Loading ...May 07 2008
The Humax Freesat HD Receiver (FOXSATHD) is back in stock as we said yesterday. Those that managed to purchase in the small window of opportunity yesterday have received confirmation of order emails, and further clarification from Comet that deliveries will take place as planned, so this is probably the only opportunity you’ll have to order the Humax for delivery this week.
Visit Comet’ website to buy the Humax HD Receiver (FOXSATHD) for only £149.99.
Note – Whilst it says on Comet’ website that you must choose an installation package, you don’t have to, just add the receiver to your basket and checkout, it works!!!
(edit 11:58 – Comet is now showing this product as ‘collect in store’ only. You can still do via the link above)
May 7th, 2008 at 8:09 am
Hmm, notice the text though on the Comet website:
Get digital TV including high definition (HD) broadcasts for a one off payment with this Humax freesat box. In order to use this box YOU WILL NEED to have a satellite dish installed on your property. Please select the installation that suits…
That implies to me that they’re not going to sell you one unless you buy the installation from them.
If that’s not what they’re saying, then they may want to reword that part, as it could be misleading to many people.
May 7th, 2008 at 8:15 am
Matt – It also says it doesn’t have a digital tuner and is for Freeview, but we know its the right box
You can buy without installation, we’ve had many visitors do so and confirm all is ok.
May 7th, 2008 at 8:22 am
Just bought one, got AM delivery on Friday and no forced installation. Went into my local Comet yesterday and they were getting to in stock on Friday, but said the warehouse was showing a shed load. All the literature in store implies you HAVE to have installation, but I think this is aimed at people who need it. Having worked in ‘electricals’ (as Comet have tried to brand it) retail for 7 years I would put my house (ok maybe not my house, but maybe my wife) that the only training the staff have had is a read of the leaflet (hence they think you have to have installation with it). I also went into Currys who said they would be getting 1000 in very soon and that they don’t know if they are meant to tell people but it is going to be HD as well (you have to laugh))!!
Anyway winner for me, thanks to joinfreesat for the tip off (use the link on tour site, so hopefully you have had the good sense to set it up as an affiliate link).
May 7th, 2008 at 8:40 am
Just ordered one using “collect in store” – so hopefully I will be lucky!
Yeah thanks joinfreesat – genius!
May 7th, 2008 at 8:56 am
Really quick question here…
I currently subscribe to Sky+. I will probably cancel once my 12 m subscription ends. In the meantime, I want to have a look at freesat using a HD set top box.
Can I use a LNB splitter to feed both my Sky+ (still using it as a PVR), AND the Humax HD box?
Obviously I would still use scart to connect Sky+ to the TV, but would use an HDMI cable to connect the Humax to my HD-ready 1080 TV.
May 7th, 2008 at 9:03 am
Mark – that will be fine, just run an additional cable from your LNB to the freesat receiver, plug in to your television via HDMI and enjoy.
May 7th, 2008 at 9:51 am
Has anyone managed to purchase a SD box yet. They don’t seem to be available anywhere!
May 7th, 2008 at 10:09 am
Ordered at 8.30am and it seems to have gone through, but the site now says out of stock for delivery in my area…
May 7th, 2008 at 11:04 am
No one were i live (worthing) is selling a freesat hd or sd box.
May 7th, 2008 at 11:38 am
they will in stock ( the worthing shop) from 9th may
May 7th, 2008 at 11:48 am
I went into comet in Bury St Edmunds and have ordered the humax hd no mention of the dish install (because I think they had no idea what they were selling me) but the recipt is right and it will be in on monday morning (hopefully)
May 7th, 2008 at 2:40 pm
I got one to day at the Rochdale store, they also have them at Oldham.
Just did an online search of all the local stores on the Comet web site.
Installed and working great
May 7th, 2008 at 4:16 pm
I went into the Burton On Trent Store about an hour ago after reserving online and manage to get the Humax HD receiver. No mention of installation when collecting although they did their best to sell me extended waranties and expensive HDMI cables. Then within 20 mins of getting home I got a call from them saying I need to purchase installation to get it working Told them no thank you, I have an old Sky dish I will use!!
May 7th, 2008 at 4:18 pm
One or thing, it is worth trying the comet website several times a day, I tried a lunch time and they said no stock, 2 hours later and 2 stores near me both had stock!
May 7th, 2008 at 4:51 pm
Just picked mine up from Comet at Trafford. They were going to try and sell me an installation, then I heard the manager talking about it and how they’d misread the info. He said that as long as you have an existing dish capable of receiving Sky you’re OK.
They tried to flog me an £80 or a £40 HDMI lead, which I refused. Gave me some tosh about it being much better. I didn’t realise that it comes with one, so if you’re thinking of buying one, there’s no need.
