Humax Boxes

Yes you can - you don't need to spend £300 though.

I bought a secondhand YouView box (a DTRT1000) off eBay for £35 a few months ago. which I've found very good and reliable.

It records two programmes at once whilst being able to watch a recording.

However, it does have a mysterious quirk. If I'm recording two non-HD channels, I cannot watch another live non-HD channel. But if I'm recording two HD channels, I can watch a third live HD channel at the same time.

I can't explain why this happens.

kwikbreaks wrote: »

In the digital TV world a TV programme doesn't occupy a full channel any more - it's just part of one. What were the old analogue channels carry quite a few digital channels and are called multiplexes.

See https://ukfree.tv/transmitters/multiplexes

If what you want to watch is being carried on one of the "channels" or multiplexes you are recording from or the two you are recording are carried on the same multiplex (quite likely for HD programmes) then you'll be able to watch the additional program.

That's interesting. Thanks for that.

kwikbreaks wrote: »

In the digital TV world a TV programme doesn't occupy a full channel any more - it's just part of one. What were the old analogue channels carry quite a few digital channels and are called multiplexes.

See https://ukfree.tv/transmitters/multiplexes

If what you want to watch is being carried on one of the "channels" or multiplexes you are recording from or the two you are recording are carried on the same multiplex (quite likely for HD programmes) then you'll be able to watch the additional program.

I've tried one of the older single-tuner humaxes (9100 was it ?). It definitely only allowed one recording (even though I knew about the multiplex stuff) - my guess is that it would have been too hard to explain to users why sometimes they can record one program, and sometimes two. So they just made the interface force a limit of a single recording (and you may or may not be able to watch a different channel at the same time).

In the same way, a dual-tuner (eg 9200) allows two recordings even though in principle more could be done concurrently.

(I now use tvheadend software on an rpi - it only has a single tuner, but will record as many multiplexed programs as I have asked for.)

kwikbreaks wrote: »

I've got an annoying bug on the cheap refurb freesat box I bought on eBay for my caravan.

Despite it having 2 tuners if you are watching something and a recording kicks off it puts up a warning message and eventually just changes channel to the one you are recording. You can then just change the channel back and it's fine. As a lot of refurbs on eBay are just customer returns I suspect this firmware bug explains why there were loads of these on eBay at the time I bought it.

That often means it's not getting a signal on one of the two coax inputs on the back of the box - have you checked the signal strength on both inputs? Cable integrity etc..?