Exclusive Review of the HD360 HDTV DVR

[Sean Mota]

HD360 OTA HD DVR​

by Sean Mota

August 21, 2004​

Moderator

Satelliteguys in colaboration with T.S MicroTech brings you this first look of the HD360 OTA HD DVR.

The HD360 is an HTPC (Home Theater Personal Computer). It records both OTA HD and SD digital. It has two OTA tuners. The OTA tuners are able to scan for both digital and analog channels. It is sold by TS MicroTech http://www.hdehome.com/. They graciously let us review the HD360. If you are interested in the product you may contact Jarmaine at (626) 839-8998 or go to www.hdehome.com for more information.

Here's my review.

Specifications:

• Pentium 4 (AMD Athlom) 1.68GHz
• 192MB Ram
• 120GB in Hard Disk Space. Two drives partition.
• XP Home Edition
• My HDCard v1.62 It has MyHD + DVI Card setup. You can see all the details of these two cards here: http://www.digitalconnection.com/Products/Video/mdp120.asp
• Firewire Cards
• DVD Drive

Setup

I did a simple connection. I connected the DVI output of myHD Card to my HDTV DVI-in. Then I connected the VGA out port of PC to my monitor. The Monitor was not included. The DVI cable was not included either. The electrical power cord for the PC was not included (they probably forgot). The worst part of the installation was to make the HDTV synch with myHD Card DVI out. There is a very nice option under the configuration menu called "Enable Digital Flat Panel Mode". This was not stated in the manual. It should because without it you will get no colors on the HD output. I used my Sony Wega KF60-800XBR which has a native resolution of 1368x768p. The only resolution that worked with my HDTV was 1280x720p. The option is there for 1080i displays as wells as other.

MyHD card has two OTA tuners. I immediately scanned for my digital locals and got them all. I was immediately watching HDTV through the HD360. MyHD card has two nice options that when you turn it on, it will immediately send the HD signal to the HDTV. Another nice feature is that it can turn off the HD360 if you turn off myHD Card. If you don't do this, you will need to connect the monitor to shut down the PC.​

P.C. Monitor:

The fact that the HD360 needs a monitor to be connected is a pain. It should be noted that after you finish setting everything up you can put away the monitor. But if you need to transfer files to another media or name the recording or schedule any recording it needs to be done through the PC. The remote control gives you the accessibility to Record programs and delete programs and watch live events without touching the PC. One suggestion is to include a program like powerstrip (www.powerstrip.com) to get the PC in synch with the HDTV. After all my HDTV is a PC monitor. I know that getting the right resolution to work with powerstrip can be very challenging. I know this from experience.

You will also need the monitor if you are planning to archive the files. The files by default are 2 GB. It creates a series of 2 GB files that are linked when play back. The files can be customized to a bigger size as well.​

Picture Quality of MyHD:

There's no question about it. MyHD does a great job when watching a live event or recorded event. Both look the same to my eye. There are a lot of great reviews of MyHD card on avsforum and I know a lot of people that use it without problems.

All your basic VCR like features are there -- Pause, Record, Rewind, Foward, etc. What it does not have is timeshifting. It has two OTA tuners. I haven't played around with the second tuner and it is not clear to me yet whether it will be able to record from one tuner while watching the other. This may be there but I haven't verified. I feel like I am reviewing myHD card but it is myHD card that has all the features to act like a DVR. The DD5.1 audio stream is recorded.​

Recording:

There's no sofware to edit the commercials so you have to pause while recording to limit the time. There is software out there that lets you edit this type of file. You can also organize your recording into folders.

If you do organize the files into folders and customize the name of the file, you will need to add them to the list that the remote control can see. You will need the monitor to do this.
​

Playback:

Playback can be done with the remote. The input menu brings up all the files that has been recorded. You may play them or delete them with the remote control.​

Program Guide:

It uses TitanTv PG. I did not download it. You need to connect the PC to the internet. It has a Network card. I am not sure if you can use the PG to schedule recording but the documentation says that it is possible and it is even possible to put the PG on the net and be able to schedule your recording from the internet.​

HD360:

The stability and configuration is very good. I haven't had a single glitch with it. I left it on recording the whole night and it did quite well. It is very stable and has been configured quite well. My recommendation will be to get a bigger hard drive.

How quiet is it? I turn off my audio reciever. I left the CPU in the same open place as in this picture - The HD360 and sat like 10 feet away from it. I turned off my receiver; I can hear the fan while playing back the football game without any audio. With the audio back, I couldn't hear it.

How is Hard Disk fragmentation handle? This is a P.C. and we know how fragmented a Hard Disk can become from deleting files. Is there a routine that automatically does this or are the users expected to do the maintenance?
​

Archive

The DVD+R DL is for archiving purposes only. It can't play the HD recording back. One can also get another Hard Disk or get a JVC 3000 unit and archive through firewire to tape.​

DVD playback:

The DVD can up the resolution to 720p (or whatever is set to). It won't play commercial DVDs. It will play any DVD that are not encrypted.​

Pictures:

• The HD360
• Back of PC Connections
• Back of PC Connections 2
• Back of PC Connections 3
• Back of PC Connections 4
• All Connections
• Accesories
• Remote Control
• Enable Digital Flat Panel Mode
• Screen Menu
• Sound Menu
• Channel Menu
• ETC Menu
• File Menu
• Input Menu
• Program Menu 1
• Program Menu 2
• Channels from Antenna 1
• Display numbers
• VGA Pass-Through Cable

Conclusion

In conclusion the HD360 is a nice HTPC that will give you the ability to record OTA HD programming. It has the ability to do this from the remote control once it is setup. It is very stable and it looks like it has been configured quite well. It has potential. Can anyone do the same by buying all the components and putting the PC together? Sure, it can be done but it requires time and understanding all the components and minimizing conflicts between components.​

Disclaimer: The emphasis of this review is HD recording. There may be other features that apply to SD or HD that I did not cover. I am in no way affiliated with www.hdhome.com (T.S MicroTech).

