The reason, as ever, is money: even with twin Freeview HD tuners, a 500GB hard drive and some apps, the new DTR-2000T is £40 less than the 500GB YouView DTR-1010T. The lower price is due to Humax not using YouView’s software on the HDR-2000T, thus avoiding certain licence fees – primarily the use of Adobe’s Flash software for building apps.
Instead, Humax has created the software of the HDR-2000T using HTML5. However, we won’t see HTML5 versions of 4oD, ITV Player or even Lovefilm and Netflix any time soon. This is because, Humax claims, HTML5 is so new that it’s still learning how best to implement it.
There are currently only two truly useful apps: YouTube and BBC iPlayer. The HDR-2000T doesn’t have Wi-Fi built-in, so you’ll need to buy the USB Wi-Fi adapter or connect an Ethernet cable from your router to the box to use these services.
The small selection of apps is a shame, especially as what is available is very responsive and easy to use – much more so than the Flash-based equivalents on the DTR-T1010. The electronic program guide (EPG) is also well-designed. For example, it uses a large, easily read font to aid browsing and searching. Surprisingly, you can continue watching your current channel – even if you’ve paused it at any point – as you browse the EPG. If the one-line program description isn’t enough, pressing the ‘i’ button on the comfortable remote opens a full description in a delightfully large font.
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You can delete channels, reorder channels and, most usefully of all, add channels to a favourites list and then see only this list in the EPG. However, you can’t re-assign channel numbers for quick access from the remote, so you have to remember that BBC Two HD is channel 102 rather than move it to channel 2. At least a small notification appears if there’s ever the option of watching the same program in HD.
Annoyingly, once you switch the Humax HDR-2000T on it can’t automatically switch the input of your TV away from your Blu-ray player or other device as it doesn’t support the HDMI-CEC technology needed to do this. We were also irritated at having to format the hard drive before using the HDR-2000T for the first time, but this is a one-off annoyance.
Programme recordings are easy to manage. Whether you want to record just one program or a whole series, a few presses of the remote is all that’s required. You can also watch a programme that’s being recorded from the beginning, even if the recording hasn’t finished yet. Recordings are presented as a long alphabetical list, so it’s handy that you can organise them into folders to keep this list manageable. You can copy recordings to and from USB drives attached to the front port; our USB3 portable hard drive didn’t work, but our USB2 stick did.
VERDICT: An excellent channel guide, but the limited support for apps and constant remote-control swapping let it down
You can use a DLNA-compatible network media player – or even Windows Media Player on your PC – to watch standard-definition programmes stored on the HDR-2000T, but annoyingly not high-definition recordings. At least you can watch recordings even while someone else uses the [highlight] Humax HDR-2000T [/highlight] . We tried copying recordings to and from the HDR-2000T over our network using its FTP server feature, but found this fiddly and unreliable.
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As a DVR, the HDR-2000T is excellent. Humax’s YouView box is better though because it has all the catch-up services, apps to remotely schedule recordings and HDMI-CEC support to reduce the need for fiddling with remotes. Despite its more sluggish interface, the 500GB DTR-T1010 YouView box is easily worth the extra £40.
SPECIFICATIONS
500GB hard drive • 2x Freeview HD tuners • 1x HDMI • 1x Ethernet • 2x USB • 1x composite • 1x SCART •1x optical S/PDIF • 50x320x240mm • One-year warranty
