HD PVR
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1. Price 649 Humax 4tune HMS 1000T W PVE HOW TO MAKE A TUNE Humax calls the 4tune a Home Entertainment Server we call it a PVR with major benefits Either way it s a powerful and impressive performer ttempting to build the ultimate media recorder for the Australian market is a tough job Having delivered several highly capable recorders over the last couple of years Humax raised the bar as it prepared this 4tune HMS 1000T The Australian office leveraged its head office Korean development team and some of its successful European Humax models to deliver a recorder with four separate tuners a terabyte of storage and multiple expansion possibilities plus all the whizzbang networking and sharing tech the company could conceive It can stream live TV and recordings to smartphones and tablets it can play from files stored on your network it has a whole suite of apps to achieve clever stuff Meanwhile the Australian TV networks were promising that data for the latest HbbTV technology would be up and running well in time for the 4tune s intended launch date so Humax built that into the spec as well This proved rather too brave a decision HbbTV is the technology behind the clever new Freeview Plus merged EPG and catch up guide see also p8 But its preparation hit difficulties and as the launch of FreeviewPlus was repeatedly delayed the 4tune s launch had to be delayed with it Even onc2. with any potentially confusing setting well explained in a side note So under File Share Download it offers the explanation that When Download Folder is set to Enable you can copy the video music and photo files from the PC to the download folder in the internal HDD It introduces new functions to you as you browse the menus and this is all backed up by a proper User s Guide in the box Top work this Once set up there s a nice video onboard to walk you through the 4tune s main functions It s a good summary so let s go through these abilities as presented and see how well they ve been implemented Quad tuner record four watch three Televisions have only one tuner with a few exceptions Personal video recorders usually have two so you can record two shows at once while watching a third Some can record more than two because if you point one tuner at say ABC it is also receiving ABC2 3 and 24 at the same time so it can record all those without needing another tuner But this Humax has four separate tuners so any four shows can be recorded at the same time Should you manage to create a conflict this is clearly displayed and easily resolved And there s still sufficient read write speed to the HDD that you can also play back a recording at the same time Of course there are also all the usual PVR functions for pausing live TV timeshifting and excellent ad skipping The skip button
3. Freeview Conventional FF and RW are available in six steps up to 64x There doesn t appear to be a frame advance or slo mo option in either direction Multiscreen share to any device Then there s the ability to stream two separate channels to smart devices on the network tablets or smart phones To investigate this we downloaded not one but three dedicated iPad apps Live TV Media Player and Remote and also set up an account at Myhumax net in order to ensure the 4tune was properly linked to these which was one of the recurring glitches during our time with the 4tune the apps wouldn t always see the 4tune if HbbTV was enabled The three apps all inter relate internally so that a single app with three internal options might have been just as easy but they worked reliably and intuitively for us The Live TV app presents a channel list and full screen live free to air telly sent across the network from the Humax to our iPad It The 4tune can also send its audio output via Bluetooth to say a wireless speaker or soundbar Humax offers the slim Blade soundbar which we reviewed in our Aug Sep issue At back left is the flying mains cable and a hard on off switch useful to remember should you ever need to reboot looked perfect on the tablet sound was always in sync and offered a great way to watch in bed or have sport running on a second screen With this available you might
4. or by day of the week the obvious omission here is an alphabetical listing since once we had bitten deeply into that terabyte of storage it could take a while to find a show or tell one episode from another A small design glitch seems to occur where multiple episodes of a single show have been recorded a number in brackets after the title indicates how many but when selected only the most recently recorded show is displayed with the other episodes hidden away up a side menu Judging Amy Ths Trapped Eve Parliamend Question Time Houde Schedule from anywhere You can use the app at home to schedule but you can do this from anywhere by logging on to myHumax net where the guide is equally easy to use Remember though there s a time lag getting the information back home you can set the frequency of communication in options but it may not make it through if you remotely set a recording to fire in five minutes time Mobile as touchscreen remote The second app is TV Remote which is simply a touchscreen layout of the same buttons as the physical remote with simple and full versions top right It has the merit of not clicking when you press it whereas the nine navigation keys of Humax s otherwise excellent remote still click annoyingly though better than the remote for the 7510T where almost all the keys clicked Using the app circumvents the clicking It is also very useful i
