Back in Australia I was an elite PVR user. After moving to the UK I regressed to novice level, but have slowly improved, and am now approaching my former status. Why was I forced into this time in the wilderness, and how did I regain my PVR fitness?Although both Australia and the UK use the DVB standard for distributing digital television they have settled on variants which differ sufficiently that a PVR from one country will not automatically work in the other. In particular, the UK did not start broadcasting terrestrial high definition until 2010, a full nine years after Australia. This allowed them to specify the usage of DVB-T2 rather than DVB-T, and MPEG4 instead of MPEG2. Amongst other improvements this means that high definition broadcasts of similar quality take half the bandwidth, and therefore half the PVR hard disk storage. However, it also brought about the need to have specific PVR models tailored for each country.
In theory UK PVRs should be more functional than Australian ones, because the free to air broadcasting body, Freeview, is much more customer-orientated than in Australia. The Australian Freeview logo is something to be avoided, as it denotes crippled PVRs which cannot skip advertisements or copy recordings onto external devices. In the UK Freeview is instead an indicator of functionality, with items such as accurate recording where the broadcaster transmits a signal to indicate the start and end of a program, so if a program runs over time you will not miss the end.
The one essential , though somewhat rare, feature I required was automatic scheduling based on keyword searches. The only well-supported feature-rich device that had this option was the outdated Humax HDR-Fox T2. The keyword searching is not built in, but the user community has some smart users who have managed to hack many great features such as this into it via the addition of a custom firmware. Unlike the Topfield, which has a full API available for users, the HDR-Fox T2 had to be cunningly prized open to reveal its innards. This has not allowed the UI to be modified at all, but an impressive collection of non-UI-related changes are possible.
The main differences between my fully-TAPped Australian Topfield PVR and my fully-customised UK Humax PVR are:
Topfield PVRt 7000+ with SmartEPG TAP
- can record 4 programmes at once (from 2 multiplexes) whilst watching another
- fully modifiable interface, including on-screen GUI and front-panel display
- extensive keyword search for automatic setting of recordings
- overlapping recordings on same channel
- internet connection only needed for easy updating of TAPs
HDR-Fox T2 with custom firmware
- can record 2 programmes at once whilst watching another
- Series Recording: based on identifier sent by broadcaster in EPG
- keyword search for automatic setting of recordings (internet required)
- remote setting of recordings (internet required)
- Accurate Recording, based on signal sent by broadcaster, eliminates the need for padding or overlapping recordings on the same channel
Out of the box the HDR-Fox T2 is significantly superior. The standard Topfield interface is quite clunky and doesn't offer series or keyword-based recording. Series recording is built into the Humax, and makes recording an entire series as easy as recording a single episode. Although the Humax has Accurate Recording to reduce the need to record as many overlapping programmes, if a programme does run overtime then you can still run out of tuners and thereby lose a recording. With padding you would be informed of this clash in advance, but the Humax will only pop up a box at the time this occurs, so if you are lucky enough to be watching TV at the time you will get a chance to indicate which programme you would like to lose.
When fully customised both boxes are similar. The Humax is stronger in remote scheduling, and Accurate Recording is an exceptionally useful feature. The Topfield has a fully-customisable interface, including the ability to set the front-panel to display exactly the information of interest to you, does not require an internet connection to be fully functional, and notifies of clashes in advance. Both machines are excellent.
Addendum: How does automatic scheduling from keywords work?
The Humax automatic scheduling is a little difficult to understand, so I'll explain its components.Firstly, I'll explore the straightforward operation of the Topfield with SmartEPG. In this you use your remote to set up some keyword searches, e.g. "Downton Abbey", and optionally specify the channel, minimum length of program and padding. Every morning the Toppy will wake and update its local copy of the EPG from the guide information being broadcast over the air. It'll look at the subsequent 7 days, and if it finds Downton Abbey in the listings it'll set a timer. On following days it will adjust the start and end times of this recording if the EPG times are altered.
For the Humax you firstly connect to an independent remote scheduling website on the internet. This is kindly provided by a third party (who accepts donations), and is accessible via mobile or other device from around the world. On this site you set up the keyword search, such as "Downton Abbey", and again optionally specify the channel to search. When your PVR is turned on, if it has internet connection with the remote scheduling custom firmware module installed, then every fifteen minutes it will connect to the remote scheduling website. This site amalgamates EPGs from Humax PVRs around the UK, and from this determines which programmes to be recorded for each connecting device. The device is told what programmes to be scheduled, but for technical reasons they will be pending in the schedule until the box has returned to standby and woken again. This all sounds a bit clunky, but in practice it actually works very well.