Looking For A Cheap Option DVR. Iview or HomeWorX?

[Adam]

You talked me into it. I ordered it from Amazon, came here to say so, then saw that you had edited your post with a promo code...so I cancelled the Amazon order and just got it from Newegg. Thanks!

 

[afterlife2]

No problem you will love it. I should get a BACKUP.

 

[afterlife2]

Can you use the coax digital output for the audio?

Live TV and Recorded TV. I can confirm that via coaxial on my receiver(AUX) is Dolby Digital 5.1.

 

[Adam]

Live TV and Recorded TV. I can confirm that via coaxial on my receiver(AUX) is Dolby Digital 5.1.

Thanks - I phrased that wrong. I meant can you use it because it seemed like the easiest solution, as opposed to renaming files. I didn't know if you have that connection available on your gear. That's how I have it hooked up, and I'm glad that you can do that, too.

I got mine Tuesday and have it hooked up. Works pretty well, but the reception isn't as good as on my TV, so one of the channels that I bought it to record has intermittent reception. I've got to get that fixed. Other than that, it's decent. Recorded quality is acceptable (and perhaps stellar, as the show that I recorded was on the channel mentioned earlier), and it was pretty easy to set it up to record a show. Pausing live TV works well, too, although it takes a few seconds to start after I hit the pause button (probably due to my hard drive). The remote layout blows, IMO, with "play" and "stop" (and others) being the same size round buttons at the bottom surrounded by other identical buttons that do various things. I don't know why they didn't make them stand out like on most remotes.

For $36, though, it's tough to complain about this thing.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

this is something I may look into sooner or later:
How to Watch and Record Live TV on Your XBMC Media Center

 

[afterlife2]

Yeah I didn't know if I had Coaxial on my AVR till I looked.would have been a hassle to keep renaming. Even for 46$ that I paid I think it's a great option, since I don't have Cable/DVR. I get a little break up too on 2 channels(Fox and NBC) intermittently as well. The others look great. I think the recording looks great on my set. The live pause is cool. I'm thinking of getting this to see if it works well If not I can always send it back: Amazon.com : Channel Master 3414 4 Outputs Distribution Amplifier : Electrical Distribution Panels : Electronics

Today is the last day for the $36 sale, so... Bored that looks to be a good option as well, but I'd rather just use my TV.

 

[Adam]

I want to update something that I said before. When I used the really small USB flash drive of mine, it did stutter during playback - but that was when pausing and playing live TV. That just happen to be what I tried, and I concluded (incorrectly) that it wasn't good for recording at all. When I recorded part of a show just now on the flash drive and then played it back (so, playing but not also recording at the same time) it worked great. So, my hard drive works great for pausing live TV and regular recording, and the flash drive works great for regular recording.

I'm quite happy about that because my flash drive is one of those micro 16GB drives that barely even sticks out of the USB port.

Also, I can transfer either drive over to my Sony BDP-S390 blu-ray player and have it instantly recognize the files and play them back flawlessly.

 

[afterlife2]

How many scanned channels are you getting? I'm getting 67.

 

[Adam]

How many scanned channels are you getting? I'm getting 67.

67? Lucky! I'm jealous. I'd have to go look to get the exact number, but it's something like 30 (if you don't count the 8-10 that are duplicate channels from repeater towers). A number of those are Spanish channels that I don't watch. In a nutshell, I get (that I watch):

• NBC
• ABC
• CBS
• FOX
• My TV
• CW
• PBS (with two channels that I watch)

So, eight that I watch. The CW is the one that is spotty on this new hardware because the signal strength occasionally drops too low. It sometimes, but rarely and only in bad weather, gets spotty on my TV. I'm sure that I can get it fixed.

Thanks again for starting this thread, getting me interested again, and posting that coupon from Newegg! Much appreciated.

 

[afterlife2]

You might have to move your antenna some. It took me a while to get all those channels. I tried playback on my Oppo via USB, but it could not read the files. I thought Oppo played almost everything. It worked nicely on my Sony 590 and may prefer it to the playback on the HW. Thanks for the tip and I'm glad you are enjoying it.

