Humax DRT400 40-Hour TiVo with DVD Recorder
By: Humax Average Rating: 2.0 Total Reviews: 13
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 On: 2007-09-07
When we first got TiVo on the Humax unit I was so excited to be able to ditch my VCR and all that worry about programs rescheduling etc. But my excitement quickly cooled when time and time again, the record to DVD function didnt work. "Internal error" to me meant something was wrong with the unit so I sent it back to Humax (with a $400 hold on my credit card waiting for the replacement). This was three days into my TiVo membership. Same problem occurred with second unit. Returned that one. Finally, frustrated with the fact that Id enjoy about 10 minutes of my TiVo in the first three weeks of having it, I caromed back and forth between TiVo and Humax customer service (which holds very limited hours btw) and hit my limit when a Humax customer rep told me my DVDs werent "fresh" enough(!?). Now I realize that that Humax likes some DVD-R brands (Sony, TDK, Verbatim and Imation) and spits out others, I can go on and enjoy my service. But Humax needs to be upfront with people about this limitation on an otherwise fine machine.
 On: 2007-08-29
Purchased DRT400 in December 2005, within 9 months the unit failed. It was within the warranty period and we went through the same process described by other reviewers, charge to your credit card, returned the defective box, and received a REFURBISHED unit for $50. The refurbished unit failed within the first 2 weeks. Received second refurbished unit and it failed the first day. At this point, we demanded that we receive a NEW unit but Humax sent another refurbished unit. We refused delivery from UPS and it was sent back to Humax. Apparently Humax moved their warehouse during December 2006 so it took about 4 weeks for the new unit to ship. We were going to be out of town for the holidays, so I gave them a time frame of when NOT to ship the unit. They shipped it anyway and it sat on my front porch for 1 week. Thankfully it was still there when we returned. New unit worked for 9 months and failed. Even though the unit was NEW it was also a replacement and it only carries a 90-day warranty. Now they want $290 for a REFURBISHED replacement unit. I have kept a log of all the problems, calls, etc. and I asked to speak with a manager to express my frustration and to understand the lack of quality in their product. Going on 3 weeks of phone calls trying to get the unit replaced or the purchase price refunded and they can have the machine. Im told that Ill hear from their corporate office within 72 hours--never happened. Called back, Ill hear back in 2 days, didnt happen. On the current issue: 7 phone calls, 3 emails, $400 on the machine and $300 for the lifetime TIVO membership--some of the worst customer service Ive ever experienced.
On: 2007-07-15
I have had a Sony 3000 Tivo since 2002 and decided to buy this unit because I could burn DVDs on it. After paying 400 for the unit, and 300 for Tivo lifetime service I was happy because things were working great, until I started having problems with the DVD burner. I was pretty happy because I was still under warrenty and after paying 50 dollars for a refurbished unit I was back in business - although it was inconvienent to be without the TIVO for weeks for them to turn it around, but the customer service center was friendly enough. Well now I am a little over 3 months into the refurbished unit and after several phone calls to the service department, this unit is defective.. and they want me to pay $210 dollars for another unit.
Basically, I have paid $750 dollars for a year of Tivo and DVD burning and I dont feel that I should have to pay another penny to Humax to replace the unit.. but I am not in a good position. Basically Humax doesnt care, and TIVO will not transfer the lifetime service over to another unit regardless of Humaxs poor equipment. (I was wanting to buy a 99 dollar box from Tivo and transfer service - but they will not do it).
So.. I am out a bunch of money for a few DVDs. I LOVE Tivo, but honestly after this experience I think that leasing a DVR from my cable company is a safer route for me to go and my pride will not allow me to buy another lifetime service contract from TIVO (although I see they dont sell them anymore, so maybe that is not even an option.)
If I had to do this all over again... I WOULD NEVER SPEND ONE PENNY ON A HUMAX PRODUCT and I would recommend that you save your money as well by avoiding this product. It may seem to work great at first, but after going through two units in less than 18 months, I can tell you that you are flushing money down the toilet.
On: 2007-02-17
This gets one star because there is no lower ranking. Dont buy a Humax product unless you like paying new prices for used, rebuilt junk. Their new unit comes not working out of the box. The company sends you a rebuilt, used unit to replace your new unit that didnt work. When you object to paying new prices for used equipment, they just blow you off. Too much hassle. This company cant last long.
