Mediasonic HOMEWORX HW130STB

Delivery of converter box was reliable (On time and in good condition). Apparently, it did not work so I contacted seller. They responded quickly and carried and sorted out the issue without fuss (refund).

It works well, and as some have observed, hardens back to the first plain Jane VCRs of the 80s. Can't give the user interface or remote 5 stars: interface has some major clunky points, and the remote is tiny, and apparently underpowered, since it only works reliably when pointed directly at the device. On the plus side, I dropped my satellite subscription, and therefore the integrated PVR capability in my receiver. Since most of my content comes from the 'net, I couldn't justify the monthly costs of satellite any longer, and my antenna provides great reception, but I have missed the ability to record live TV. I considered the new generation of networked PVRs, and while they're promising, and have features the Mediasonic unit does not, they were still pricier than I wanted for my pretty infrequent recording. As a backup when I feel I might not stay awake long enough to watch something, the Mediasonic is great, and for $40 plus tax, the price was perfect. The added bonus - which I had not known about before buying it - is that its recording format (MTS) is natively recognized by Kodi, which I use as my primary media player software. Rather than having to convert the MTS recording to another format, I simply unplugged the external hard drive, plugged it into the android box in the room where I wanted to watch TV, and Kodi played it flawlessly. Although the Mediasonic tuner isn't quite as sensitive as my aging Pioneer TV, it's been quite adequate so far. Above all, the price was right. (The only reason I didn't give full marks for picture quality is some intermittent video "noise" I'm monitoring: the first time, a restart solved the issue, but I'm hoping it won't be a regular occurrence.)

This unit, while has a cheap feel to it due to the light weight plastic used for the case, along with a cheap feeling power adapter & remote, is solid in terms of functionality! After the basic setup; it was able to tune in more channels than my LCD TV's built-in tuner. The output allows you to display it to RCA out (analog like quality); back out through the Coaxial out (analog like quality on Ch3 or Ch4); or HDMI (HD quality).. So if you have HDMI input on the TV use it! The quality can be adjusted too... from 480, 720, to 1080 (via HDMI). Now for recording, plug in a USB pen drive (128GB for me)... and it records in HD the channels that come in HD. The remote is a bit tricky to figure out only because the buttons are small and it isn't one of those huge remotes that is 8-10" long. So they had to cram a lot of buttons in but it has all the features needed. There's a "goto" button that you can type in how many hours you want to skip forward (or backwards to)... this is a nice feature when you record 3-4 hours in one file and want to jump to certain parts of the show... One thing that wasn't possible was recording in lower quality. It seems to only record in the native quality of the broadcast so if it's 720HD then it records in that format... you cannot pick a lower quality. So for regular HD it appears to use about 1GB per hour.. with a 64GB USB stick you can get up to 60 hours and if you have say a 500GB drive... much more. I have not tried a spinning 2.5" USB drive yet... so I can't say if the USB port can power that. But for $30... I can now retire my VCR from recording duties (running through a Digital to Analog Tuner...) Wife can't make fun of my Luddite ways anymore... :)

No cumplió su cometido

Montreal, Metro Préfontaine, big 8 bay antenna mounted on a pole on 3rd story apartment: old cheap samsung 1080 - 23 channels, ~11 local/quebec, others Plattsburg n Burlington 2017 top of line LG OLED - 23 channels brand new 2028 Sony higher end XBR-65X900f - 7 channels, can't even do all the local channels Sony after lots of bs, will only take back tv if I pay $hundreds shipping this homewox for $40 got me all 23 channels, tks to reviewer from montreal who commented on this detail before 30 second to set up, got all the channels immediately, so much for sony/all baloney excellent picture quality plastic unit is kind of light, with all the cabling , will move around. if metal box one is heavier perhaps is better choice remote is slower compared to normal tvs, but I'll get used to it remote pretty much has all the controls that one would expect, including switching to last channel viewed. Only wish it has a btn to show me what channel I'm viewing. have not used recording function yet, not expecting any problems as so far everything is working just as advertised box seems to be manufactured good enough, only time will tell if long term reliability is a problem like some reviewers have encountered. only one tuner, for the price, if I need to watch one channel and record a second one, I'll just buy another one. Addendum after owning it for couple of months: I wanted to leave it on all the time, but found out sometimes the sound from sound bar lags the image by a couple of seconds. Turning it off and then back on to reset the box removed the lag. So now I just turn it off when not using it. On my Sony XBR65X900f tv and sony sound bar, if I connect it to the tv's hdml input, the image quality is not stable, I have to adjust it slightly all the time. And the sound also has slight lag. If I connect it to the sound bar's hdml input, the image quality is much better and the sound needs no adjustment for lag. So now I connect it to sound bar's hdml input. Not sure if this is a function of the STB or the Sony XBR. If I were to guess, I would guess it's the Sony's fault.