5. SOUND 34 MAGE The 4tune HMS 1000T follows the same beautiful front panel design as the company s Sound Image award winning HDR 7510T with a central control circle and touch sensitive power button flanking a clear panel slightly golden on this model a champagne finish as Humax calls it behind which the 10 digit white LED display seems to float as it delivers either the time when in standby or the channel and other contextual information when it s in use A flap on the front right drops to give access to USB and SD card slots plus the user removable hard drive cartridge middle image This is additional space to the internal 1TB drive allowing you to insert a 2 5 inch drive Humax recommends Seagate certified models Humax itself uses video spec drives designed for 24 7 recording and heavy duty work But don t preload your drive with files as the Humax will format it on insertion Still further external hard drives can be added to either front or back USB slot up to 1TB in size Also around the back are the fairly simple set of signal connections bottom image antenna in and out HDMI out Ethernet for networking it also has built in Wi Fi if no Ethernet link is available plus audio on analogue RCA sockets or as an optical output and reverse skip can be customised we set forward skip to one minute reverse to 15 seconds and were able to bypass ad breaks accurately in a second or two Take that
6. even decide to do away with smaller TVs in some rooms Recording direct from EPG Even better you can schedule recordings or shows and whole series from your tablet indeed the tablet based guide is by far the best way to check upcoming programing and set recordings The guide on the Humax 4tune itself is well designed but it displays only five channels at once and gives each show a good chunk of screen estate so that moving forward in time from say noon to 7 30pm might need 20 clicks of the remote control Dont hold down the button or youre whizzed onto another screen showing the days of the week so you can rapidly access a different day it s usable and attractive but not close to the ease of use of the app where you can sweep around all the channels and use a slider to fly through time screen ahove right Just tap a show to record it or the whole series All EPGs should be like this For rapid recording of a show already running however just hit the Record button on the physical remote and hit it again if you want to edit the recording length on the fly All our recordings fired accurately whether made on the spot or remotely scheduled and always with the universal padding we had applied of five minutes before and 20 minutes afterwards 20 minutes is the fairly conserva tive maximum allowed When you access the list of Recordings they are offered in three orders by date recorded by channel
7. 0i p INTERNAL HDD 1TB INPUTS USB 2 0 x 2 SD card Ethernet antenna OUTPUTS HDMI optical digital audio composite video RCA stereo audio antenna loop out DIMENSIONS whd 385 x 58 x 257mm WEIGHT WITH STAND 3 65kg CONTACT Humax Australia TELEPHONE 1300 737 937 WEB www humax com au SOUND IMAG 99 WP
8. e the new service was officially onair as of 2nd September all sorts ofspurious data were coming from some of the broad casters causing problems for supposedly compatible receiving hardware For example a shiny 4K TV we had on review started locking up for 30 seconds every time it started as it tried to interpret this strange FreeviewPlus infor mation For the first week of FreeviewPlus Humax s 4tune also exhibited some strange behaviour and Humax Australia advised us to temporarily disable FreeviewPlus while testing the rest of the machine But that would hardly have been a fair review We preferred to wait A little over a week later we tried every thing that had previously been going wrong and everything worked so that we could enjoy the full powers of the 4tune It s a powerful and versatile machine which Humax is keen to call a Home Entertainment Server But we don t think most consumers will understand what that means The User s Manual gets it right calling it an HD Digital Recorder A four tuner recorder indeed capable of recording four different networks at once while also streaming two channels to other devices like iPads and playing a recording at the same time But we can see why Humax wants to call it something more because there really are a whole lotta extras here EQUIPMENT Firstly note that this is not a FreeviewPlus certified machine It s actually better than that While we li
