Everything I wanted to get digital TV signal
Pros:
Easy to setup, good analog and digital tuners.
Cons:
Difficult to read remote under low light.
The Bottom Line:
Inexpensive solution to get a decent digital tuner for your HDTV monitor. Reliable product with useful features that work.
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Overall Rating:
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Author's Review
I bought this machine to pick up digital channels off my basic cable services so that I can take advantage of my HDTV ready TV.
This machine has built-in tuner to pick up NTSC (analog), ASTC (digital) and clear QAM signals. With its DVD recording capability, this machine acts like a VCR recorder that is capable of recording up to 8 hours of programming. Clearly, it is not as good as a DVR (e.g., TIVO), but you do not have to pay monthly subscription fee to use the feature. It, however, offers a time shift feature that mimic DVR functionality that allows you to record and watch a previously recorded material.
This machine has all the right combination of inputs and outputs that meeting my needs. It supports component video, HDMI, S-video and coaxial optical audio output. I bought a HDMI to DVI cable to connect it to my 4-year old Sony TV. It works great. With HDMI connection, I was able to control the resolution between 480p, 720p, 1080i and 1080p with a simple touch on its remote. Resolution control is only available via HDMI.
It was very easy to set up the machine. Its menu system was fairly self-explanatory. If you need help, it does come with a 117-page manual.
One thing I did not like is that I must remember to turn off the machine so that it will start a scheduled recording. Other than that, the quality of the recording was excellent at SP speed (up to 2 hours) for a 4GB DVD. I did not try other speed levels.
The remote has decent layout with useful one-touch functionality. The channel up and down bottons could be bigger and better placed. The remote is not lit and has gray letters; hence, it is difficult to read under low-light condition.