On: 2007-01-15
Bought this in October as an early Christmas gift. I activated lifetime Tivo in mid-November. I went to install it and after 5 hours on the phone with tech support (they do get 5 stars for being there 24 hours a day), they finally had me send it back. They wanted me to give them my credit card info so they could send out a new one the next day, or I could send in my defective one and once they got it, they would send out a new one "within 24 hours". I decided to opt for sending back without my credit card info. Sent the unit back and they received it December 1st. On the 10th of December, I called -- what a suprise when they couldnt find any tracking number for my unit. I then called back on the 14th -- and I got some run around story about how the warehouse misplaced my new unit. When they finally did get the tracking number (and yes, I had to call them for it), they had used my street address and the zip code to another city. So, of course that delayed it even more. The new unit finally arrived December 22nd. With the holidays, I never got a chance to install it until the 29th of December...and GUESS what?? You got it! It was a defective unit AGAIN -- the clue for me was that there was a big "REFURBISHED" tag across the box. I didnt buy refurbished -- I bought this NEW. So, here we go again. I have now sent the unit back after a heated discussion with their customer service department. They PROMISED me that I would have a new unit by January 8th.......yes, on January 10th I called AGAIN to ask where the heck my unit was......well, heres a kicker: They shipped it to NASHVILLE (by the way, I live in California). So, a very polite "supervisor" told me I would get a call in a few hours but they needed to track down my unit in Nashville (they were blaming UPS -- and UPS got the info from where??). Well, here I sit -- January 14th with still no unit. And, of course, I am still waiting for a phone call with a valid tracking number for a NEW unit. My recommendation is: Unless you like dealing with Customer Service departments, dont bother. I cant even rate the unit since I have never had one that works......Tivo should yank their contract from them. I would never buy one again.
On: 2006-11-09
I have never written a review like this before but we have had so many problems with this product that i feel i should warn people. We have been through 3 boxes and still do not have one that works. The first worked for about 2 months before the dvd writer died. The other 2 boxes didnt work at all. Unfortunately the warranty doesnt last long (i think it was 2 months or something). So we had to pay for a replacement. So if you buy this product, i hope you have time to spend hours on the the phone trying to get a replacement and i hope you dont mind having weeks where you have no box to use (while you are still paying for the tivo service). And by the way, the support from Humax has been awful!
 On: 2006-10-08
I used this Tivo for almost a year until I had to switch to HD. It works perfectly. It can transfer files to your PC, it can burn them to DVDs (depending on quality 1-2 hrs worth), and it never misses a show. Great!
On: 2006-01-28
I purchased one of these units as my first foray into the TiVo world when my 15 year-old VCR started to die. I figured 40 hours seemed like a lot of TV to watch, and if I managed to get close to filling it I could download video to a DVD-RW and use those just like I used to use video tapes.
Alas, the "gotchas" were too much for me:
1) Video quality on the TiVo has 4 ranges: Best, High, Medium, and Basic. Shows recorded with Best looked pretty good, but anything less than that I found the video artifacts rather noticeable when watching the programs. I should note here that I was watching prime-time dramas, not sports (which, having more motion, should reveal more artifacts).
2) Recording time was not what I had hoped. The stated "40-hour" recording time is for programs at Basic quality. At Best quality the total storage was more like 13 hours.
3) The DVD recording function was disappointing. Not that it was difficult to do; it was really quite easy. No, my problems were with storage capacity and video quality. The first show I tried to move to DVD was an episode of The West Wing, and I found I couldnt store the entire show on one 4.7Gb DVD-RW (the one included with the unit, no less). Seven minutes of the show had to go on a second DVD-RW. Most of what I record is hour-long shows, so this wasnt going to work for me. I tried recording another hour-long show (again, a West Wing episode) in High quality and transferring that to DVD-RW; it fit with room to spare, but the quality on the DVD was really poor. Not impossible to view, but so noticeable that it was distracting.
I did record another hour-long show at Best quality and found I was able to get that on one DVD-RW (barely), so it looks like I was subject to the vaguaries of MPEG compression. Some shows might compress enough to fit on a DVD, others might not. In the long run that was not going to work for me.
Basically, if youre hoping to use this unit as a TiVo/quasi-VCR youre probably going to find it doesnt work as well as you expected. You may want to consider going with a unit that has more recording capacity, and if you really need to put programs on DVD try using the TiVo-To-Go feature. I havent tried it and cant speak to the quality of the resulting DVDs, but I just cant imagine it would be any worse than using the DRT400.
On: 2006-01-27
I purchased one of these units as my first foray into the TiVo world when my 15 year-old VCR started to die. I figured 40 hours seemed like a lot of TV to watch, and if I managed to get close to filling it I could download video to a DVD-RW and use those just like I used to use video tapes.
Alas, the "gotchas" were too much for me:
1) Video quality on the TiVo has 4 ranges: Best, High, Medium, and Basic. Shows recorded with Best looked pretty good, but anything less than that I found the video artifacts rather noticeable when watching the programs. I should note here that I was watching prime-time dramas, not sports (which, having more motion, should reveal more artifacts).
2) Recording time was not what I had hoped. The stated "40-hour" recording time is for programs at Basic quality. At Best quality the total storage was more like 13 hours.
