HUMAX HDR-1100S 500 GB Freesat with Freetime HD TV Recorder - Black

Devices Direct are a very friendly and efficient company. The product is very well made but, on this occasion, did not suit my needs.I would definitely recommend Devices Direct.

I was looking for an alternative to SKY as i have been tired of spending excessive amounts of money whilst continually returning to watch ordinary free to watch channels and a small look back at my viewing habits showed that I was watching main stream channels more than any other so it was a "no brainer" get rid of SKY and buy a Humax box why? Well Humax seem to be the leader in this area of the market; you won’t find a more entertaining satellite experience without a subscription in my opinion. One great feature for me was the built-in wi-fi. That means on-demand content is more accessible but, more importantly it means you can connect to and stream from an external server. I chose: 500GB, but it is available in 1TB or 2TB of hard-disk space to store up to 1200 hours of standard-definition recordings, two satellite tuners, two USB ports and HDMI.Basic set-up, is easy and the Humax holds your hand, the electronic telly guide is not as fluid as others but is good and easy to learn, this box is a breeze to use. With more than 200 channels from which to choose the easy set up is especially helpful and the menus are colourful but remain simple and easily navigated, there is a Showcase section which advertises what you ought not to miss in the near future.Also you can get 7 days earlier TV too and whilst it can take a few seconds to load I have found it very useful when you miss something during the week.The catch-up services are good and FreeSat say they will grow in time. You have the usual access to BBC iPlayer, ITV Player(although not in Scotland), All 4 and Demand 5, plus YouTube, movies on demand from Curzon Home Cinema, Hopster and Netflix, as well as the ability to scroll back through the last seven days of shows on the EPG as I have said previously is a nice bonus. Setting a recording (you can record two shows at a time, or record one channel while watching another) is as simple as clicking on the show you want to watch and scrolling up through the options. OkayI have to admit it took five minutes to set up, it was that easy, the quality of the picture is excellent and the sound is good. I have already got Netflix and Amazon subscription services, therefore I can’t imagine why you’d want for anything else Goodbye blue SKY Goodbye.

I brought this product to replace Sky as I wasn’t watching anything other than the terrestrial channels and frankly Sky had annoyed me by refusing a discount to a loyal customer.I was put off by the price but reasoned that it would pay for itself in a few months by not paying for Sky tv.On the positive side. It records TV whilst you are able to watch another channel. You can pause live TV ( for 2 hours ). The picture quality is easily as good as Sky and the program guide is nearly as good as SkyOn the down side; Humax have done some really dumb things that would be easy to fix but they haven’t.Chief among these is the remote control. It has two modes TV and STB. STB is set top box and is used for Channel selection / recording etc. This is the mode you are in 95% of the time unless you want to turn the tv off.The thing Sky does that Humax doesn’t is it auto switches to STB mode when you press a button that is only relevant to STB such as record / TV guide / pause / play. With the Humax it just looks like it is not working ( because it is in TV mode not STB). I have read reviews where people are sending the boxes back because they think they are flaky. Humax are really being dumb here by not taking into account how people would use their product.Another idiosyncrasy is that they have an App Store that you would think you could get Netflix or Amazon Prime on. But noooo - it looks like it was knocked as a school kids project with apps that nobody would use - ever. And you can’t even download anything useful either. The really annoying part about this is you think it must be you doing something wrong because nobody would go to the trouble of creating an App Store and then put nothing on it. I mean what were you thinking Humax!The last annoyance is catch up tv. You can use iplayer and itv hub but you must watch it live. Sky would let you go to catch Up and then record to watch later.In summary then. It sounds like I’m dissing the Humax but it is a really good box. It is worth the money. Humax are 90% of the way to making this box a Sky killer but for some reason Refuse to land the killer blow.Come on Humax - all it would take is a software update!