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Have I got a dud? Or are they all this bad?
Bought from John Lewis (for easy returns!). Brand new 1tb model.
I hate it. It is SO slow at times it feels broken. I’m talking response times between 10 and 30 seconds at times. The UI is cumbersome, slow and feels like something out of the 90’s. The companion apps are dreadful, most of the time they simply don’t work as they won’t connect to the box. It’s a set up correctly, sometimes (rarely), they do connect, but not often.
It’s their interface. If you look for suggestions through their UI, it takes forever. But the “explore freeview” does essentially the same thing, only much, MUCH, faster.
Even the basic TV guide is so slow and klunky is almost unusable.
For the premium price, it’s a huge disappointment.
I’m about to return it and replace it with a second hand 500gb Fox T2.
Unless someone can convince me otherwise….
The 5000Ts are all that bad – appallingly underpowered. The problem is that nothing else will record four channels simultaneously and faultlessly – never messing up a single recording.
I’d happily pay twice as much for an adequately resourced machine, but there isn’t one and commercial rationale dictates that there probably never will be.
So it really comes down to what would irritate me the most – a machine that moves at the speed of an arthritic snail wearing a lead collar or one that misses and messes up recordings?
For me, at least, the latter would be marginally more annoying – but I admit that it’s a very close thing.
I believe that many issues of slow response are not necessarily related to the speed of the processor. Most of the ‘sophisticated’ functions – recommendations etc. – rely on the internet connection. What speed is your broadband connection? I am lucky to have high speed fibre. I suspect that the box would struggle with basic ADSL – as would any computer doing smart things. In my experience some internal FVP functions – EPG, recordings list etc. take no more than 5 seconds – in oractice quite usable though slower than my previous HUMAX boxes. 4 simultaneous recordings, integrated on demand, reliable recordings and remote recording setting are tremendous features for a £200 box.
My 5000T is certainly not fast, but it’s nothing like ColinMcC’s experience. Mine is on a 100Mbps cat 5 link which is matched by a 100mbps Virgin connection.
This does give credence to GrahamRHK’s post and I agree totally the reliable recording recording of up to 4 HD recordings at once is invaluable.
I have a 2TB drive that it is easy to get a very large number of recordings. So much so that after a boot pressing recordings often disconcertingly often says no recordings. Leaving the box for a few minutes has always restored the list.
I imagine this is down to the choice of processor interrupt priority in order that the cpu can handle more important pvr support actions after a boot.
Never had any issues with the epg build, however experimentation shows that the cached epg is deleted so the first boot of the day takes a while to rebuild the cache.In my case a timed power on/off boot after 0800 for 15 mins has already produced a full epg when ever the first boot of the day is.
This also solves the disappearing epg that results from using padding if the box is not booted for several days.
It also pays to know the shortcuts when navigating the epg going up and down is slow one page at a time. If you know the channel number tapping it in jumps very quickly to the channel.
Some 5000T boxes have problems with the remote not responding to some buttons. Keep an eye on the power button for the red edge flash as you press any of the buttons (apart from those controllling your TV).
Thanks for the replies folks.
I can tidy up a couple of points …
Connection speed is fine. I’ve run Now TV, streaming PC’s, Virgin Tivo etc etc through it no problem. I run a MESH WiFi system (Tenda MW3) and although it doesn’t deliver my full 100Mbps cable connection, it’s more than enough. I know the network is fine.
Plus, as I mentioned, the “Explore Freeview” app that comes pre-installed on the box effectively does the same thing as asking the 5000T for “Recommended content”. Except it does it much, MUCH, faster.
The remote is not missing presses I’m pretty sure. Sometimes I’ll press a button, then actually put the remote down while I wait for the box to respond, it’s that bad. Early impatience with how bad it was (I’ve been trying to live with it for a couple of weeks now) caused many double presses which resulted in me ending up in the wrong place and then facing even more lag getting back.
On that point though, it doesn’t help that most presses don’t trigger any sort of indication on the box (a light or some onscreen text) to indicate that it’s now (trying) to do something. A couple do. In the EPG, you do get a “Please Wait” I think. But on most screens, you’re just left wondering if the button works.
I picked up a T2 local to me today. It was cheap. I can sell it on for more than I paid on Ebay if I decide to get rid. But, so far, it is a night and day experience compared to the 5000T. It’s not “lightning” all the time, on everything, but compared to the 5000T? It’s Usain Bolt.
