IFA Humax will release its awaited Freesat HD-ready DVR toward the end of the year, the company promised at IFA in Berlin today.

The manufacturer was said to be working on such as system way back in May, when the free-to-air satellite TV service launched. Freesat staffers said the first DVR would debut the following summer.

Humax Chief Technologist Bob Hannent was adamant that Humax never announced such a schedule, but he did tell Register Hardware today that the box will hit stores by the end of the year.

Humax Freesat HD DVR: out by the end of the year

In time for Christmas, we hope, though Hannent wouldn't go that far.

Whenever it arrives, it'll pack a pair of tuners for simultaneous viewing and recording, programmes being stored on the unit's 320GB hard drive.

It supports HD and standard definition broadcasts in the MPEG 2 and MPEG 4 AVC/H.264 formats, and is compatible with both the DVB-S and DVB-S2 satellite transmission standards. It has HDMI output and will upscale SD content to HD.

Humax also used IFA to demo its upcoming - "We're not saying when," said a circumspect Hannent - IPTV box designed to tie into a home's own DLNA-connected media sources and to online content like YouTube and Flickr.

IFA 2008 complete coverage