I've struggled with the media capabilities of the Humax now for 2 years. Whilst the TV guide is excellent of course and its Free to air TV capability is also very good I will be keeping it for these capabilities only
I have been trialling a WD TV live. A $100 box that plays anything- right up to 1080p no pause no lag. All the formats that the Humax can't play it does. It doesn't have any local storage- because it doesn't need it. It connects to anything- NAS, PC Mac seamlessly. It has multiple network protocols. Its menu is not as slick as the Humax- but with a Harmony remote totally family friendly. It can handle 3000 track playlists without crashing
My point is- that media capabilities are obviously not that hard to do. The WD price indicates that it's not that expensive to deliver either. Humax should be able to deliver decent media capability for the price the Humax units are.
Ah to have one box that does it all eh Ice

(and no - two HTPC's have proven that option not viable too)