Humax PVRs

I have a rather lovely Humax PVR9300T, a digital video recorder that I bought a year or so back. Or, it was lovely, I should say. Just before Christmas, the box started to freeze. Rebooting it didn’t make a difference; it would play television for a minute or two before freezing again.

I figured this was all part of the failing IT saga (Macbook, Kindle, now PVR). But no.

It turns out that I’ve been using the Humax PVR all wrong. The firmware on the device hadn’t been updated since January 13 2010, and the old firmware is buggy. I had auto-update turned on, but apparently the automatic over-the-air firmware updates only run when the PVR is in standby mode, and I’ve never bothered to put it in standby.

So, if you have a Humax PVR, you need to:

• Check that you have the latest firmware (UPTTF1.00.26 from 7 July 2011, at time of writing)
• If not, ensure that automatic updates are enabled
• Make sure you put the device into standby mode when you are not using it, so that it can update.
• Alternatively, force a manual update when the OTA firmware is being broadcast.

And then, happy TV watching and recording!

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I hadn’t realised that these devices can do over-the-air updates, but I guess it’s a logical extension to the switch to digital. It’s quite cool to see the device pulling down an update without having to plug in a serial or network cable. At the same time, I’m a little disappointed that I don’t get to hook my laptop up to the PVR to flash the firmware and play geek. Maybe next time.

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Of course, if I were to buy a new PVR today, I’d be getting the Humax HDR-FOX T2 HD 1080p 500GB Recorder with Freeview HD which is all shiny and has HD in the name and so is clearly better. Guess I’ll have to ‘accidentally’ put a few thousand extra volts through my newly-fixed 9300