S**R
Cut the cord and don’t look back 🤫
Absolutely love this product so far. Extremely user friendly, provides easy to understand instructions and box does all the work for you. I haven’t had this product for long but I did a ton of research prior to purchasing.My goal was to cut the cord after cable company continues to go up on price and is NOW no longer providing local network channels. Apparently this has been an ongoing issue for others and their cable companies, recently we noticed that our local channels were gone. When we contacted at&t they gave us a ton of mumbo jumbo and stated we don’t actually pay for local channels and that the channels provided are their contractual obligation. A company owning prime time networks has decided to pinch the cable companies and want more money, some companies have worked out agreements others haven’t.My cable company no longer provides local network channels, after thinking about it, the majority of viewed channels and shows we enjoy aren’t enough to justify a 100.00 plus a month cable bill.We cut the cord. Using this box as our DVR, we bought an antenna and can now record our favorite shows for free and anything else we want we can use a streaming service like Hulu, Netflix, Philo, Sling with a Roku, Google Chrome-cast, Apple TV, Amazon Fire stick, etc.This box does many different things but the main use for us is that it takes the antenna and makes this able to have a guide, channels galore and a dvr all in one. All you need is a thumb drive aka a usb stick, currently we have a 250gb one we got for $20, so we’ll pretty much never run out of space. I am very pleased. Box is well made, instructions are easy to comprehend and everything is easy to use. Very happy customer and a now $150 a month richer. Do it, cut the cord. Don’t keep wasting money on overpriced cable. Now that these companies don’t even provide network local channels that you get for free, what’s the point anymore. I was locked into a contract for 2 years BUT I told them I wanted out based on them not abiding by their contractual agreement. I do not care that they say “oh local channels aren’t what you pay for” no sir, I agreed to a set amount of channels and networks that I was told I would receive! They broke the agreement! Lord knows if you did that they’d be coming after you with a pitchfork, when the shoes on the other foot there’s complete silence, nothing but crickets. I wrote a letter and email to their customer correspondence, I filled a complaint against them on every avenue I could including the BBB and Consumer Protection Bureau stating the broken contractual agreement. I was let out of my contract and Paid no fees to terminate. I only pay $40 a month for internet.Welcome to the club!
D**E
Not sure about this, but the playback of OTA programs looks nice
A review, and it leaves me with questions.I have several questions, actually.First, the operation of this PVR.To record, you have to use the USB slot with a 2.0 (not 3.0) thumb drive or hard drive.You have two choices of formatting the USB device: FAT 32 or NTFS.Is there a better choice between the two ?Either way, they are MTS or META files that seem to be data files, not video files.You can play them through the USB slot on the blu-ray player, but not on a computer.Why ?Regardless of another reviewer from a few months ago, these files do not play on our computer !Also, unless you stop the recording / maximum recording time of 1 hour 27 minutes (using a FAT 32 formatted thumb drive), and then restarting the recording, only the first 1 hour and 27 minutes will show up on the USB drive menu to play on a blu-ray player.Nothing else.Why ?I found that if you stop the recording, then restart it within the time frame of less than 1 hour 27 minutes, more files can be seen on the USB menu, played on the blu-ray playing using the USB drive input.Regardless, an entire 6 hour 31 minute program will play through this PVR unit without a glitch, using a 64 GB thumb drive, with a lot more recording space it appears.When the files are transferred / burned to a DVD, the format won't play.Why ?To be honest, I'd rather save programs on a hard drive and transfer them back to the USB thumb drive and play them using the blu-ray player, as it would be less wear and tear on this PVR unit, and less heat on the the USB thumb drive that still flashes when the PVR is turned off.Any thoughts or ideas or observations from anyone on these issues ?
M**S
Works well and cheap, but many quirks that may be too much for non-tech people
I needed an over-the-air DVR for a couple programs I wanted to record and this is just about the least expensive option that actually works. Reception is excellent, but otherwise you get what you pay for. The onscreen user interface is pretty bad - I'm a computer tech, so I figured everything out and can handle it, but non-tech people will probably be baffled. The remote is also pretty user-unfriendly - no backlight, tiny buttons, some with unlabeled functions, but as with the onscreen UI, it does what it supposed to once you figure it out.Some other things to note:1. In theory it works with any USB drive for recording, but my experience with a flash drive was poor. Some dropouts and ghosting on playback. Switched to a real hard drive and playback is perfect.2. If you do use a flash drive, it must be formatted FAT32. That's not an easy thing these days, since Windows 7/8/10 don't natively support FAT32 formatting, but you can get free utility software that'll do the job.3. Other reviews have complained that it runs hot and mine did as well. Then I stripped off the plastic shrink wrap that covers the thing and partially blocks the vents. It runs much cooler now.Overall satisfied with the purchase at the low price point, but the quirks would probably be too much for most non-technically inclined people.
Trustpilot
1 day ago
2 months ago
