Who here has a DVR for their antennas? What DVR do you have?

[osu1991]

I was going to go with the DVR+ but still many things happening with it, that reminds me of the early days with the PalDvr and I didn't want to play tech support if something went wrong with it. Which is also why I didn't just set up WMC with an old laptop and HD homerun.

I gave in and bought a Roamio and Lifetime for my mom. It is very fast and works well, she really likes it, so I said the heck with it and bought 2 more on sale for myself and my dad to replace the PalDvr's. I bought a mini for myself and I actually use the Tivo and OTA more than my 722. I have a 211/dvr that will become my main sat receiver once some credits on my 722 expire.

30 OTA channels, I can find plenty to watch. I got really tired of Dish's half a$$ attempt at providing guide info for OTA too, so that really helped sway me too. The constant rerun marathons on all the cable channels is a big turnoff. ESPN,FS1 and a little bit on NBCSN are about all that keeps me on a basic sat sub now. I could just rent the 3-4 shows I actually watch off cable, if it wasn't for the sports.

 

[SatinKzo]

I got a Tablo setup. works great and can stream to anything and easy to use.

 

[MikeD-C05]

DISH Hopper with sling + usb ota tuner .

 

[DRCars]

Win7 Windows Media Center HTPC.

 

[Kraven]

OSU....whats wrong w/ the DVR+? All the reviews Ive read are positive

 

[Kraven]

What is too high? The going price on a Premiere (or the arguably better S3 HD) with lifetime seems to be $300. About the same on Craigslist. Probably tough to find one cheaper than that.

Ive had this conversation w/ ice maybe over a year ago and I think he paid 125$ for his. Prices are high IMO... and most of us thought they'd go down once the Roamio was released.

 

[jayn_j]

Ive had this conversation w/ ice maybe over a year ago and I think he paid 125$ for his. Prices are high IMO... and most of us thought they'd go down once the Roamio was released.

I thought they might simply because of the insensitive tuner in the premiere. The only reason I keep mine is that the lifetime was $99. But I agree that I would not pay $300 for a Premiere. Mine even had issues on some of the cable channels. The Roamio has been rock solid OTA.

 

[osu1991]

OSU....whats wrong w/ the DVR+? All the reviews Ive read are positive

It seems to work fine most times, but it has problems with certain 2Tb drives, and lately the guide from Rovi has been having problems of putting show titles in the wrong time slot or something. Some cities are not getting guide info from Rovi if they are in overlapping markets, so the DVR+ reverts to psip for those channels. The remote sucks, would recommend a Dish 20.1 learning remote and program it to learn the DVR+ buttons, or a harmony remote. The remote has a habit of becoming unresponsive to some and it uses small button batteries instead of AA or AAA's

Here is the AVS thread on the DVR+, which like here, you will see more complaints that probably don't affect most users, but it still has bugs, that I don't want to deal with if I'm getting it for my parents.

http://www.avsforum.com/forum/42-hdtv-recorders/1481183-channel-master-dvr-owners-thread-797.html

If you like to archive shows or just move them to a NAS for viewing on other devices, look for user Pachinko's program that will find, label and off load the files from the DVR+ hard drive.

 

[osu1991]

I thought they might simply because of the insensitive tuner in the premiere. The only reason I keep mine is that the lifetime was $99. But I agree that I would not pay $300 for a Premiere. Mine even had issues on some of the cable channels. The Roamio has been rock solid OTA.

The Roamio seems to have a very good tuner. My CW channel hovers around the signal loss border on the tuners of my 722, 211 and PalDvr's. The Roamio locks it solid and I've only seen it lose signal on the CW once during a very heavy wind and rain storm last week.


Granted the cost was high, but I've been impressed with the speed and responsiveness of the Roamio. I have $500 in each of the 3 Roamio's I have bought the last month. $399 for lifetime and $104 for the Roamio's and shipping, but it has been worth it. My mom loves it and has had no problems with it once she got used to the remote layout and how the Tivo works. I like the Tivo app, because I can check on her dvr from home without driving 45mins to the lake to see if the problem was user error, equipment or what.

I think my dad will like the one I got for him and my stepmom, once they get back from wintering at the Condo in Vegas. They may not use it as much here, since they have Dish here, but it will get used a lot in Vegas as they only use the Sling for a few cable shows and the rest they watch OTA out there.

I got a Mini to go with mine and shut off all but one of my Dish receivers. The Mini works great and I get guide info for all my locals instead of the Digital Service junk Dish likes to send out. Changing programming and removing receivers saves me $40 a month with Dish.

Tivo has a deal on Roamio's with lifetime if you've been a customer for 10 years that I've read about on the Tivo forums the last few weeks.

