humax tft lcd tv factory

For most people, the biggest turn offs about the home cinema dream are cost and clutter. Which just so happen to be the two issues Humax’s LP40-TDR1 LCD TV tries especially hard to address.

In terms of cost, you can get your hands on the LP40’s still very rare, subscription-free built-in Freeview Playback system, plus its big old 40in LCD screen, for the extremely aggressive price of £690. That’s less than many ‘vanilla’ 32in LCD TVs. So are we looking at the bargain of the year, or what?

If you’re the sort of person who just likes to get a lot of sheer hardware for your buck, the LP40’s design will have you on cloud 9. It really is a brute of a thing, featuring a much wider bezel than is common these days, and sticking out round the back a country mile versus the increasingly skinny efforts of most of today’s ‘flat’ TVs. People with dodgy backs should also note that it weighs a relative ton.

There is, at least, one potential performance benefit to the TV’s bulk, though, since its speaker system is so large that it’s almost a separate element, sitting half an inch or so below the main screen like some kind of these new-fangled ‘sound bar’ thingies. If this audio approach can’t deliver a richer sound performance than the increasingly invisible speakers found in the majority of flat TV rivals, we’ll be very disappointed indeed.

Craning our necks around the LP40’s substantial rear uncovers a nasty surprise: just one HDMI input. Convinced we must have missed something, we checked the TV’s sides out for more, but to no avail. The LP40 apparently doesn’t think that its owners will want to add more than one of such various HDMI sources as an upscaling DVD player, an Xbox 360 Elite console, a PS3 console, or an HDMI-sporting PC. Er, cheers.

You’ll note that I was careful to exclude a Sky HD box from the list of HDMI-sporting sources I provided a moment ago, for the simple reason that anyone buying a Freeview Playback TV will surely only be getting one because they’ve made a conscious decision not to go the Sky digital TV route.

This same argument perhaps defends another limitation of the LP40: its native resolution of 1,366 x 768 rather than the full HD resolution we’re increasingly starting to expect on screens of 40in or more. After all, Freeview channels currently only broadcast in standard definition, so it arguably makes sense for a Freeview-focussed TV like the LP40 to only have to ‘rescale’ terrestrial digital broadcasts up to 1,366 x 768 rather than the more processing-intensive (and therefore potentially more messy) 1,920 x 1,080 level.

And so unlike LG’s Freeview Playback TVs, which DO record the direct digital stream, there’s potential for the Humax system to reduce the picture quality as it goes through the process of converting the digital bitstream into something its HDD can recognise. Hmm.

In other ways, at least, the Humax Freeview Playback system is pretty much on a par with that seen in LG’s impressive rival sets, with such functionality as Series Link setting, pausing live TV and ‘chasing’ live broadcasts all possible. You also get the same weakness versus Sky’s Sky+ or Sky HD receivers, though, in that you can only record one digital channel at a time, not two.

If I had to pick between the LG and Humax sets in terms of ease of use, though, the Humax would come second, with neither its onscreen menus nor remote control feeling quite as intuitive when trying to make and navigate recordings as those of the LG sets.

Starting our tests of the LP40’s performance with its recordings, our fears about the ‘non-direct’ recording of digital broadcasts are realised. For even using the TV’s top-level HQ recording mode, recorded pictures look noticeably grainier and noisier than the original broadcasts – a far cry from the pixel for pixel perfection of LG’s Freeview Playback sets.

The lack of recording quality is unfortunately emphasised by the fact that the picture quality from the LP40’s screen with original Freeview broadcasts is actually very respectable. Not least because noise levels are actually rather well suppressed for such an affordable TV, with surprisingly little grittiness or MPEG fluttering to divert your attention from what you’re watching.

The general lack of noise during standard and high-definition sources suggests, too, that the LP40’s image scaling is pretty effective for a budget LCD TV.

One final little gripe most obvious while playing games is a tendency to leave a small ‘trail’ behind fast-moving objects or scenery elements. Though to be fair, this sort of lagging error is hardly rare in the affordable LCD world.