I bought the 5000T mainly for convenience. I can get all the catchup stuff on the TV, or other gizmos. But I haven’t had any recording facilities for a while, since I got rid of Virgin (except for the broadband). That was the main goal to get back. And even then, mainly for a few shows which are not available on catchup. So the 5000T seemed like a good shout as a jack-of-all-trades. Save me switching devices constantly. Unfortunately, it does a bad job of being a jack-of-all-trades. And it is certainly master of none.
Is it under-powered? Possibly. I don’t know, I haven’t looked into the internals of it. But, given a Raspberry Pi can be turned into a half decent PVR, I would hope not. As far as I’m concerned, with a box like this, I’m paying for the polish as well as the features. I’m paying Humax over £200 rather than dicking around trying to shove a Rasp Pi into the back of my TV and convince it to run some sort of buggy Kodi extension.
It sounds like it does a lot on paper, but my experience in practice has been a total let down. So many badly implemented features, things that don’t work, and horrendous usability.
I’m an IT performance test engineer by trade! I would never have signed this thing off if they’re all as bad as my one!
I think I’m just going to stick with the T2 for now. The 5000T can go back to JL. Not fit for purpose IMHO.
ColinMcC – 18 minutes ago »
Thanks for the replies folks.
I can tidy up a couple of points …
Connection speed is fine. I’ve run Now TV, streaming PC’s, Virgin Tivo etc etc through it no problem. I run a MESH WiFi system (Tenda MW3) and although it doesn’t deliver my full 100Mbps cable connection, it’s more than enough. I know the network is fine.
Plus, as I mentioned, the “Explore Freeview” app that comes pre-installed on the box effectively does the same thing as asking the 5000T for “Recommended content”. Except it does it much, MUCH, faster.
The remote is not missing presses I’m pretty sure. Sometimes I’ll press a button, then actually put the remote down while I wait for the box to respond, it’s that bad. Early impatience with how bad it was (I’ve been trying to live with it for a couple of weeks now) caused many double presses which resulted in me ending up in the wrong place and then facing even more lag getting back.
On that point though, it doesn’t help that most presses don’t trigger any sort of indication on the box (a light or some onscreen text) to indicate that it’s now (trying) to do something. A couple do. In the EPG, you do get a “Please Wait” I think. But on most screens, you’re just left wondering if the button works.
I picked up a T2 local to me today. It was cheap. I can sell it on for more than I paid on Ebay if I decide to get rid. But, so far, it is a night and day experience compared to the 5000T. It’s not “lightning” all the time, on everything, but compared to the 5000T? It’s Usain Bolt.
I bought the 5000T mainly for convenience. I can get all the catchup stuff on the TV, or other gizmos. But I haven’t had any recording facilities for a while, since I got rid of Virgin (except for the broadband). That was the main goal to get back. And even then, mainly for a few shows which are not available on catchup. So the 5000T seemed like a good shout as a jack-of-all-trades. Save me switching devices constantly. Unfortunately, it does a bad job of being a jack-of-all-trades. And it is certainly master of none.
Is it under-powered? Possibly. I don’t know, I haven’t looked into the internals of it. But, given a Raspberry Pi can be turned into a half decent PVR, I would hope not. As far as I’m concerned, with a box like this, I’m paying for the polish as well as the features. I’m paying Humax over £200 rather than dicking around trying to shove a Rasp Pi into the back of my TV and convince it to run some sort of buggy Kodi extension.
It sounds like it does a lot on paper, but my experience in practice has been a total let down. So many badly implemented features, things that don’t work, and horrendous usability.
I’m an IT performance test engineer by trade! I would never have signed this thing off if they’re all as bad as my one!
I think I’m just going to stick with the T2 for now. The 5000T can go back to JL. Not fit for purpose IMHO.
Two HDR-FOX-T2’s can do most anything the 5000T can other than the free and paid for streaming services) especially with the custom firmware other than trying to remember which box you recorded it from. The DTCP-IP server/client on each does mean you can use two in a different location to view the other boxes recordings.
Though it does appear that two 5000T can do the same thing. Not having two noway to check.
ColinMcC – 1 hour ago »
I think I’m just going to stick with the T2 for now. The 5000T can go back to JL. Not fit for purpose IMHO.
In my experience the FVP-5000T isn’t quite as slow as you are reporting but it certainly isn’t rapid. What irritates me more is the lack of consistency in the way the UI behaves. However for me (a long term HDR-FOX T2 user), the killer advantages of the FVP-5000T are that the sub-titles work properly and an irritating sound blip issue with an HDR-FOX T2 connected to a modern LG smart TV doesn’t occur with an FVP-5000T.