One thing that’s frustrating me though (and it could be that I’ve missed something…) even though I’ve put my postcode in, it still wants to give me BBC1 London. I’m in BBC Northwest area. Any other way to change that?
May 7th, 2008 at 10:22 pm
Girl in local Rugby Comet no help at all when I called in after work today!
However did walk away with a leaflet that answers Matts question:
Footnote at bottom of page 4 of Comet’s leaflet states “Please note that you will not be able to receive regional variations of TV programming until later in the year”
How much later in the year is unclear – I can live with this but not the fact that I can’t get hold of relevant digibox anywhere locally!
Launch seems to be as well-handled as Heathrow T5…
May 8th, 2008 at 7:25 am
Picked mine up last night . All working well. On the phone they said I would have no warranty unless I paid them to put up dish. No mention of it in the store though.
There is a general problem with all Humax boxes though. They do not show British Summer time, only GMT. see
http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=792536
May 8th, 2008 at 7:25 am
Freesat may not have regions just yet but if you do a manual tune it picks up about another 400 stations from the Astra satellite.
You can then watch any region you wish on BBC or ITV.
May 8th, 2008 at 7:42 am
I managed to buy one in Comet on Wednesday. The first sales guy that I spoke to insisted that I had to buy installation. When I told him that I already had a dish working well with Sky, plus a cheap digital receiver for FTA stuff, he told me that it would not work with Freesat as the “LNB would need changing”. No questions as to what type of LNB I already had just a blanket statement. He was quite insistent, in the end I waited until he was involved with another customer and got one of the other guys to get me one from the warehouse. I haven’t had chance to prove him wrong as I am currently working away from home. Can anyone out there confirm this LNB statement or is it as I suspect just blatant lies in order to get more commission on an installation package.
May 8th, 2008 at 8:11 am
DaveS: – it’s a lie. I have a dish that was working with Sky (I originally got it for the Freesat from sky package, along with a Sky receiver from eBay). I never used the package so it’s all sat in the cupboard – but the dish is obviously still on the wall.
Installed my freesat last night using the Sky dish and all is well. There are a couple of channels that I can’t receive (mainly some of the kids stuff like Tiny Pop – can’t remember if that was with a freesat scan or a general scan though!), but I suspect that that’s because of some dodgy cabling on the inside that I’m going to rectify or that there might be a tree swaying in and out of my line of sight and it’s a weaker signal).
Either way, yes you can use a standard Sky dish. Reading between the lines, and from what’s been posted on here before, I think they’d prefer you had a larger one for future-proofing, but I guess we can address that as and when it becomes necessary.
As for the time issue, Sparky, I leave mine on standby at night, but I’ve set the power saver, so it only shows a red LED and no time (we have about 5 other devices all showing the time that I can’t hide!). That way it won’t annoy me
When it boots up in the morning it comes on and the OSD shows an hour early, but then it updates itself after about 5 seconds.
Chris – thanks for pointing that out – Glad to see they’re going to address it. In the meantime what I did was exactly as you say and performed a standard (non-freesat) scan to get BBC1 NW.
May 8th, 2008 at 8:13 am
Oh, forgot to ask… Has anyone noticed that the audio on the BBC HD service gives off a crackling sound when set to the Digital audio option (I think it’s the default). If I turn it to Stereo L/R then it disappears.
I thought it may be a fault with the box or even the TV, so as I had a default scan, I tuned into Luxe HD and the audio there was perfect on the same setting.
Can anyone else confirm this?
Thanks.
May 8th, 2008 at 8:48 am
I walked into my local Comet last night and just bought a Humax HD box.
The staff still didn’t really know what it was and they didn’t try to sell me installation. In fact all they did offer me was a SCART lead, despite there being one in the box!
May 8th, 2008 at 1:18 pm
Has anyone tried to get Comet to install a dish yet? I have booked an installation and they don’t seem to know what to do about it!!
May 8th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
just got mine delivered to work comes with both scart and hdmi. thought it was a bit of a cheek that comet just slap a sticker on the box. Didnt even put it in a courier bag. ow well, cant wait for the day to be over so i can have a play. my dish is left over from the previous owners, hope it works. ive had to get a couple of diplexers to get both the arial and sat signal down the same wire. dos anybody now if this works or is there loads of interference.
May 8th, 2008 at 9:09 pm
Do you know if you have to reposition the dish to a different satellite?
May 8th, 2008 at 10:08 pm
Mister – If your dish is presently aligned to Astra2 on heading 28.2E (used by Sky) then no, you will not have to reposition the dish.
May 10th, 2008 at 3:09 pm
Comet website continues to state Humax HD not available to ‘click and collect’ in store in Rugby, Coventry or Northampton (or anywhere else I checked).
However took note of the following comment on their website.
