Mediasonic HW-150PVR HomeWorx ATSC Digital TV Converter Box with Media Player and Recording PVR Function/HDMI Out (Black)

I've been using this tuner for the past 18 months with a HD antenna (2-bay Channel Master).Works great.I fixed the antenna on a mast and mounted it on my chimney. Remember "height is King" to get the best signal.I aimed the antenna towards between Buffalo and Toronto and on a good day I can get over 50 channels!Even on a bad day I still get 20 with the major channels.The Interface is easy to navigate. PVR simple as cake. Just plug in an external Hard drive to the USB Port, choose channel and press record.

It's an OK PVR box, but a very good regular converter box.Pros:=====- Easy quick navigation between channels with the "OK" button. Once you've scanned for channels, when you're watching any single channel, if you press "OK" without any other menu up, it will bring up it's own small menu. Rather than have to monotonously type in the channel number, or go up or down through the channels and wait for them to load first (which is still quick but normally that could add an extra 10 seconds going through each channel to get there) - if you know what exact channel you want you can just go there immediately.- You can rename familiar channels so you can identify them easily.- It only has one tuner, but you can still watch a channel while recording a second channel. If you are buying this solely for the PVR function like I did, it has a "Loop through" (passthru) option that if enabled allows you to watch a different channel on your TV tuner while the PVR is recording a different channel on it's own tuner. This requires you to have the antenna in coaxial to the PVR, another coaxial from the PVR to the TV, and a separate Yellow/White/Red RCA cable (that it comes with) OR (more preferably) an HDMI out to the TV. The book isn't very clear about this, but when it's set to Loop through, you won't be able to watch this PVR via the coaxial on Channel 3 or Channel 4 like normal (not that you would want to if you could avoid it!) Of course this means you'll obviously have to scan the channels in on your TV as well.- You can leave it in Standby, and if you had programmed times to record shows it will kick on and start recording on it's own and turns itself back off when it's done. That's pretty standard, but this is a really cheap model so it's nice to have.- The manual is relatively good, although some clunky English is used. You can tell it was made in China, but it's far superior to many other Chinese-made manuals and is actually helpful.- The program data is thorough, and it's easy to set a recording on those shows when the data is available. As with many of the better converter boxes, it shows several hours of data and program information ahead. It's also easy to get the info to pop-up while watching your program.Cons:=====- There is no way to set the time apparently - only the Time Zone. Usually this isn't a problem though, as it seems to get the time from the channels on it's own. This becomes REALLY annoying though for the PVR function if the channel is broadcasting the WRONG TIME! I have 6 channels that report the exact EST time synced with Windows 8 time servers on my computer and which agree with my cell phone as reported from the cell towers. But 2 channels I get (on 1 station) are both 3 MINUTES ahead. When I programmed several shows to record with the PVR function on these channels I was annoyed to find it started recording 3 minutes early because it went by the channels reported time, and then it cut off 3 minutes early and I couldn't see the end of any of them. This means that if ever I want to record from these channels I have to set the time 7:33-8:03 or similar every time manually now.- This leads me to my next con - if the channel does not provide the data for the show times so that you can just select a show to record, programming the shows can be cumbersome.- If you are watching a show while trying to record it (since it only has 1 tuner, again remedied by the 2nd tuner in your TV), the record icon takes up an unnecessary amount of space on screen. It uses a couple of inches by a couple of inches and covers the picture in a small grey box. It's not out of the way or like a small red dot in the bottom corner either - it's in the top-left quadrant of the screen where some of the actual program might be going on and is very distracting. So if you are using it to record and don't have a TV-tuner - forget watching while recording and watch later, lol.- Unfortunately, after only 1 week of owning it, it managed to already glitch out. It came back, but when I pressed "USB" to play back my PVR recordings, it refused to open several times. Retrying eventually it just went black and froze. I had to use the hard power button on the physical unit (kind of like an "Eject" button) to power it off and on to get it to come back.