9. g of recordings extremely easy left while the Remote app above offers touchscreen control of all functions to investigate some of which will require you to visit myHumax net How much you use this section will depend on your viewing habits and on whether you already have a smart TV CONCLUSION While Humax calls it a Home Entertainment Server we call the 4tune a PVR with benefits At its heart is the grand ability to record from four tuners simultanously to serve those recordings and live TV to smartphones tablets and PCs anywhere on your network and to be able to schedule recordings from a guide on your smart device or from any computer in the world via myHumax net Its FreeviewPlus compatibility brings catch up TV into full integration with the main programme guide and counts as a brilliant addition assuming the broadcasters have now learnt how to do it correctly Icing on the cake runs to everything from extensive media capabilities the ability to serving audio via Bluetooth and even a cool and groovy screensaver Such a media marvel offers enormous versatility and we are delighted to recommend it highly Jez Ford Humax 4tune HMS 1000T personal video recorder Price 649 Powerful record four stream two watch one abilities e FreeviewPlus compatible e Streams to tablet e Easy storage expansion NJ e FreeviewPlus glitches at launch TESTED WITH Firmware AUTFAC 1 00 25 OUTPUT 576i p 720p 108
10. ke the FreeviewPlus guide very much the Freeview consortium a grouping of nearly all the free to air broadcasters has confirmed to us that it still insists that any equipment carrying actual FreeviewPlus certification must be technically hobbled to remove any ad skipping abilities and for any recordings to be encrypted to prevent export and replay on other devices So the best FreeviewPlus device may be perversely one that is compatible with FreeviewPlus but not certified for FreeviewPlus And that s exactly where the 4tune sits SOUND IMAGeI 93 INS amp OUTS PERFORMANCE The 4tune s first delight is the excellent design of its start up menus and the quality of the wizard that walks you through it all Clear tasteful and educational this gets you under way fast and even explains the new TV guide and other features while you re waiting through the tune in process an excellent use of normally dead time as you watch the channels being picked up Various options are presented for your selection and each is clearly explained Opt in or out of reporting your usage back to Humax this is a company that takes user feedback very seriously decide whether to have power saving on or off in order to radically cut the unit s boot time the 4tune takes an impressive quarter of the time taken by the company s HDR 7510T to get a picture on the screen from standby The settings menus are similarly friendly
11. ndeed for text entry when required since the alternative is an onscreen keyboard Text entry worked with all Humax functions but not with every one of the unit s smart TV apps The Biggest Loser Australia Th The Me Arthur Canc a The PRCA Fe 79082004 i saree Sm 31 oe E Mon 11 06 2008 j Tia 02 00 2004 Weed 13 09 2004 m Ej amoni arg bape tox 00T Micha are 1H SBA a a a F Eee h a 1 2 a x wl s a i a le al 5 6 i s 7 a 4 a E C nt amp ct WE on gt g l m lio E amaaan i irrg boar tor HIVE DOOOT Micha Server 1 SEB IP Attemoon Lir Media Player The third app is Media Player and this is where the Humax moves beyond the usual abilities of a PVR With this app connected to the Humax you can see all your recordings and play them on tablet or smartphone anywhere on your network You can also then throw them to any DLNA receiving device tapping the Share button gave us the option of sending a recording of Mork e Mindy to our Sony TV to an Oppo Blu ray player or back to the Humax simply by dragging and dropping the show onto the chosen device icon Throwing the recording like this doesn t follow your current position but restarts the recording on the new device Other DLNA shares on your network are also shown on the app enabling you to throw them And other third party apps can also play the Humax s recordings Goodplayer
12. proved very effective Recordings are also served up by the Humax via either or both Samba and FTP so your PC can see them all in Windows Media Player or can drag them across to be backed up or used elsewhere Recordings are in ts format and are not encrypted There is also a Media Player section under the Home key of the Humax itself This shows recently played recordings but also any available network shares navigating by video photo or music On our network it showed multiple Samba shares of some NAS drives and had trouble playing files on there Humax suggested issues with our several network switches but these have only once before ever caused an issue for other players PC shares from Library folders worked well with photo display looking good though the slideshow was a bit frenetic more time in transition than showing the image and refusing images over 3300 x 2500 pixels in resolution TV apps If you don t already have a smart TV then Humax s set of TV Apps offer you much of the same kind of online content plus social apps Our first stop here is usually to count how many catch up channels are available e g ABC iView 7Plus etc but with FreeviewPlus those are now all present delivered through the HbbTV interface The TV apps add SMH TV excellent programming especially for documentaries YouTube Quickflix subscription Aupeo mood radio and lots of other games and bits The Humax apps made schedulin
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