 

[Adam]

You might have to move your antenna some.

Yeah, to New York. I'm pretty sure that I get every channel available here, and I definitely get every channel that I want here. Long story short, I have two outdoor directional antennas, preamp, and amplifier system.

 

[Adam]

As mentioned, we both had issues with stuttering using flash drives. So, to see if a faster drive would help, I snagged a new flash drive to see if I'd be able to use it to pause live TV. I popped it in, and the replaying of "paused" TV was working great. My other flash drive stuttered within a couple of seconds, so when I was watching smooth video for 10 seconds or more, I was all happy with my new purchase. Then, it started stuttering, too. Dang. I tried a NTFS format, but that didn't help. I even formatted it (Fat32) using the Homeworx, but no dice.

Looks like the weather will be nice today, so I'm going to work with my antennas to see if I can improve on reception for that one station. I doubt it, as I've spent a good deal of time optimizing it in the past, but I'll give it another try.

 

[afterlife2]

I'm using a 2TB HD WD and don't get a stutter. Is that on both Sony BD player and Homeworx playback? Antenna I spent the whole day getting it right to get 67 channels. Most are Chinese, Spanish, QVC, PBS and local channels. I pick up Showtime, Cinamax, Airbox etc as channels but no picture or sound. I still have not gotten the booster, yet.

 

[Adam]

To be clear, I get no stuttering using my HD. I get stuttering (but only when pausing TV) using a flash drive, but I like the small size of the flash drives much better...so I wanted to try a different one to see if it would work. It was a gamble that didn't pay off. On the plus side, I got a 32GB drive that will hold enough TV for me...on the downside, I got a different brand that isn't as covert as the brand that I own (and cost about twice as much). Both brands are small, but the SanDisk Cruzer models are black and blend in with the front of the Homeworx versus the aluminum shell on the Patriot model that I got.

 

[afterlife2]

I only tried it out when I got it and it seem to work with my HD only as well, but didn't notice any hiccups. I think the most you can use is 15 min. from what I read.

 

[Adam]

I only tried it out when I got it and it seem to work with my HD only as well, but didn't notice any hiccups. I think the most you can use is 15 min. from what I read.

It's actually working out okay on paused TV with that new flash drive now. Still a little stuttering at times, but not too bad. Recorded TV works great on it (and on the other flash drive...and HD). Probably something to do with the drive controller and read/write speeds when it's trying to record and play at the same time for delayed TV that would cause an issue on some drives.

Regarding the 15 minutes, are you talking about pausing? You can adjust that in the menu. The default storage (IIRC) is 1GB for pausing TV, but you can up that to 4GB.

 

[afterlife2]

Yes pausing works for 15 mins. Never tried it that long only like 2 mins.

 

[Adam]

Yes pausing works for 15 mins. Never tried it that long only like 2 mins.

Again - you can increase that.

 

[Adam]

It's actually working out okay on paused TV with that new flash drive now. Still a little stuttering at times, but not too bad. Recorded TV works great on it (and on the other flash drive...and HD). Probably something to do with the drive controller and read/write speeds when it's trying to record and play at the same time for delayed TV that would cause an issue on some drives.

I forgot to update this. Recorded TV still had glitches with my two flash drives (one USB 2.0, and one 3.0). Minor, but annoying. Every minute or so, the video would degrade severely for a couple of seconds and then come back.

I just bought one of these USB 3.0 memory card readers for about $7, and paired it with this Class 6 SD card...it works flawlessly. Paused, recorded, whatever. Thought that I'd mention it in case anyone else was looking for a solid state solution.

 

[afterlife2]

Glad to hear that you are liking it, Adam. I tried a 32gb usb, but it started skipping. I'll try that usb 3.0 thanks. I've been using an old 320gb drive with no problems. You really can't go wrong with this DVR. I'd like to see what they have coming up for an upgraded model. Man if they only had a model that recorded 2 shows at a time...