Received the converter on time and in excellent condition. The device itself has many useful features - HDMI, a USB port, and recording features to flash drive, or USB external hard drive. I bought the set to be able to use the older DVD recorder that could not access digital signals after I quit using my cable TV system and switched over to using an indoor antenna. The antenna worked fine for the digital TV tuner, but would not work on the DVD player's old analog tuner. I'm in an area that has access to a lot of TV stations that can be received through the air - I can get 80 channels with my indoor antenna. Some of them are even worth watching; fortunately, some ones i was actually hoping for. So far, the only thing I don't like about the purchase is the truly awful user's manual. It's practically unusable, with difficult English phrasing, and useless, tiny pictures. If this is your first electronic device, this manual will be no help at all. However, what the set will do is worth the price, easily. The HDMI hookup is now my main use for watching TV - it is not only delivering beautiful pictures and sound, but it makes the signals from the antenna rock solid - much better than those from the TV tuner. And, recording is quite easy too. You plug in a FAT32 formatted USB flash drive to the front of the set, and push Record on the remote, and it starts recording. You have to hunt in the menu a bit to find the file, and do the playback of it, but the file itself is perfect. The manual does not even cover how to check for the file after recording it. Really, the manufacturer should have done away with the manual long ago, and spent some money to hire someone who can write correct English, and correct descriptions of how to do things, or the other languages offered in the manual, which, I assume are equally useless. The manual also needs to be at least 3 times the size so the pictures would be of some use, and they should be in color, since the menu icons are. So far - the device gets a 10 the manual gets a 1Update: The converter box has formatting, and can only format in FAT 32, or NTFS. I tried the exFAT format on a flash drive, formatting it on a Mac running OS10.6, which can make drives work on both PCs and Macs, but not in this case. The converter does not recognize the exFAT format, and for a flash drive to berecognized by the box, you have to re-format the drive in FAT 32, which you can do on the box. 3.5" external USB hard drives can be formatted only in NTFS to work on the box, but 2.5" and 1.8" drives can be formatted in either FAT 32 or NTFS and be recognized by the box. Unfortunately, NTFS is a PC format that only works on PCs, unlike FAT 32. NTFS does not have the 4GB file limitation for recording as FAT 32 does. The recorded file created by the converter box is readable by player applications like VLC, and others, and VLC is also able to burn the file to disc within the application, where my version of Toast (8) cannot - it doesn't recognize the file format. Although the NTFS format is not native to the Mac, there is a good application that can be purchased that will load the format into the Format section in the Erase function window in the Disk Utility application in the Utilities Folder. With the NTFS format in there, you can erase any USB hard drive - 3.5", 2.5", and 1.8" - and format it with NTFS, and the disc will mount on the desktop, and be usable as a record drive on the converter box. Files can be recorded without having 4GB limits as with the FAT32 format.With the NTFS format, the converter recognizes the hard drive as a USB device. The NTFS formatting application should work well with Mac operating systems from 10.4.The recorded file from the converter can be played on a Mac computer using player applications like VLC; also, VLC can burn the file to disc within the application.

This box not only allows you to watch your local digital air broadcast signals, you can plug in any USB drive, and PVR anything and everything. I have it set to record all my regular favourites, and all I have to do is watch when I have time. That's it.Simple plug and play set up, and away you go. You can use either the boxes tuner, or use your TV's tuner, depending how you choose to configure it. The only thing I would change is to have the USB plug on the rear of the box, rather than the front. But, if you think you would be plugging and unplugging regularly, the front USB connector is preferable.

Mine has worked fine for the most part. Once or twice it didn't record when it was scheduled to. The remote is clunky as others have said, cheaply made, and lightweight. Took awhile to get used to what the different buttons were for and where they were. The instructions were comical the translation was so poor. Only has one tuner so you have to watch what your recording, unless you can do the much talked about loop through which I can't. Have to be careful I'm not recording something when I grab the remote when I want to start watching tv. If you aren't paying attention and try to turn it on when it's recording something, it'll turn the pvr off and the recording will stop. I did this once. Would prefer to have it ask to confirm to stop the recording before turning it off. The positive is at least this device gives me an affordable recording option. Most dvr's/pvr's are way too expensive. Tivo really takes advantage of customers charging what they do, so I'm happy to at least have this cheap option. Now, how long this unit will last before I need to replace it is anyone's guess judging by reviews of others here.I'm using this in conjunction with a Mohu Leaf Ultimate, and was worried reception would deteriorate once I hooked the antenna to the pvr rather than directly to the television. I'm getting all the same stations (all my local stations), and the signal appears just as strong as before.I could make arguments for rating this two stars due to fairly cheap quality, and I could also argue it should be four stars since it does provide me with the option of recording OTA television with only minor problems so far. Therefore, I'll stick it right in the middle - three stars.Edit: Forgot to mention I'm using this with a Toshiba Canvio Basics 3.0 1 TB hard drive. It has worked fine. I don't care for the port the hard drive plugs into on the HW-150 being in the front of the pvr, but it's not a major issue, just looks a little annoying.Edit number two: When starting to play after pausing a recording the video starts, then stops for a second, then starts back up and it skips over a small part of the video and sound. I end up pausing at points, maybe the start of a commercial or when the actors or newsmen aren't talking, to try to avoid having to rewind to see and hear what I missed.Update 2/3/2015: Downgrading from three stars to one. At first it only dropped recordings once in awhile. Unhooked it for a few days to try another PVR, then after hooking this one back up it soon started dropping recordings more often, about once or twice a day. Then the kicker, recorded something last night that I watched today only to discover it stopped recording with about 10-15 minutes to go, so I missed the ending. The last straw for me. This company has known about the issue with dropping recordings for a long time, and obviously hasn't cared enough about quality to fix the issue up to now. Unfortunately, there isn't a quality, fairly priced alternative that I've found yet. There's a hole in the market, and the company that takes advantage of it will get rich quick. An option for a PVR with two or more tuners that doesn't drop recordings, shows the progress of a recording (how far you're into it while watching), has a good well thought out remote, that's built to last and fairly priced, is sorely needed.