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The need for a new STB is perhaps further underlined by developments elsewhere in the market. For example, Virgin Media are preparing to launch their next generation Virgin TV 360 service, which is already in UK trials, and that looks set to arrive before Christmas ( here). Ten years ago I wandered into the Tokyo equivalent of Currys and saw an HD broadcast for the first time. The clarity blew my mind and I’ve never forgotten the moment. Since then nothing that’s been broadcast has had the same impact. That all changed when the Humax DTR-T4000 turned up, the UK's first set-top box to cater for 4K TV owners, as part of the BT TV ecosystem. When viewed live or in replay the quality of the UHD pictures (in this case on a Samsung UE55JU7500) is truly spectacular, with those additional pixels paying rich dividends in terms of definition and clarity. And, from my early viewings, it's clear the event director is choosing shots that take advantage of this, with hunting out wider angles that allow you to see more of the pitch and stadium. An integrated search engine, to find programmes and movies from all the different channels and services (Some Freeview boxes already have something similar)
The T4000 is the 4K box. The more recent ones have changed from a 1TB disk to a 500GB one so in that respect there is no difference BUT the T4000 is a far superior box in processing speed to the 2100 and the 2100 can not output at 4K resolution. You may or may not need 4K depending on what your TV is but I certainly wouldn't be replacing a T4000 with a T2100. The software is where the fun is. YouView’s interface is full of features, lovely to use and nice to look at too. For newcomers, YouView is a free service that uses the internet to bring Freeview and on-demand services under a single roof. The 1TB capacity of the internal hard disk is perhaps a bit mean as you can only record 60 hours of UHD material, but it is sufficient for around 250 hours in HD, 600 hours in standard-def, or somewhere in between for a mix of the three. Recording two live UHD football matches (five hours and eight minutes in total) filled nine per cent of the hard disk, according to the onscreen info. For watch-n-wipers all this won't be an issue, but those who like to hoard TV series and are planning to gorge on as much 4K fare as possible, it could be. After a long wait, UK ISP BT has today finally announced the launch of a new set-top-box for their broadband-based Pay TV ( IPTV) service – TV Box Pro, which among other things will finally add WiFi and High Dynamic Range (HDR) video support. But you’ll need a wait for the wireless networking to be ready. John you mentioned on 5th June “You can even get 8k30fps content over HDMI 2.0 with DSC.”, so you know about FRL/DSC. Do you or anybody else disagree with Pete’s info about the specifications for HDMI 2.1.Note that the IP content including BT Sport will not work if you use a different make of router, and that the Humax box isn't wireless. BT does supply a 10m Ethernet cable, but you could try a Powerline connection. Truth be told, there aren’t a lot of YouView boxes out there, so making a choice is – for good and for bad – not that complicated. Still, because the boxes aren’t cheap, you should still look carefully at the different features they offer (which is what we’re here to help with.) Dolby Atmos is different from standard surround sound in that the sound comes from above as well as all around, and BT’s system delivered the effect convincingly in the demo I was given, where I was shown the opening moments of an early-season Premier League match at Anfield. The noise of the crowd did appear to be coming from all around, but more impressive than this was how easy it was to place the PA announcements, which appeared to be coming from directly above my seating position.
All set? The final thing you’ll need is patience. Only certain events are being filmed and broadcast in UHD. It’s mostly football – Premier League, UEFA Champions League and FA Cup matches. Moving forward we have some exciting plans to develop, more innovation and features to allow customers to access the content they love, including the very latest in Set-Top-Box technology. We’re not sharing exactly when this is for now, but we’ll share this news with customers as and when we come towards launch time.” The EPG is a paragon of onscreen guides, so that finding and recording shows is about as easy as it gets. The PVR is highly responsive apart from taking its time to boot up (a real annoyance) and re-tune channels. Pausing is instantaneous but fast-forward and rewind aren’t the expected progressions that simply double the speed smoothly with each press. Instead, they stutter and jump like a kangaroo doing a steeplechase. Meanwhile TalkTalk’s Pay TV platform, which is currently based off a similar YouView ( IPTV) solution to the one adopted by BT, appears to be moving away from their current setup. The provider’s future TV STB kit – a Technicolor UZW4054TTG using JADE– looks set to be based off the Android operating system ( here). Happily, the IPTV stream is outside of your internet service, so watching a broadcast won't affect simultaneous streaming or web browsing elsewhere in the home on a computer. Also, the IP stream is user-agnostic so your speed won't be affected by the number of other users in the district.
It would be nice if someone with a dtr-t4000 did a good youtube video showing the GUI/responsiveness.
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