UPDATE: The Humax Freeview HD boxes use UPnP to access media over Wi-Fi, we’ve confirmed.
Humax has unveiled its first two Freeview HD boxes for next year, and we’ve got the skinny on them right here. Read on for the high deffy deets!
Freeview HD has just gone live in parts of the country, and to tie in with the roll out of the 720p broadcast service, Humax has outed a pair of new boxes to pick up that signal. First up is the Humax HD-FOX T2 Freeview HD box, out in the first quarter of next year, with auto detection to avoid retune hassles, HDTV reception and even upscaling to 1080p full HD at 50 Hz. It’ll also play media from an external hard drive or USB key, although it’s still to confirm precise file format support. You’ll also be able to record onto USB hard drives as well to save buying a full on PVR.
Humax makes Freeview retune pledge
Speaking of which, next up is the Humax DVB-T2 HD Freeview HD PVR, with a 500GB hard disk onboard to stash both HD and standard def shows, and the same USB playback, and 1080p upscaling, as well as wireless home network sharing – we’re chasing Humax now to confirm if this is via DLNA or UPnP. In time, Humax plans to make its Freeview HD boxes UPnP servers as well as clients, so that you could stream Freeview recordings to other Humax boxes in the house, but there’s no timeline just yet.
We’ve just been shown a brief demo of Freeview HD running on a T2, and while it was on a large projector in a darkened room, making picture quality difficult to assess, the new look EPG certainly is impressive. Humax’s layout is much more polished than before, and more importantly scrolling through channels is faster than we’ve ever seen its set top boxes handle.
Prices for both Humax Freeview HD boxes are still up in the air: a Humax spokesperson says the lower end T2 will retail for around £170, but we’ll bounce back with cost once it’s set in stone.
Out 2010 | £TBC | Humax