What is rare in the affordable LCD world, though, is sound quality as good as that of the LP40. That ‘speaker bar’ effect delivers fully on the promise suggested by its size, pumping out more power than half a dozen normal LCD TVs put together, and fleshing out Apocalypto’s action scenes with some impressive dynamics together with a much greater bass-to-treble extension than we’re used to hearing from a flat TV. Excellent.

For its money, there’s no doubt whatsoever that the Humax LP40-TDR1 has a lot to offer in terms of general picture quality, some of its features, and sound quality. But before you all rush out to buy one, don’t forget that its recordings are fundamentally flawed, while its provision of just one HDMI is frankly ridiculous.

We test every TV we review thoroughly over an extended period of time. We use industry standard tests to compare features properly. We’ll always tell you what we find. We never, ever, accept money to review a product.

Humax released a new 32 inches LCD TV (LGB32-TPVR) that has two digital terrestrial tuners and recording capabilities on an internal 40GB hard drive. It offers basic time shifting features that most Personal Video Recorders have. (LCD specs in the full post)

Humax has wisely decided to hedge their bets and offer all of the above and then some in their first DVD recorder. The DRT800 includes a DVD-R/-RW recorder, a progressive-scan DVD player, and an 80-gigabyte hard drive that uses the TiVo Series2 interface. Not a bad call. People already love DVD and TiVo; rather than buy two separate boxes, why not just spend $499 for this unit and get DVD recording and a media server in the deal?

Component video and optical digital audio are the highest-quality A/V outputs from the DRT800 to your display and/or receiver. But, as is typical with the current crop of recorders (for copy-protection reasons), S-video is the highest-quality input to the DRT800 from your cable or satellite box. As a result, the quality of recorded material will be lower than if it had been input as a component video signal or better, especially on a big-screen HDTV. While this might be a frustration for the enthusiast who has paid more than a grand for a recorder, it"s a bit more forgivable in a $499 device that"s geared more toward the average viewer with an average-sized TV.

Unfortunately, the player"s processing of video signals is below average; it created a lot of jaggies and combing artifacts with both test discs and real-world material. Now, in a standalone player, I"d downplay this, stressing that it"s more important for the player to handle film-based signals, as that"s what you"re probably going to watch the most. Unfortunately, this is also a DVR through which we"re expected to watch video-based TV signals on a daily basis. In progressive mode, I noticed way too many artifacts during average TV watching, especially sporting events. Likewise with video-based DVD bonus material and video that I transferred from my digital camcorder to the hard drive via the FireWire connection. The combing was distracting, so I ultimately turned off the progressive scanning.

Is this a fatal flaw? Given the DRT800"s price point, I don"t think so. My screen is more than 55 inches diagonally. When I mated the player with a 32-inch display—perhaps a more-realistic screen size for the DRT800"s target audience—the artifacts were still evident but less distracting. The average consumer looking to step up from a VCR probably doesn"t care that much about or even plan to use progressive scanning. If TiVo"s popularity is any indication, they care about being able to pause live TV, fast-forward through unwanted content, and find and record their favorite shows quickly and easily.

Like all TiVos, you have your choice of four quality settings, which affects how much content you can fit on the hard drive or burn to a DVD: best (18 hours on the hard drive/1 hour on DVD), high (27/2), medium (55/4), and basic (82/6). To provide a better-looking picture for daily viewing, the DRT800 shows all live TV at the best setting, even if you"ve selected a lower setting as your default for recording.

With the DRT800, Humax might just have found the perfect blend of price, performance, features, and usability to usher in the DVD-recording era. I"d like to see improved progressive-scan performance and advanced editing features; however, as a value enthusiast, I can"t deny how many worthy features the DRT800 offers for such a reasonable price. I can in good conscience recommend this recorder to anyone who"s looking to finally put their VCR out of its (and everyone else"s) misery.