The Humax PVR and Me …. dia Streaming

I've blogged about the Hummy (!) before, as it's been a real pleasure to buy (!),set up and use.

Last week I acquired a WiFi adapter for it, so that I can choose to watch BBC iPlayer and YouTube on my telly … not something that I have a regular compelling requirement to do but ….

The more important reason that I took my TV wireless was to allow me to enable the Humax HDR-Fox T2 to work as a media streaming device, allowing me to watch recorded TV programmes on devices other than the TV.

It took roughly 1 minute to enable the streaming functionality on the Hummy - merely tell it to start acting as a Universal Plug n' Play (UPnP ) device.

Once I did this, I then had to work out how to get at the media.

I started, on the Mac, by downloading and installing the XBMC client - this took a matter of seconds, and gives me a very very compelling interface that initially only showed the media on the iPad, including WALL-E which I'd previously recorded and exported onto a USB hard disk.

However, within a few seconds, XBMC searched for, and found, the Humax, and I was in the game.

"I feel the need, the need for speed "

Yep, the first thing I streamed to the Mac was one of my old-school all-time favourite films, Top Gun. Yes, I know, but …..

I then decided to go to the next level, and find a way to access the Humax from the iPad 2.

I looked again at XBMC, but their client is NOT in the App Store, and requires me to "jail break" the device - almost certainly a fine thing to do, but not for me, thanks.

I tried a few more apps. and settled on media:connect for DLNA and UPnP media streaming - the free version is good enough to play the first three media files in a folder - I played a few songs from the iTunes library on the iPad ( I guess I could've done the same from the Mac, but I already have iTunes Sharing and the Remote app installed ).

Again, within a few seconds, the media:connect app had found the Humax, and I was playing media from there - this time it was Inspector Montalbano, all the way from Sicily.

I will almost certainly invest nearly £3 of my money for this app, having spent £250 on the Humax and £400 on the iPad, it seems like a fairly simple investment :-)

More to come, I'm sure ….