I love the Humax HDR-FOX T2 personal video recorded. It has brought the loveliness of Freeview HD to my life. It is pretty reliable, but there are some annoyances and bugs in the software. These are mostly in the user interface design, but a couple of them are functional. So I’m starting a series of posts to highlight them, in the hope that Humax will try to correct them.
#1 – Is it recording?
The problem
The box is pretty reliable, so it usually is doing what it should be doing. My problem with it is that when it’s in standby mode, you can’t tell at-a-glance whether it is recording something or not. With a Sky+ box or even an old VCR, you can visually tell if something is being recorded. With this you have nothing.
The solution
Oddly, this problem only exists in standby. When powered up, the box does show whether something is being recorded by changing the ring colour from blue (on) to red (on and recording). Therefore, the solution is very simple. Have the box turn the ring red when it’s recording something in standby too. By leaving the text display dimmed, users will still realise the box is in standby rather than fully powered.