Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #171 in Consumer Electronics
• Brand: Humax
• Model: Foxsat HDR
• Released on: 2009-04-08

Manufacturer's Description
Enjoy hours of freesat HD and SD channel recording with the ability to simultaneously view of one channel and record another channel. The Foxsat box is easy to install and operate, with clear instructions and a full-colour high resolution electronic programme guide and audio description/One touch subtitling. Software is automatically upgraded via satellite and the built-in HDMI gives digital interface for perfect transmission of picture and sound.

Box Contains

Customer Reviews

Very good, some interface niggles
I waited for Sky to make upgrading to Sky+ reasonable but it was always a case of new customers only...

When my video went on the blink, thanks to my son, I decided to take the plunge and get rid of Sky.

To get this box working I needed a new cable which was about £90 - dual cables like Sky+ for this box . I live in a tenement block and there is no way I'm going up on the roof!

Availability was poor for this in early 2009, and I had to wait 3 weeks or so after ordering it from Comet, who for once were the easiest retailer to deal with - they didn't even push their warranty!

I've been very pleased with the box so far, the initial tune was easy, once I'd realised you put in the Post Code like you were using a mobile phone, the box seems to retune when there are new channels without you doing anything.

The recording is easy and very useful, much better than a Video Recorder and the picture quality is good. Channel selection is good, and I'm watching more Film 4 and BBC 3/4, the only channel I miss is Paramount Comedy and we mostly watched 'Sex and the City' reruns on that.

The only niggle is the remote, the controls are grouped strangely and the often used buttons are frequently smaller and harder to find than the obscure ones. Also you need to point the remote right at the box. On the plus side the remote has codes to be used for your TV and DVD players (it's a universal remote). They need to let an interface expert loose on it, either that or borrow as much as they can from the Sky remote, without getting sued!

In short well worth it, great to be shot of Sky and their money grabbing ways. If you're a big sports fan you may be stuck with Sky but otherwise come on in the water's fine.

Technologically excellent, but let down by design flaws.
Much of what I would have written here has already been said by other reviewers, so I'll keep this brief.

Good points about the product:

1. Outstanding picture quality, in both HD and SD.
2. Simple to set up. I just removed all the cables from the Sky+ box that I was replacing, plugged them all back into the Humax, ran autotune and it took less than 3 minutes to be up and running. Even though I live in London, by entering a Welsh postcode I was able to get the Welsh channels and regional variations at the top of the list.

Bad points about the product:

1. The menu interface is extremely unintuitive, and the manual is dreadful. I have had the box for a few days and have still not worked out how to store and access my favourite channels.
2. The remote control handset is ugly and user-unfriendly. The buttons are too small, there are too many of them and the layout is a puzzle. The buttons to start and stop recording are particularly small and hard to find.
3. The box takes a good 15-20 seconds to wake up from stand-by.

In summary, an excellent piece of technology let down only by poor design in its menus, software, manual and handset. I'm not sure it fully deserves its near-mythical reputation.

NB - Several sales assistants told me I would need to re-align my existing Sky dish, or get a completely new satellite dish, in order to watch TV via Freesat. That is absolutely not true. You can simply plug all your existing cables into this box.

About the remote control ....
The product itself is excellent and very easy to set up. At first the remote control was extremely difficult to use - then I discovered the 'second' piece of plastic protection tape on the front of the unit - the first is on the front of the drop-down cover but you then have to open the front cover and remove the second one. It was not obvious that it was there and I don't recall seeing this mentioned in the instructions.
However, even after that the remote control was a bit slow and not the easiest to use.
I have now bought a Logitech Harmony 525 remote control and that is fantastic.
The user guide could be improved by having an Index at the back and also more information about how to tune to the FTA (Free To Air) channels.
Notwithstanding my comments about the remote control, I have no hesitation in recommending the Foxsat HDR.