Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This PVR/converter box is amazing. Before I get started, it's important for people to know that this is a solution for your antenna, and you can't really judge this based on your experience with cable/satellite DVRs. You just can't have that kind of expectations without spending a couple hundred dollars more and maybe a subscription fee, too. I got this unit for $40 including tax, and it far exceeds my expectations. So I didn't take one star away based on the fact that it's not as easy to use as a satellite DVR, but based on its own merits, which I'll discuss in a little bit. But first I want give some answers to a few questions for people looking into this that aren't readily available. * This unit is for antenna/OTA TV only. It is not for cable, even unscrambled. If you want to ignore this and try to use it for unscrambled cable, you can email the company and ask them to send you their beta firmware. But do that at your own risk. It's beta and unsupported, and not posted on their web site. I repeat, this is for antenna TV only. * Yes, this is a converter box that converts digital broadcast to work with your older analog TV. But that's not all it is. They call it a converter, but it also has an HDMI out that works perfectly fine with your HD TV, and it can output at 1080p, so it doesn't degrade the quality. But remember, if a channel is broadcast at 480i, it's still going to be 480i quality, even through HDMI. Most of the main channels broadcast at 720p, and some at 1080i. This box will retain that quality if you're using HDMI or even component. * This box only has one tuner, so you can only watch/record one channel at a time. It does, however, have a passthrough feature where you can run a cable wire to your antenna input on your digital TV, and watch a different channel using your TV's tuner, while the HW-150PVR is recording something else. This does not work with older analog TVs that don't have a digital tuner. * You have to have your own USB hard drive or memory stick to be able to use the PVR functions. It will record at whatever quality is being broadcast, so it will take up a lot of space. I think people are saying it takes around 10GB for one hour of HD video, so keep that in mind. You can't watch another channel while it is recording. You can only watch what is being recorded, so you'll have to use the passthrough feature, and switch TV inputs if you want to do that. I have heard people say they were able to switch sub-channels while recording, but I haven't tried it myself. * The EPG (electronic program guide) - I knew going in that it just gives what information is being broadcast, and that it wasn't going to be anything like a cable or satellite guide, so it actually exceeded my expectations. You can only see the guide for the channel that you're on, but you are able to press the right/left buttons to change channels while you're in the guide. The amount of content depends on the channel and time of day, but it showed way more than I was expecting. Sometimes it seems like a couple of days worth. You can use the guide to look ahead for a show, click on it, and set it to record that show. You can also set it to record the same time daily or weekly. It puts the files in a folder in the root directory of your USB drive. Be warned that when it records, it names the file based on the channel name, time, and date, not by the name of the show. You can change file names manually, though. Plus, you actually have access to the files of the recorded TV shows, so you could edit them on a computer if you want, which you cannot do with a cable/satellite DVR. * Time shift mode - The first thing you have to get used to is that it isn't always automatically recording for you to pause and playback live TV. You have to actually enter time shift mode by pressing Pause before any of that works. It takes a minute for it to enter time shift, so if you're watching a show you think you might want to use it with, you really need to press pause at the beginning so you don't have to wait a minute for it to enter the mode when you really want to use it. It's pretty awesome being able to do this with OTA TV, though. Another thing is that you cannot change channels when you are in time shift, unless you press Stop to exit that mode, which will bring you back to live TV. You also have no access to the guide or program info while you're in time shift. Still, it's really cool that you can do this for only $40. * Media playback - This really excited me about this product. It will play a lot of different kinds of video, audio, and picture files. I have all of my DVDs and Blu rays ripped to my USB hard drive, and it played all of my DVDs great. The only problem I had was with most of my ripped Blu rays. It played the video fine, but there was no audio. They were using a DTS codec. I used Handbrake to convert them all using the AAC codec, and it worked fine. Not only that, but it brought the file sizes down from 30GB each to around 7GB, without losing any noticeable quality. It plays MP3s well, too. I really only have a couple of complaints. I've noticed a little bit of bugginess in the software. A couple of times, it restarted on me for no reason when I was first setting it up. It only takes a couple of seconds to boot up, though, and it hasn't happened for a while. Also, the user interface is kind of slow. When you press the USB button to go to your PVR and media features, it takes at least 5 seconds before it switches. Until you learn that, you'll be tempted to keep mashing the button. One time it locked up on me when I kept mashing buttons. Just press it once and be patient for a few seconds before you press it again. Some of the remote buttons, like play, pause, stop, are just small buttons in a row that aren't easy to find without looking. If you have a learning universal remote, that solves that. My only other complaint is that there is no Page Up/Down buttons for when I'm navigating my media. You have to go up and down one file at a time. But these are small things, and it didn't stop me from absolutely loving this product enough to post this long review. It's well worth your money, and it exceeded my expectations.