Humax Vs Sky+

knightstyle

almillar, I know that is what is meant to happen and it has worked twice BUT there is a glitch with the latest Humax boxes and all I get time after time is the "please wait........." window!!!!! As for using Sky plus we have had Freesat from Sky, paying £10 to work our old Sky plus box.
Now looking to see if I should buy another second hand Sky plus box or subscribe to Sky. For those interested here are my rough costings for two years:
Sky broadband, limited to 2gb a month, anytime calls, line rental and basic TV (free box)with Sky plus....£904(with £50 M&S vouchers)
Secondhand box (£50), Sky Freesat plus, Talk Talk broadband 40gb anytime calls and line rental....£775
Sky TV (free box) Talk Talk broadband and phone.......£970 (with £50 M&S vouchers)
The new Humax box plus Talk Talk was £710 by the way.

andrewjf

I thought the main selling point of the Humax was its ease of use. Should have got a Toppy + MyStuff UI Unbeatable IMO.

Idiophreak

I've seen this "please wait..." box a little recently - and my foxsat's 30 months old. I think that's just a passing glitch.

It really is the easiest thing to use, though...I wonder what you're trying to use it for that I don't...I think the favourites might be the issue - I never use the thing for browsing channels very much - I set programs to record, or watch recorded programs, basically....hardly ever do I watch anything live - why would you? So I've never needed the favourites (although I do remember trying to work them when I first got the thing).

knightstyle

andrewjf wrote: »

I thought the main selling point of the Humax was its ease of use. Should have got a Toppy + MyStuff UI Unbeatable IMO.

Yup, thats what I was lead to believe! Now know different.

Idiophreak Well I use favorites all the time, surely thats what its for? With Sky you just press the blue button repeatedly and the info. box scrolls through favorites with a guide as to whats on, when you see the one you want you press OK, Simple.

ukjoel

We had the same problem when we switched from sky to virgin a few years back so got sky back.

When I got the humax box we decided to persevere and now we like it.

I agree its not as quick and easy as the sky one but sky kept upping their bill each month and I wasnt going to spend £600 a year on something that sucked my life away.

Its scary how many hours you can kill watching them hunt for king crab in worlds deadliest catch, or admire the artistry of garvers latest dragon on miami ink.

Now we look through the paper on a saturday - record everything we want to see for the week and leave it to do its stuff. We watch far less TV, save lots of money, and its all good.

Humax also links into Iplayer which I dont think Sky can do.

Idiophreak

knightstyle wrote: »

Idiophreak Well I use favorites all the time, surely thats what its for? With Sky you just press the blue button repeatedly and the info. box scrolls through favorites with a guide as to whats on, when you see the one you want you press OK, Simple.

If you want to flick around, just change channel? I don't really find I need a list of favourites...The first 30 odd channels are good and the rest's pretty much rubbish, except for iPlayer on 901. Only takes 30 seconds to whizz through the channels that ever have anything worth watching on...Don't know how you could make it much quicker...

JCR1987

I hate the remote that comes with the Humax, the buttons are strangely laid out, especially when you've been used to a sky remote for 10 years. So, to counter this I bought a logitech universal remote (basic one is about £30) which is a relatively similar shape and layout to the sky remote, plus you can re-program where all your buttons go to make it easier. It sounds a little bit technical but it's really just a case of plugging your remote in to your laptop, allocating which buttons you want where and what they should do, and saving. Then, if you don't feel comfortable with the location of a particular function, just move it.

Another thing we did to make things a little easier is to buy some homeplugs to link our wireless router to the humax box. Also have linked a 250gb hard drive to it for accessing photos, videos, etc.

Idiophreak

JCR1987 wrote: »

I hate the remote that comes with the Humax, the buttons are strangely laid out, especially when you've been used to a sky remote for 10 years. So, to counter this I bought a logitech universal remote (basic one is about £30) which is a relatively similar shape and layout to the sky remote, plus you can re-program where all your buttons go to make it easier. It sounds a little bit technical but it's really just a case of plugging your remote in to your laptop, allocating which buttons you want where and what they should do, and saving. Then, if you don't feel comfortable with the location of a particular function, just move it.

Just for people who've never used a Foxsat reading this....again, I've never had any problems at all with the Foxsat remote...I use it for the TV, the Foxsat and my DVD player and it's pretty straightforward. There are the numbers, which are pretty standard - the coloured buttons, again fairly standard, then the directions and OK button...and a couple of buttons either side for guide / recordings. Then there are the "small print" buttons at the bottom, but hardly ever use any of them.

What is it you find strange?

JCR1987

Idiophreak wrote: »

What is it you find strange?

Well, on the Sky remote the number buttons are at the bottom, on the Humax remote they are at the top. On the Sky remote the play/pause buttons are on one button, on the Humax remote they are 2 separate buttons, the back button is different, the mute button is different, etc, etc.

On the Logitech the number buttons are in the same place as the Sky, the play/pause button is the same button and for any other button that I want to emulate my habitual use of the sky remote, I can move to wherever I want. As I recall I used to hold the sky remote by the bottom and usually just key in the numbers I wanted quickly, it's quite cumbersome to do this with the Humax remote. Also with play and pause being on the same button it makes it a lot easier to play and pause without accidentally hitting FFW or REW.

I'm not saying ditch your Humax remote if you like it, but for people converting from Sky to Humax like me (I love my Humax by the way), it makes it a little easier to transfer if you spend a few quid on a remote that feels somewhat familiar.

scotsbob

andrewjf wrote: »

I thought the main selling point of the Humax was its ease of use. Should have got a Toppy + MyStuff UI Unbeatable IMO.

I would agree, the dozens of Apps made it a pleasure to use and the upscaling was tremendous.

Sadly mine gave up the ghost last week and I have replaced it with a Digital Stream. Better than the Humax but not in the same league as Topfield.

I also find that when you ask the Humax brigade to tell you what they think makes their box better than others, they can't tell you because they are not aware of other brands. "Apps? You get Apps for PVRs?? LOL.