Note: Stores marked “Collect from store not available” may still have stock, but due to high demand we are unable to reserve it for you. Please visit your local store for full details of stock or alternative products.
Just driven to their Rugby store and asked when they are realistically going to be available to buy in the Midlands.
Friendly girl (wilting in the heat…) said she’d check for me.
“We have them in stock now, sir, would you like one?”
Five minutes later and I was driving home with one of the ‘elusive’ digital boxes.
Moral of the story – don’t waste hours on the Comet webpage – just drive to your local store and you must just find they are actually in stock after all!
May 10th, 2008 at 9:11 pm
I had a sky HD box and dish installed a few months ago .. My question is .. can i just simply remove one of the 2 connections from the skyhd box and connect it to the freesat hd box . Would this work and enable me to get the freesat service and ALL the available freesat channels for free ??
May 10th, 2008 at 11:52 pm
Got my hands on a Humax HD Freesat box this afternoon. Local (Rugby) Comet had them for sale despite their website telling me that they were not available to reserve for store collection.
Very happy indeed with purchase!
Installation was insanely simple: plugged in existing infeed from old Sky dish, and (included) HDMI cable to television. Then plugged into the mains and switched on and hoped for the best!
Had to wait a few minutes while the system automatically updated itself to latest firmware version. Then told it to search for all available channels (ie not just the freesat ones).
Good picture and sound on all channels.
The free BBC HD looked very good. Found that Luxe TV (channel 5373) is also a free HD service.
An unexpected bonus was to find Sky News was still available (via channel 5302) albeit with apparent loss of ‘red button’ functionality.
The Humax box comes complete with optical (Spdif) audio output. Sadly my new Philips surround sound system didn’t offer this as an input – so connected it via alternative analogue cables and this worked a treat.
I had three main queries before purchasing:
1) How do I get one – easier than it would appear – just go into a store and ask for one rather than believing the non-availability stories!
2) Will it work with my old satellite dish? If it picked up Sky then it will work perfectly.
3) Can I connect it to a surround sound system?- yes that seems to work very well too.
In summary, this was the simplest piece of ‘consumer electronics’ I’ve ever installed. If you can get hold of one (not as hard as it first appears…), I’m sure you won’t be disappointed.
May 11th, 2008 at 10:02 am
I am looking to buy the Humax box, I presume it’s better than the Bush or Goodmans equivalents?
My only question is, I live in a flat which has apparently been set up to receive Sky, there are sockets for it on the wall, but we haven’t used it in our flat as yet. Would I need any installation or should I just be able to plug it into those sockets for it to work? Also, does the box come with the LNB cable to connect it to the sockets or will I have to buy it separately?
May 11th, 2008 at 10:27 am
Just one more question .. are all the channels on Freesat broadcast in HD or is it only some of the channels ?
May 11th, 2008 at 5:35 pm
Dave: I can’t comment on whether the Humax box is better than the Bush or Goodmans equivalent. However, I am very happy with the Humax and not sure if the other models you mention are actually available at present.
The Humax box comes complete with a generous amount of cables – RCA, Scart and HDMI. You would need to purchase an additional cable to connect your wall socket to the LNB In socket on the box. Assuming the cable from your wall socket is connected to an old Sky dish you should not need to pay for a new installation.
Blue UK: No – only really the BBC HD service at present, with an ITV HD service promised later in the year. Non-HD picture quality on other channels
is superior to analogue on terrestrial tv though!
After 24 hours ‘playing’ with my new ‘toy’, I have switched it back to ‘freesat’ mode as EPG facilities etc don’t work too well in ‘non-freesat’ mode.
Hope this helps.
May 14th, 2008 at 11:16 pm
I have a 80cm dish complete with lnb plus cable connected to an old analogue Nokia box,watching mostly foreign channels from the satellite Sky used to broadcast their analogue programmes.
If i re-aligned this dish towards Astra 28.2 and connected to the Humax freesat box,would i be able to tune into all the freesat channels?
May 15th, 2008 at 8:44 am
I have just bought Humax Foxsat HD. I am puzzled that I am not receiving Chan 5 on 105 of the EPG. Is it not on freesat yet?
May 15th, 2008 at 9:01 am
John – not yet, Five are currently in contract agreement with Sky, and whilst its hoped Five is available on Freesat soon, they don’t seem to be showing any signs of interest!
May 16th, 2008 at 5:01 pm
I got my freesat box today from Currys. It was the last one in stock! The guy was pushing for installation and insurance but I said no. Bought an LNB cable from Argos next door, got home, plugged all the cables in, and installed! Easy as that
Thanks for your help Chris
May 19th, 2008 at 5:47 pm
Can you tell me whether I can receive BBC 1 North West on Freesat. There seem to be all the regions but mine – I am near Liverpool
Thanks
May 19th, 2008 at 7:18 pm
John – not yet, it seems that the BBC think we in the north west are happy with London region!!!!!!!!
