The Humax DTR-T1000 is the first fruit of YouView’s two-year mission to combine the most successful free broadcasting brands of the digital age: Freeview HD and iPlayer.
Priced £299, it will be followed by subsidised YouView boxes from TalkTalk and BT for their broadband subscribers.
Most of us are now familiar with digital TV recorders: the most famous is Sky Plus, and the Humax DTR-T1000 joins the club, with two Freeview HD tuners and a 500GB hard disc – enough for about 250 hours of standard-definition TV, or 50 hours of HD.
Is this a basic spec, or all you need when you have catch-up on tap? Find out in our video review and walkthrough of the YouView experience
Now TV was added just days after we filmed this sequence, and we’re expecting more on-demand services to launch this autumn.
So that’s the first YouView box in a nutshell. We like the backwards programme guide and instant access to catch-up TV, although after two years, we expected to see a lot more than Now TV in the pay-as-you-go section. Many smart TVs already offer much more.
Humax’s DTR-T1000 is a powerful platform, but we’re surprised at how slow it can be to hop around the programme guide, and we won’t know until the next box arrives if that’s down to Humax or a general YouView problem.
Despite the cutting-edge tech inside, £299 is a lot for a 500GB Freeview HD recorder, and I would want the on-demand side to be a lot richer before I part with my cash. On the other hand, if you’re a TalkTalk or BT broadband subscriber, the subsidised boxes might be a real catch when they come out in the next few months.
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