3) The DVD recording function was disappointing. Not that it was difficult to do; it was really quite easy. No, my problems were with storage capacity and video quality. The first show I tried to move to DVD was an episode of The West Wing, and I found I couldnt store the entire show on one 4.7Gb DVD-RW (the one included with the unit, no less). Seven minutes of the show had to go on a second DVD-RW. Most of what I record is hour-long shows, so this wasnt going to work for me. I tried recording another hour-long show (again, a West Wing episode) in High quality and transferring that to DVD-RW; it fit with room to spare, but the quality on the DVD was really poor. Not impossible to view, but so noticeable that it was distracting.
I did record another hour-long show at Best quality and found I was able to get that on one DVD-RW (barely), so it looks like I was subject to the vaguaries of MPEG compression. Some shows might compress enough to fit on a DVD, others might not. In the long run that was not going to work for me.
Basically, if youre hoping to use this unit as a TiVo/quasi-VCR youre probably going to find it doesnt work as well as you expected. You may want to consider going with a unit that has more recording capacity, and if you really need to put programs on DVD try using the TiVo-To-Go feature. I havent tried it and cant speak to the quality of the resulting DVDs, but I just cant imagine it would be any worse than using the DRT400.
On: 2006-01-19
After analyzing the differences between Comcast DVR and TiVo, we decided a TiVo purchase would be best. And since we have a lot of VHS tapes that we want to save, the combo DVD-R was a great feature.
The setup was easy, it ran fine, but it had a whirring / clicking noise - the fan was not spinning, although it was moving back and forth slightly, and this was the cause of the noise. Called Humax tech support, they said to return it.
Got my next one from Circuit City. After running fine for about 15 minutes, the same problems with the fan happened. Called Humax Tech support, again nothing to do but return it.
Went back to the store for one last try, but had them plug it in at the store so I did not have to bother hooking it up to my entertainment center. Same problem. Called tech support, and they offered to give me an address to write a letter of complaint.
Needless to say, I returned the product, never to buy from Humax again. A great product concept spoiled by poor quality.
 On: 2005-11-27
I purchased this 40-hr Humax with the DVD recorder on Oct 28, 2005. The manual indicates DVD-R compatibility with any type of DVD. However, the Humax began "eating" my HP 50-pack I purchased. I then purchased a 5-pack of Memorex and it began ruining those. It indicated "incompatible format" or simply gave a "write error" without completing the recording. In one case it went into a continuous write loop and required rebooting.
I returned the unit to Circuit City just over 30 days later and received a new replacement. Same result.
I then contacted Humax directly. Barbara recommended TDK, Sony, Verbatim and Imation DVD-Rs. I purchased the Sonys and they appear, at least for now, to work. Im irritated that they do not specify the DVD compatibility in their manual.
In general the Humax is quite promising. The interface, especially for writing DVDs is very simple. The write speed, whenever it did work, was pretty fast. I havent timed the transfer rate to a computer yet (e.g. TiVo2Go). The original Series 2 TiVo is fairly slow through a wired connection (approximately 3Mbps for me).
On: 2005-10-05
My DRT400 worked beautifully for one day. Then, on day two, its front panel said "WELCOME" and that is where it stayed. Humax tech support was unable to help, so they are sending me a new unit (while putting a $400 hold on my credit card.) It will arrive in 5 to 7 business days.
That is NOT my idea of good customer service.
It is also INSANE to require the use of a land line telephone connection (which I do not have) when the unit contains networking components. It SHOULD offer to connect to WiFi right out of the box!
On: 2005-09-22
I havnt watched live TV since a week after I recieved my TIVO. Without going into the numerous features of TIVO, this model with the DVD burner is great because you have unlimited storage. It holds up to 40 hours on the hard drive but then you can burn TV/movies on DVD-RW and keep them. Definetly a better way to watch TV.
On: 2005-07-19
I am a very big Tivo fan; and had 2 original series 2 tivos. So when my 1st Tivo went on the fritz I decided to buy this unit. I figured ease of use; one device, and a recorder something previous Tivos dont have. I have to be honest the first unit I bought gave me trouble with the remote control and other universal remotes. After returning it the next unit worked fine.
Setup:
Setup is fairly easy; even though I wish the networking option would work straight out of the box, instead of connecting to the phone line for an hour. No Biggie though; I survived.
Configuration:
Standard configuration s-video; component audio. Eventually I am going to use HD component cables (but supposedly they dont improve video on regular tv signal on DVD)
Ease of Use:
Its Tivo thats a no brainer; there is a DVD button on the remote press it, move the selection to play or burn dvd and you are done. Very easy to use.
Positives:
Addition of LCD time on the front.
Fact that it is a DVD recorder
Fair Price
Negatives:
After reading alot of reviews regarding the DRT800; the people who complained about the blacks not being distinguished are right. The video colors suck! Especially When you have a seperate input with HD and you toggle between them.
There is no HD support (Tivo Doesnt supoort HD yet)
Support took a few days to get back to me.
All in all it is a fair price and I knew I wasnt getting an High Def picture out of it so the video doesnt burn me that much. It burns and plays DVDs with ease. It is worth $250-300. If I could give the unit 3.5 stars I would b/c its better than 3 but the picture makes it less than 4!
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