 

[Radioguy41]

For the past few years I've been using, and continue to use, a Polaroid DRM-2001g DVR (SD only but also capable of video editing and burning to a built-in DVD burner) but have recently installed a Homeworx HW-150PVR HD OTA tuner box that is capable of connecting to a harddrive to use as an HD DVR. Once I install the harddrive they will operate side by side.

 

[dhashd]

I use Simple TV whole home DVR and I can access the recordings practically everywhere. On my TVs over Roku, tablets, smartphones and computers over the network/internet.
It has some problems but I fixed most of them over time. Now it's working almost without any hiccups.

 

[Mr Tony]

For the past few years I've been using, and continue to use, a Polaroid DRM-2001g DVR (SD only but also capable of video editing and burning to a built-in DVD burner) but have recently installed a Homeworx HW-150PVR HD OTA tuner box that is capable of connecting to a harddrive to use as an HD DVR. Once I install the harddrive they will operate side by side.

Hey I got both of those laying around here too

 

[Mr Tony]

Ive had this conversation w/ ice maybe over a year ago and I think he paid 125$ for his.

Wasnt that cheap But it was a series 3 that I ended up selling a while ago

 

[Radioguy41]

Hey I got both of those laying around here too

That Polaroid is a great piece of equipment that came with what is arguably the world's worst manual. It was made for Walmart but nearly all of them were returned because buyers couldn't figure out how to use them based on the awful manual. All those returns were then sold as refurbs but there was never anything wrong to begin with. When I got it there was an active website where they had posted a user corrected manual that explained everything that was wrong with the original. Once I had a copy of that manual everything fell into place. I can record something, then using the built-in capabilities I can clip the front and back end, edit out any commercials, and then burn it directly to the built-in DVD burner for playing in either the built-in DVD player or on an upconverting Blu-Ray player. The one downside is it's SD but I love it.

 

[gms49ers]

I use Simple TV whole home DVR and I can access the recordings practically everywhere. On my TVs over Roku, tablets, smartphones and computers over the network/internet.
It has some problems but I fixed most of them over time. Now it's working almost without any hiccups.

I have one too, and I'm curious about a couple of things.

First, what problems did you have and how did you fix them?

Second, I access mine with my Roku, and I notice that the picture has a slight jerkiness occurring. My Roku only has wireless capability. Is yours wireless or hard wired, and do you notice any stuttering in the picture when accessing it via your Roku?

Thanks!

 

[dhashd]

I have one too, and I'm curious about a couple of things.

First, what problems did you have and how did you fix them?

Second, I access mine with my Roku, and I notice that the picture has a slight jerkiness occurring. My Roku only has wireless capability. Is yours wireless or hard wired, and do you notice any stuttering in the picture when accessing it via your Roku?

Thanks!

1. I have two Simple TV boxes, one is version 1 and the second one is version 2. The problem that I had was that the ver 2 box will go offline at random times and to bring it back online it needed a reboot. I fixed that problem with a lamp timer that I configured to restart the box every early morning. Since than I didn't have any problems. It's always online and it records everything.

2. All my Roku boxes, I have three Roku 2 XS, are hard wired, and I don't have any playback problems.

 

[jayn_j]

1. I have two Simple TV boxes, one is version 1 and the second one is version 2. The problem that I had was that the ver 2 box will go offline at random times and to bring it back online it needed a reboot. I fixed that problem with a lamp timer that I configured to restart the box every early morning. Since than I didn't have any problems. It's always online and it records everything.

And this is the post that gets right to the heart of the matter. People who are gadget freaks, experimenters will go for the cheap boxes or PC media editions. The people who go for TIVOs are the ones with family who just want the darned thing to work intuitively. Your partner probably doesn't want to get a degree in DVR. Kids tend to be more adaptable, but they also get grumpy when the box doesn't record the latest Dr Who episode.

 

[dhashd]

And this is the post that gets right to the heart of the matter. People who are gadget freaks, experimenters will go for the cheap boxes or PC media editions. The people who go for TIVOs are the ones with family who just want the darned thing to work intuitively. Your partner probably doesn't want to get a degree in DVR. Kids tend to be more adaptable, but they also get grumpy when the box doesn't record the latest Dr Who episode.

She's happy now because the system works all the time and she appreciates that we don't have to pay any monthly bill to watch TV. And yes, the kids are a lot more adaptable to new things that we think.

 

[Dan in VA]

And this is the post that gets right to the heart of the matter. People who are gadget freaks, experimenters will go for the cheap boxes or PC media editions. The people who go for TIVOs are the ones with family who just want the darned thing to work intuitively. Your partner probably doesn't want to get a degree in DVR. Kids tend to be more adaptable, but they also get grumpy when the box doesn't record the latest Dr Who episode.

Kids watch Dr Who? Who knew

 

[osu1991]

Kids watch Dr Who? Who knew

Just the cool kids. You know, the ones that wear bow ties.