Quote:On that point though, it doesn’t help that most presses don’t trigger any sort of indication on the box (a light or some onscreen text) to indicate that it’s now (trying) to do something. A couple do. In the EPG, you do get a “Please Wait” I think. But on most screens, you’re just left wondering if the button works.I agree that the UI is cumbersome and takes a lot of use to become familiar but after a few weeks one gets used to it. However the response times you quoted originally seem much worse than mine – maybe its faulty. On the other hand it may be something to do with the internet connection. I have found that routers provided by ISPs have odd quirks related to DNS queries. I haven’t had time to fully investigate why that should be so – yet. If you look at the network connection status in the network settings menu what DNS servers are reported? They should be the ones provided by your ISP. If it reports the IP address of your router as primary DNS server that may be part of the problem. Would be interesting to know.
Does it ‘speed up’ if you disconnect the internet. If so that will prove/eliminate that particular source of slowdown.
Nothing helped. The thing is just a dog. It’s going back.
Spoken to JL, no problem returning for a refund.
Cleaning up the box (format & reset) before sending back summed it up perfectly. Even the reset with format didn’t work properly first time. Personally, I just think the whole UI is just badly coded and horribly inefficient. As I say, if a cheapo Rasp Pi can be turned into one, there is no excuse for a £200+ specialized device to be this bad.
Been using the T2 since yesterday. If the 5000T ran at a similar pace, I’d have been happy. Lots of functionality (even if a lot of it is very buggy) is fine. But not at the expense of making the whole user experience so bad. I mean, a second hand, cost me £40, over 5 years old, box from the same people is putting it well and truly in the shade.
A shame really.
I’m greatly indebted to you, GrahamRHK.
I just shut down my 5000-T’s ethernet connection and the box is much better now. I’d half-considered trying this on a few occasions but since I never use the internet apps these days I just assumed that they couldn’t be making much difference. No doubt every app was transmitting data about my TV usage 24/7, like any self-respecting iPhone app.
Recently, my 5000-T slowed down considerably – but in such small increments that I hardly noticed. Now, with the ethernet plug yanked out of my BT Home Hub it’s a lot more usable, although it still won’t be winning any speed competitions. I have BT Infinity, which is supposedly their fastest package, but it’s not great.
So, after my initial whinge I should emphasise that I bought a Humax box with reliability as my no 1 criterion and it’s never let me down. Every day dozens of news programmes are faultlessly recorded (I need them for my work) and after my experience with other PVR brands that struggled to record a single programme at a time, I’m extremely glad that I chose the 5000-T.
I’ve had my 5000 almost 2 years and I’ll be the first to admit to it’s shortcomings but I don’t recognize a lot of ColinMcC experiences.
Taking it offline did improve it. But not to a point I deem acceptable.
The standard EPG would still lag up. Badly. Ditto changing channels. Recordings area is horrible. And the way it orders shows makes it worse. It’s all just horribly slow and badly designed. With a load of apps set up, unusable. They bring it to it’s knees and kill it completely.
Which ruined the point of it being an all-in-one-bucket device. Which is what it’s marketed as. And what I wanted it for. It’s supposed to be the Sky+ box of Freeview. Having had Sky and Virgin in the past, the 5000T is miles off!
I wanted recording (check), catch-up all in one place (fail), reliable (well, check I suppose), remote access (fail), ability to stream to other devices (90% fail). And it not to be horrible to use (massive fail). I wasn’t expecting as good as the pay TV boxes, but better than the klunker I got!
Looking at that list, vs a price of £220, it’s not great. And I tried, I bought it 17 May. So I’ve given it almost a month, but enough is enough.
Maybe mine was a dud? I don’t know. But it felt too poor to make me even want to try another one. Not at that price tag. At least JL are happy for you to simply say you hate it and they’ll accept the return!
The T2 is OK though. Not had any trouble with it so far except a little channel drop on COM8 when we were under that horrible weather system yesterday. And it’s fast. And it seems to record OK. More limited, yes, but it does enough for me. It only cost £40! And I haven’t even put the custom firmware on it yet.
I’ve got two of these boxes, one upstairs connected to the bedroom tv and the other (newer one) in the lounge.
The one upstairs is slow enough to button responses to be annoying but it’s lightning fast compared to the one in the lounge, which takes ages to respond to anything and is virtually unusable. I’ve had it long enough now that I’ve kind of got to used to it! Appalling bit of kit though but like others have said there doesn’t seem to be anything else around so will put up with it until something better comes out (or it stops working which in my previous humax experience won’t be long)!
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