Digital Stream DPH1000R HDTV Recorder with Digital Tuner and 320 GB HDD (Black)

I like the idea of having an over the air (OTA) DVR to no longer have cable bills but yet take advantage of the benefits of digital recording over old VHS tapes.Unfortunately, there aren't many machines to choose from when looking for an OTA DVR. This is my third DVR. The first I owned is a defunct DTVPal which when working was great. However, randomly would record shows in Spanish or with no sound. The second one I owned was a PHD-VRX dual tuner DVR which I found just too complicated to use, so I returned that.The Digital Stream DPH1000R DVR I feel is the middle of the two previous mentioned. The DTVPal was very user friendly and easy to use. The PHD-VRX was too difficult and unfriendly to use.If one hopes this DVR will offer as many features as DVR from a subscriber (examples, TiVO, Comcast, U-Verse, Dish) then one will probably be disappointed. But if one looks as this DVR as a step up from the days of VCR recording, than one might be quite satisfied.Rather than trying to go over the various features of this DVR, I'll list out what I like and dislike.LIKES------ Editable recording schedule after selecting via program guide. For example, I like to record the evening news. I can look at the program guide and select to record it. The selection then shows up on my schedule. I can then select and edit the selection to automatically record by frequency (Mon-Fri as an example).- USB port for external media. I haven't used this yet, but I will. I have several old VHS tapes that I wish to digitize. I can transfer the old tapes to the built-in HD then copy that program to an externally connected HD. Plus, I can then play the videos from the external HD. Also, I can view pictures from files using the USB port.- Resume playing of a recording program. If I stop a program before finishing viewing it, when I decide to watch again, I can resume viewing from where I left off. The PHD-VRX DVR didn't do this.DISLIKES--------- ill-designed remote control (more on this later). I don't like the remote control. The two most noticeable are first the buttons feel spongy when pressed. Second, and more importantly, the most likely used buttons (pause/play, stop, forward, rewind) are tiny. The larger buttons are the numeric buttons but they aren't used as much by me as the navigation buttons.- can only record from one tuner. The DVR has two tuners. But unlike other DVRs with dual tuners, only one tuner records. One can have a recording in progress and watch another program, but not record both.- the DVR does use a program guide which automatically gets updated. Perhaps it's by area, but I've only seen at most about 12 hours of program information, unlike the 7 day maximum one would expect.- Automated prompts that can't be turned off. After each recording, a prompt comes up on the screen and defaults to automatically shut off machine in about 10 seconds unless one navigates to cancel the shut off. Also, before a recording starts, a prompt comes up notifying that a recording is about to happen unless I want to navigate and cancel the recording. I wish I can just turn off the prompts but there is no option to do this.- Can't pause live TV. This is one feature I loved on my DTVpal DVR. While watching a program, I'd just press the pause key, and a buffer of up to 1 hour would start. From there I can walk away and take a break up to an hour before resuming the program. There is a workaround sort of with the Digital Stream. That is, to press the "record" button to record what one is watching. Then go to the playlist and watch the recording program in progress. There one can use the viewing buttons. This works for the most part, but is not as transparent as just hitting the pause button to pause live TV.- Remote doesn't have Skip 30 seconds button (more on this later). Another feature I loved on my DTVpal DVR was at the touch of a button, to be able to skip 30 seconds forward of a recorded show. This was a convenient way to go past commercials and not use the Forward button and guess when to press the play button to halt the forwarding.- Maximum speed of the forward button is 32X. This is okay for commercials but slow if one wants to move towards the end of a recorded program.Neutral--------24 hour clock. The DVR uses a 24 hour clock. For many, they do not like it. I'm more familar to regular am/pm 12 hour format. Yet I also like that with a 24 hour clock, there's no confusion as to getting the day/night confused as I have in the past got my am/pm mixed up and missed programs.As mentioned early, one of my major dislikes is the remote. First because of it's bad layout and feel, plus the feature of a skip 30 seconds is missing. To solve both issues, I decided to get another remote. Not just a remote but one with macro features. Thus, now I have a remote that has better keys, and also have created buttons on the new remote which add a skip forward 30 seconds and a skip backward 10 seconds funtion. With my new remote control, the skipping forward and backward isn't as instantaneous as with my old DTVPAL DVR, yet is adequate. A review of the remote I got can be viewed here:  URC A6 Pre-Programmed and Learning Universal Remote Control for up to 6 A/V Components In summary, though there are a few things which I dislike about this DVR, when treating it as an upgrade to my old VCR, and now I have digital viewing without cable bills, the ability to archive old VHS recordings to digital, and found a new remote control to retain the much wanted feature of commercial skipping 30 seconds forward, I can learn to really like this DVR.