 

[korsjs]

when i saw this review, i thought for a second that this was the review on the machine mizee sent you. thanks for the hard work you are giving satelliteguys on both reviews.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

This IS the machine that Mizee sent over.

 

[BFG]

I'm glad that the review worked out. However they need to totally fix their website and clearly state that it is a custom built HTPC, with all the Specs, if they want to sell it to consumers. Saying it's an HD PVR is way different and will lead to lots of confusion

 

[deArgila]

Two questions:

1) is there QAM (unencrypted) support - I'm assuming not.
2) can you start watching a show while it's still recording? - I'm assuming that "no timeshifting" means no.

 

[markdl]

The MyHD card can't view QAM signals. The only 2 cards that can do that at the moment (and only partially successfully) are the Fusion III card and the AccessDTV card.

And, last I checked, you can't start watching a program delayed while it's recording - you'd need a second HTPC with another MyHD card connected over a network to do that form of timeshifting.

It should be pointed out that the MyHD card does not have 2 OTA HD tuners on it. It can view/record one HD program at once. It's got one HD tuner and one SD tuner.

It's a great card, and probably the most popular one available at the moment. The guys at DigitalConnection do a great job of supporting it over at AVS.

 

[Sean Mota]

markdl,

I just took this statement from digitalconnection:

"dual RF inputs both capable of HDTV tuning" There's no PIP.

 

[korsjs]

This IS the machine that Mizee sent over.

Sorry about that, I looked at the pictures posted and when I looked at Mizee website a month ago, it looked totally different from what I remember. Thanks for the review.

 

[markdl]

markdl,

I just took this statement from digitalconnection:

"dual RF inputs both capable of HDTV tuning" There's no PIP.

Very true. You can have an OTA antenna connected to each input (antennas pointed in different directions). Both inputs feed the HD tuner.

Having put together 3 HTPCs for my own use over the last couple of years for recording OTA HD, I'm surprised that HTPCs are starting now to get marketed towards the more general population, as opposed to the high end enthusiasts that are willing to put the time into endlessly tweaking systems to get it "just right". HTPCs are definitely not something that you just plug in and it works. If HDEHome has managed to come close to that, then it's a real breakthrough. Powerstrip alone can take hours to nail perfectly, considering it's settings are different for every video card/display device configuration.

 

[yessirrom]

Firewire

Did you have a chance to try the firewire connections? I would love to know if it would work with my Hitachi 65S700 firewire inputs.

 

[hancox]

I'd love to know how/if the DVI passthrough works. Does it integrate with the TitanTV guide?

 

[Sean Mota]

Did you have a chance to try the firewire connections? I would love to know if it would work with my Hitachi 65S700 firewire inputs.

I don't have any hardware with firewire except my HS2 (Panasonic DVD recorder). I would have to look for a special wire because both ends are different. I do not know if the HD360 will recognize it though. As you know most of these firewire ports need a driver to be recognized by any PC.

P.S. The manual has intructions about how to set it up for the JVC 3000u

 

[Sean Mota]

I'd love to know how/if the DVI passthrough works. Does it integrate with the TitanTV guide?

It is supposed to. I won't be able to test that because I did not get the cable for the DVI passthrough. According to the instructions, it takes data from TitanTV and integrates it with its own PG. How it is supposed to make this available on the web so that you can record from anywhere I am not too clear yet.

 

[Mizee]

Thank you Sean I do appreciate the review. Your review will really help us make the system alot stronger. The Commercial software is being tested in our base office in HK. So that issue is solved after the software has been successfully been tested. Please feel free to play with it a little more before you send it back. Again Thank you for your honest feedback.

Jarmaine Go

 

[Sean Mota]

Mizee,

thanks for letting us review it. I have used it a lot during the weekend. I still have the CBS friday football game, a little of the Track and Field olympics and last night I recorded Cold Case and Pay it Forward. This is one of the benefits to have one of these. I can watch Cold Case and Pay it Forward later because I was watching Six Feet Under and Dead Like Me on Satellite. Mizee I know that these programs can be archived through the DVD using DVR+R DL but an option for a larger hard drive needs to be looked at (a second hard drive maybe). Also, if anyone is getting one of these, I strongly suggest to buy an external hard disk. The 120 GB can be filled very fast at 8-9GB per hour.

Mizee, you mentioned that there is an upgrade that could edit commercials. This will greatly save a lot of GB in in the hard drive. Is there a way I can get this before I send it back to you?

 

[Mizee]

I can ask my engeneeres and see what they have finished. i'll let you know. I think you have another week with the system i'll let you know what i can find out.

 

[markdl]

120GB definitely isn't enough. I have 1.4TB, and it's not enough at some points in time.

 

[StevenD]

Hey Mizee,

Why did y'all skimp on the RAM and Hard Drive on this box? This would be a much more attractive box if you beefed it up some.

 

[Mizee]

the hard drive is totally upgradable aswell as the RAM. So not that big issue this is just the base system.

 

[StevenD]

the hard drive is totally upgradable aswell as the RAM. So not that big issue this is just the base system.

But on the case there is a big sticker that says the warranty is void if its opened.