Humax launches free to air HD sat receiver
Fancy a spot of high def telly but not entirely sure you want to pay out for top dollar sports and movies? Well set top- box specialist Humax today unveiled an intriguing solution. It is offering a satellite receiver for free to air HD channels.
At the moment this is just Euro 1080, but in the summer it could mean the World Cup in HD delivered by the BBC and more. Other channels are also rumoured to be looking into free to air HD and if there is enough interest we might just start seeing a gaggle of free to air stations.
According to Humax the HDCI2000, which will retail for £300 when it debuts in March can receive and decrypt the latest MPEG4 HD transmissions, as well as display both MPEG2 HD and standard definition, free-to-air satellite signals. Its line up of facilities includes an optical output for Dolby Digital sound; two scarts to connect additional home cinema devices; a data port for software updates and that all important HDMI video output. Interestingly there are also two common interface slots, so viewers can add more channels via Pay TV services, if and when they become available.
The receiver won't however be able to tune into the upcoming Sky HD transmissions.
Pace has a similar box for around the same price which should also debut in March.
Its great that Humax is pushing the HD case, I hope other STB suppliers follow suit. My question is how different is the Humax HDCI2000 for the UK to the Humax PR-HD1000 for Europe and which one should one go for
Posted by: Nabil | March 8, 2006 9:44 AM