We have an older widescreen TV that only has an analog tuner. It is capable of 1080i using DVI or component inputs For quite awhile we were using a digital-to-analog converter, but of course that downgrades the signal to 480i. I did a lot of looking and looking for something decent to use as a digital tuner, something that could record digital programs at the best resolution, and something that could also record analog; specifically the signal from a VCR so I could record a lot of our older and some personal tapes of family activities. Most other brands and models of HDTV tuners/recorders; as already mentioned; did not record at 1080 and most required a subscription. Well, I don't care for that since we only watch over-the-air. The only viable options seemed to be this recorded/tuner from Digital Stream. Some of the reviews gave me pause. But most of the reviews on other possible products also listed problems and quirks or lack of desired features. The obvious gist of all that is that I decided to take a chance on the Digital Stream DPH1000R. I am glad I did.The Positive Aspects:Setup was very easy. The manual is not hard to follow. The tuner worked great, pulling in all the digital stations our converter box was able to pull in, plus one low-powered extra station. This using an inexpensive indoor antenna (an omnidirectional, flat-panel one from RCA), For the most part, the image and audio quality are great. I have not had problems with the sound as some others have reported. If signal level drops too low for some reason, the image gets splotchy and audio degrades. I presume a better antenna would take care of those. Recording is easy to set up and do. You quickly get used to the military type time. This actually helps you avoid setting the recording time to am when it should be pm or the other way around. I have recorded around 100 VHS tapes so far. They record to MP2 format. Digital shows record to the TS format. If you want to burn them to disc, there are a number of free or inexpensive programs out there you can use. Transfer to an external USB hard drive is straight-forward. Although it will not recognize discs over a certain size; 2TB I think. You also can play directly from a USB hard drive as long as the file is in a format it can understand. When you record something, it seems smart enough to start slightly before the actual start time and I think, but am not certain, it goes slightly past the end time. My remote seems quite functional with no problems that I have noticed. However, I don't use it all that much. Instead I use a Logitech Harmony programmable remote. Logitech did not have the DS DPH1000R recorder in it's database, so I had to do a fair chunk of the programming manually and then a fair amount of tweaking. Once that was accomplished, I was able to get it to work pretty smoothly. You can record from one station and watch another; with some limitations if you are also recording/watching analog.The Negative Aspects:As mentioned by others, to pause a live program, as long as you are not recording something else, you have to start recording the current program. You then "resume" watching it by playing the recording. It will still keep recording while you are watching the recording. Sometimes one set of channels, 27.1, 27.2, 27.3 all vanish and it thinks one of those is 26.5! Unfortunately the one I usually record is 27.2 so this causes me to miss some of the shows. Not a biggie for me since they are all reruns anyway. The best way to fix this that I have discovered is to do a channel rescan. That goes pretty quickly, so again, not a biggie. Any scheduled recordings will still be there. As others have mentioned, power loss causes clock reset. This can also cause a scheduled recording not to record. However, the next time you turn it on, it tells you the clock needs setting and setting it is a matter of moments to do so. Again, any recordings that have been scheduled will still be there.The Neutral Aspects:Since our TV does not do 1080p, I am not sure if the recorder can do 1080p. It will not record VHS tables that have been copy-protected. Which is as it should be. However, a lot of VHS movies never were copy-protected. So far the annoyances have not been urgent enough to cause me to attempt to contact technical support about a possible firmware upgrade to fix the problems. If such a thing is even available. So I don't have an opinion on that as yet.OVERALLI am quite happy with it. It does what I want without costing an arm and a leg in price or monthly fees. This in spite of the quirks and minor flaws. We now can enjoy the high quality of digital TV shows. Our VHS collection is dwindling and we won't have to worry about the tapes continuing to degrade over time. We now can record digital shows of interest; something that became impossible with a VCR when over-the-air TV went solely digital. My recommendation would be to buy it if your needs match up with ours.