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Humax HDR-Fox T2 Freeview HD DVR

The telly addicts' new best friend?

Review From a fairly slow start, the number of Freeview HD recorders is growing quite quickly; but the Humax has been one that many people have been waiting for. The company has a pretty good pedigree with DVRs for other services, and expectations have been quite high for the HDR Fox T2.

Humax HDR-Fox T2 Freeview HD recorder

Humax's HDR-Fox T2: a week's worth of telly in a box

It’s a fairly large unit – standard hi-fi component width, with a front panel that has a big power switch, dot-matrix display and buttons for channel and volume. On the rear there’s a Scart, analogue audio in, composite video, HDMI, Ethernet, optical output, aerial input and output plus a CI+ bay. The hard drive is 500GB, which is sufficient for around 120-160 hours of HD content.

The remote is a fairly substantial affair. If you’re used to the Humax Foxsat HDR remote, initially you’ll find it infuriating, as the ‘i’ key has moved position. However, it can also be programmed to operate three other devices; there’s a list of codes in the back of the manual. All the buttons are a decent size, and it’s feels comfortable in the hand.

Of note is the ‘TV Portal’ button which doesn’t do anything yet, but will give access to an on-line video portal later this year, due to include SkyPlayer and perhaps other services too.

The meat of this machine, though, is Freeview HD. Setup is straightforward and simple, the box auto-tuning and finding all the channels without any problems. Picture quality is extremely good, on both SD and HD channels. Standard def looks about as good as it’s going to get and HD includes full transcoding to Dolby Digital 5.1, making this only the second Freeview DVR I’ve seen that gives you surround sound when it’s broadcast.

Humax HDR-Fox T2 Freeview HD recorder

The remote can be programmed to control TV, DVD and your AV system too

As you’d expect, there are the usual playback features, such as being able to skip forward and backwards by a definable amount, perfect for skipping over adverts.

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