Humax HDR-1100S 500 GB Freesat with Freetime HD TV Recorder - White

This is our third Box in 14 years. It works well and we tend to record a lot and watch later due to the time difference. We tend to fill up the box with a load of favorite films as they show up on TV. Over the years we accumulate a lot. Then it just stops and it seems there is no alternate but to buy a new box and start again. Subject to that we are very happy with the machine, simple to use easy to set up

I've been eyeing up this box for the last 18 months to replace my extortionate sky subscription. I've read the Amazon reviews again and again for reassurance! My father in law finally took the plunge a few weeks ago and since seeing his box up and running I've followed. The box takes seconds to set-up, the LAN and HDMI cables supplied are good quality which was a nice surprise. Yes the buttons around the circle in the middle of the remote make a small clicking sound which I only noticed due to it being mentioned on these reviews so much. The unit is much more compact than my old Sky HD box which is a positive and is finished in gloss black with a subtle blue light (on) and red light for standby. I like the guide, it's clean and easy to navigate, I also like the feature that prompts you on screen that you are watching a SD channel that is available in HD and with one click of OK it switches over for you. The best thing for me (and I saw it mentioned here a lot and hoped was true) - picture quality! HD channels are much more vibrant and sharper than Sky, I found it very noticeable (just remember to select 1080p if your TV supports it during the initial set-up, the box defaulted to 1080i despite my TV being 1080p). I can't comment on the catch up features as I use my PS4 for iplayer, All4, Amazon, Netflix etc. I'm now saving £40 a month which means the box pays for itself in under 6 months. Any 'must watch' Sky exclusives I might crave like Game of Thrones, Westworld can be viewed using a £7 a month Now TV pass. Sky TV is dead, this box makes the transition vey easy!

We bought this unit to replace an older Humax which had thrown the towel in. We live in France and enjoy UK television and radio so as far as we're concerned something like this is essential. The Humax arrived here in very short order which was great, especially as shipping the unit to France cost a mere 4.03 sovs - wonderful. First impressions were good as it is an elegant piece of kit and far smaller and neater than its predecessor. I could not believe how easy it was to install and set-up. I am no techie, so if I can do it, anyone can. Unlike the last model this one comes with a small user's guide which I imagine is to save Humax money printing what amounts to a paperback. Far better for them to get the purchaser to download something that size and pay for their own printing. We started using it immediately and soon encountered a problem as we were unable to find how to access radio programmes. It appears Humax think their customers only want to watch the box, but a call to Humax customers' services soon solved the problem. Setting it up to record couldn't be simpler which is an improvement. I appreciate this may sound picky, but we do miss the display on our old Humax which showed the channel or radio programme we were tuned in to, hence my four instead five star rating. This latest model seems to go into automatic power saving mode when not operating for a while which whilst laudable can be a bit of a pain, especially if the programme you want to watch is about to start, as it means you lose time firing it up again. When it's normally operating there is a blue light visible and when it's in standby mode this changes to a red light. However, often when operating and we're watching something the red light is glowing. Bizarre, but I did say I'm no techie. All in all we're delighted with our Humax and would certainly recommend it to anybody considering buying one.

I did a lot of research before buying this box, post Sky. I had reservations, based on the reviews but if you want freesat this is it (more on that later!). On the surface this is a great box. Sadly it is is totall unreliable, for the following reasons: - it frequently won't switch on, or rather will switch on for 1 second then switch itself off and on for 1 second in a never ending cycle. - it frequently won't record. No matter how much you push the record button nothing happens. It's normally ok within a couple of seconds, but around 25% of the time you get no recording message then have to go through the menu to recordings to verify it is not recording, go back to the tv hit record and start the whole verification process again. The only way to get it to record when it is being miffy is to switch it off and on. It will then either come on and record fine, or it will go into the on-off cycle above and you will have to switch it off and on several times before you can use the box at all, let alone record. - It frequently works in single channel mode. By this I mean you should be able to record one channel and watch another. Nope! You will be watching something when a single planned recording starts and you will get the message that you have to either watch the channel being recorded or cancel the recording. In short, this box goes down as my worst purchase of 2016. But here is my 2017 present to all you nice peeps - you don't need this box for freesat of you have one of a lot of smart TVs! I've recently caught on to the fact that record to USB is supported by a lot of smart TVs. I've contacted the major vendors with the following replies received to date: LG: all smart TVs Sony: model dependent Samsung: waiting for reply, but looks like it will be model dependent. So big thumbs up for LG for updating all their TVs to support this! I'm currently working out what new tv to get, but LGs support for this has put it top of my vendor list at the minute (and with it not being model dependent it means I can easily get something well within budget). So, in actual fact all you need is a smart tv with a freesat tuner built in and and a USB hard drive. It will only work with single channel (haven't seen any dual channel receivers on TVs) but you can set it to record series. This box is only operating in dual channel mode sporadically anyway. So my advice, if you are even thinking of getting yourself a new tv is to check that it supports USB record and put the money towards that (and the USB hard drive!) and don't waste your money on this piece of garbage. If you already have a smart tv check to see if USB record is supported and all you'll need is a hard drive :) I've no idea whether there will ever be a freesat 4K, but I'd be more hopeful of the tv vendors doing a firmware update to support it than Humax who will want to sell you another (awful) box. I can't wait to get a new smart tv, and am already getting excited at the thought of putting on the safety goggles and beating the **** out of this thing with a hammer!

mucho bueno