but I assume it'll warn you that it's going to do so).
etc.

This review is getting too long so I'll end here, but in summary, this is top of the range kit at a very reasonable price.

Oh, and the fan is practically silent, so they've well and truely solved that issue!

I bought this machine after months of research. Just as i was about to buy the 9200, Humax seemed to answer my prayers by releasing a newer, smaller version with HDMI for the same price. I really really wanted to love it but when i got it set up i just couldn't.

My wife complained immediately that she couldn't hear the TV over the noise of the fan and although i tried to convince myself otherwise you can actually hear the fan from all over the house.

Additionally i've had problems with recording on my machine. In the first week 3 or 4 programmes only partially recorded (like 35 minutes of a film and 15 minutes of an hour long programme). Now i thought this might have been due to poor reception, but then when i recorded the F1 qualifying at the weekend i came back to find that while the machine told me it had recorded the whole 2 or so hours, it would only let me watch the last 15 minutes. I've read the manual front to back and i'm pretty sure it's not just me being stupid.

I wouldn't recommend buying this box and am sending mine back.

The courier is coming out to collect the box tomorrow and it looks like i'll have to start the search again...

Had this for 2 weeks now. Don't know why we didn't get one sooner. This is our first PVR so I can't judge its performance against others but I am very pleased with it. It can record 2 programs simultaneously and you can watch a third or watch a live program. You can't watch and record the same program unless you change to the TV channel. We have it set up on a Sony Bravia TV through the HDMI channel. The supplied HDMI cable links the TV to the PVR and an ordinary TV aerial links the TV to the output aerial socket on the PVR. The EPG takes about 5 minutes to load but I don't find this a problem because I can switch to the TV's EPG whilst waiting for it to load up. The unit was noisy at first but knowing this problem can be resolved by software I wasn't too concerned. An OTA download was recently broadcast and when I looked in the download menu the software was already there waiting to be installed. You need version 1.00.15.
I tried auto install at first and got the e-hw error code and another message warning that the antennae had short circuited! I ignored this and chose the manual option which went smoothly and took about 10 minutes. I haven't experienced any problems so far.
The PVR is so easy to operate. The series link is handy. It also has Fastext which is every bit as good as the TV's. I have experienced set top boxes and have not been impressed by their fastext facilities. The recordings have all been reliable. When the set was turned on for the first time the picture quality was brilliant for a few minutes. Now it's only slightly better than the TV's but it's still good. Pity it couldn't maintain the fantastic picture quality it started with.
The only gripe I would have is that you can't output any of the recordings to view on another TV set or a PC. I suppose if someone wanted to borrow a recording you would have to lend them the entire unit!
I think this is an amazing piece of technology but it's taking over my life because I've got to watch all the programs I've recorded!