May 22nd, 2008 at 12:31 pm
I have a Sky aerial from a previous owner – do I just connect it up to the Freesat box if I buy one?
Is there a box with a recorder available – if not should I wait for one or just add one on later.
June 6th, 2008 at 8:23 pm
Does the Humax HD box have I.F. loop through? I want to keep my skyplus box as well, and would feed the LNB cable into the Humax,then out to the skyplus box.Has anyone tried this and does it work satisfactorily?
Any signal loss through Humax box?
June 7th, 2008 at 8:38 pm
Les, that does not work for sat signals as the LNB is powered by the box. In your case you can either bring an extra feed from the dish, but may need a new LNB if you have skyplus the odds are the dish has a quad LNB
An alternative is either to bu a switching unit prior to the input into either receiver which is limiting. Failing that you could buy a STAR box which is what is used in flats and other communal installs to allow multiple feeds although getting hold of one may require some research.
June 8th, 2008 at 8:28 pm
To day I tried to purchase a freesat from Comet(Romford)however after failing to sell me the add on pack and installation they said if i installed it myself they the unit would have no gaurantee on it. I challenged but they did not back down eventhough I said they would have too under the sale of goods act. I purchased the unit and got them to write and sign a comet slip saying they will not honour the manufactuers garunatee. I must contact Trading standards as they are coning customers into purchasing the installation. It took me less then 10 mins to connect up to the box using 1 of the 2 spare LNB connections on my quad LNB and dish installed by Sky for my Sky Digital+ box.. Currys, Dixons and Comet all scum bags, i should have known better!
June 8th, 2008 at 9:44 pm
Nutternet – If you can, scan the slip with this information on and send it to us, we’ll put it online here so Freesat are made aware!
June 20th, 2008 at 7:32 pm
I have noticed that if you do a manual scan using this box, then there are a lot more channels available, especially the +1 channels that don’t seem to tune automatically, although most of them are rubbish.
July 14th, 2008 at 12:56 pm
I have a Sony hard drive recorder. Is it possible to route the recorder through to record the freesat signal in the usual way? Also, will a normal recorder with hard drive functionality be able to function in HD? (it has HMDI upscaling). Sorry if this is daft; I am a technophobic.
October 22nd, 2008 at 7:43 pm
Hi
I can get BBC HD no problem (when its on ? )but how the ! do I get ITV HD, as it states to press the red button (when being transmitted in HD) but all I then get is another channel selection ? .
Chris 2
November 27th, 2008 at 2:44 pm
Argos just had some stock at 2:20 but in the 14 minutes it took me to get around the web site and choose all my options and give my address, account details etc etc they had all gone !!! Aaargh !
December 10th, 2008 at 11:31 am
I currently have sky+ on multi room and the cost is crippling me. I wonder if anyone can tell me that if i were to buy a hd freesat box could i still use the two sky boxes in the kids room?
December 22nd, 2008 at 3:53 pm
I a moveable dish, a Sky box and a Technomate 1000D sat box. I do not subscribe to Sky, but am a member in that I am Channel 4/5 enabled via a card from Sky. Do also need a Freesat box in order to receive ALL Freesat channels?
December 22nd, 2008 at 3:55 pm
Correction..I have a moveable dish…etc etc
May 2nd, 2009 at 7:07 pm
Hi, my partner has just put up a brand new 60cm. dish with quad lnb. He has spent ALL day trying to get it to work. Has used compass and sat finder. We have bought 2 dish’s from Argos. A bush and a goodmans. Got a 90% signal. TRied and tried to tune the boxs but won’t go past the bit ‘ scanning for signal’. so can’t get onto the network id. We’ve taken one box back, as faulty. Everything is brand new, cableing etc. What are we doing wrong? I’ve read other people doing it and they say it’s easy but we are stuck!! Any help, would be appreciated.
November 21st, 2009 at 10:40 pm
Hi, i have a white sky+ box that i watch and record programs on.Do i still need to change the cable to my dish. currently it’s a large 2 core cable?
December 8th, 2009 at 9:57 am
Hi, purchased a Humax Foxsat HD PVR and fitted it within minutes, myself. I am truly impressed with its performance and options etc, a very well thought out product. Only two things I wish to know. 1, Can an old Sky box be connected to the pass through LNB on the rear, or does it have to be another Freesat type or indeed, non dedicated type satellite tuner ? And when are Humax going to activate the Network socket on the rear, for, I presume, connection to a PC , .
December 30th, 2009 at 5:48 pm
ive got a humax but i didnt no u needed a sat dish i never got told this
May 18th, 2010 at 8:10 pm
I have just placed order (18/05/2010) for collection in store, no forced installation demands and it is only £129.99….. Will collect tomorrow… Chers