Digital Converter Box, Leelbox S3 ATSC Converter Box for Analog TV, HD 1080P HDTV Set Top Box for Recording PVR, Pause Live TV, USB Multimedia Playback [2019 Update Version]

I have had this box for 3 months. To be clear, this is for receiving and recording TV programs in digital format over the airwaves. Old, pre-2008 TVs do not have digital tuners, so there is no longer a signal for them to receive. For $40 it is great. I cut cable and wanted to minimize costs. Since I had an old CRT non-digital TV and was too cheap buy a new one, I decided to try it. Since it was also a DVR and compatible with modern TVs with HDMI, I figured it could always be used with the other TV if the old one crapped out. The picture quality and reception (I installed a $35 RCA antenna from Walmart in the attic) have been excellent. I added an old 160 GB hard drive literally sitting in the corner. It works great and the disk will hold hundreds of hours. It is used daily.Okay, so it is like an old VCR as far as programming. Not fancy. You enter time, date, channel. There is also an online schedule of local over the airwaves programming, you can schedule a little bit ahead through that, maybe for the next day. You can schedule 8 separate recordings, and record shows daily. There is one tuner... you can’t record and watch another channel at the same time. You can’t record two shows at once.There is NO manual. The remote sucks, you have to point it right at the box, but it does work. Learning the functions is a bit frustrating. I couldn’t figure out how to go from DVR preview to full screen! I figured the keys out, wrote them down. There are other brands and models that really the same, at least the same software and interface. I downloaded a manual for another brand. It was close enough and I learned it. Sometimes I just tried buttons. The menus were hard to read on my older TV, picture is great.Best Buy now offers a dual tuner one that is the same price... dropped a week after I got this one.It you want to spend $100, you can buy other DVRs that will broadcast via wifi to your modern TV... no need to have the TV near the antenna outlet, just the DVR. These have multiple tuners and can be watched on more than one TV. This sounds great, also need to supply your own hard drive.Over the air TV has changed! Much better and looks great in HD. I get 90 channels, but 45 are garbage.great for free!

Good: It works. Found about 19 channels from my outdoor antenna for my Vizio display that doesn't have a tuner. Doesn't seem to get hot.Not so good: There is a lag after you press buttons on the remote, so if you are impatient like me and press it again too fast, you will cancel out or double whichever commands you just entered. The remote is pretty flimsy and has a very narrow window of successful operation to the receiver. Maybe 15 feet and pointed directly at the receiver. Can't seem to set the clock to 12 hour time which is a bummer. Menu seems like something that came out of a VCR from the 80's or 90's.Overall: it does what it says it will, but it could be improved in a lot of ways. For the money, I'm not seeing a better option.

The S3 works great for just watching over the air tv. The tuner works really well, it picks up more channels then the one that is built into my tv. The remote works but feels cheap and alittle on responsive. The biggest problem is the PVR. When i have an exsternal storage device plugged in. The S3 will randomly freeze up shut down and reboot. This seems to happen most often when changing channels. I tried both flash drives and hdd's. I tried usb 2.0,3.0,3.1. I have a program set to record daily. Seems like a about 75% chance that my recording will be successful. 25% of the time i come home try to watch the latest ep of my show and for some reason it did not record. This is extremely frustrating. But for $29 this what you get. And that is the worst part. I looked on amazon for a better model. Perhaps something alittle more expensive. A higher end converter box, made by a name brand. Which i would gladly pay more money for. But quess what? It does not exist. Thats right all these off brand converter boxs are the same. They use the same software even though the box might look alittle diffrent. Look at the pics of the remotes they are almost identical. So right now im kinda stuck with it because there is no other better alternative.

Decent picture when it works... Slow operating system... Not enough channels. Overall trash. Skip it like a 7 year old in a hopscotch game.