Comments on: 2023 Best Subscription-Free Over-the-Air (OTA) DVRs for Cordcutters

By: Bill

Bill — Wed, 30 Jan 2019 16:54:58 +0000

Good for 4 years, then it died.

By: Susanna Burke

Susanna Burke — Fri, 29 Jun 2018 03:56:33 +0000

Dana
Thank you for suggesting WatchAir! It’s available on Amazon too – https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01LY2YX7I/ – out of stock on the white but for the price I’m good with the black. To have the HD antenna & dvr recording in one device is fantastic! It looks like it works with Apple TV & Amazon Fire Stick so I am hooked up with their app ok. I am thrilled to have cut the cord from cable, my Spectrum bill was getting outrageous! This definitely is a hidden gem in the cord cutting world. So glad to have found your post!

By: Skypilot

Skypilot — Sun, 15 Apr 2018 23:02:44 +0000

I bought a Magnavox DVR and found that there was no way to display a program guide and thus couldn’t set the unit to record future programs. I resold it on eBay, making sure the purchaser knew that there was no program guide. Too bad. The price was right and the picture quality very good. Instead I purchased a ChannelMaster DVR+, now discontinued.

By: Art Burke

Art Burke — Wed, 21 Feb 2018 13:24:37 +0000

I bought a Mediasonic as a backup. The device I’m currently using is a LaVa – it’s listed as being sold at Sears, but, if I remember correctly, I bought mine through Amazon. The two devices are almost perfectly identical – the LaVa can output “component” data while the MediaSonic cannot (they both have an HDMI output). For recording, there’s a menu – unfortunately, the old-style VCR programming can’t be done. You can record something “live” by just pressing a START button and then STOP it later. The guide I see with mine is good for 24 hours – no fee for that guide.

As someone else pointed out, there isn’t much out there in the way of support. Both these little guys are apparently made in China and the manual written by some kind of translation. Fortunately, there was a lot to it that was intuitive. And, at approximately $40, a pretty good bargain.

By: Art Burke

Art Burke — Wed, 21 Feb 2018 13:16:39 +0000

The “catch” with the OTA DVRs is the guide. I have another gadget that will record from just about any source, but there’s not even a screen output for the device, so, when you record, it’s only an “on-demand” recording, i.e., you push a button to start and push a button to stop. My new TV is a smart-TV (like most of ’em now) and the guide shows up for OTA TV because it collects it from the internet. But many of these recording devices, if you want to “schedule” recordings, you need a guide.

Now if someone could invent something like a hard-drive based VCR – just set the channel and set the time on/off and you’re in business.

By: Art Burke

Art Burke — Wed, 21 Feb 2018 13:09:08 +0000

One poster above found some ChannelMaster stuff for $25. If it seems too good to be true…

I’ve experimented with half a dozen of these “cord cutter” devices. One of my gadgets won’t record unless you’re running WIN 10. Another came without the total necessary parts. Yet another was designed to work off a cable box. Etc., etc., etc.

The cheapest success I found was with a gadget named LaVa (the Mediasonic appearas to be very much the same device, albeit with a different label. The LaVa provides (at only $40) a 24-hour guide (no fee) and a USB port for recording. The port accepts either a maximum 32G flash drive or a 2TB external USB drive. Never found a 64G stick that would work.

Unless you live reasonably close to a fairly good-sized metro area, an indoor antenna will not do very much good. I live more than 50 miles from the Orlando antenna complex. Rabbit ears and other indoor antennas are a joke. Even my outside antenna (up 30 feet) needs a booster. With that, I get almost 70 channels.

A TV guide that would support several days worth of programming would be nice, but, for $40, this little box is quite a steal overall. Doesn’t connect to or use WiFi. Antenna input, power plug, HDMI output and USB port – compact, simple and effective.

By: Jerry

Jerry — Sun, 11 Feb 2018 02:05:11 +0000

Why would you need to record something that is streamed? I think you can watch anything that is streamed any time you want. I don’t know for sure as I just cut the cord my self,

By: Ernie Hamilton

Ernie Hamilton — Mon, 15 Jan 2018 17:48:18 +0000

Wow, I have to say that the ePVision looks promising. I have had one of the inexpensive generic boxes and one ViewTV and they do seem to required a powered USB hub or similar for the memory sticks. The generic one came set to power an antenna through the coax. It took a bit to figure out why it was getting hot. Its manual was almost useless. The ViewTV manual was small but OK. The ViewTV also had a normal size remote. These both used the OTA EPG and would not hold the scheduled program reliably. I guess little ventured little gained. I will say that the picture quality was surprisingly good with these inexpensive units but I am in a strong signal area. I bought a couple Channel Master CM7400 with built in hard drives from eBay for about $25 each. They are still available. They were packed well but the decent manuals showed some use so they must have been returns or refurbished units. They were sold untested for parts only; but both seemed to work fine. The source for the web based programming guide is no longer available but they show a number of hours of OTA EPG and one can initiate recording from that. Alas they will not hold programmed recording either. They tend to warm up a bit. I have them on laptop fans. I am wondering if some discontinuity in the OTA EPG is causing this problem in all these units. Unplugging the Channel Masters and plugging them back in will restore the recording schedule. I have not tried manual timer recording to see if it would hold. I thought I would give one of the newer Channel Master +DVR models a try but they have all been discontinued. I could probably still find one but now Channel Master is pushing a little streaming device that will take a memory card. I am getting puzzled why Channel Master does not try a bit harder to stick with something and support it for a few years. I have said many times if I could just find a high quality version of one of these cheap converter boxes I would be happy with it. Well they have what I was asking for on the site listed above. Thanks Gene.

By: J Brennan

J Brennan — Tue, 21 Nov 2017 02:45:13 +0000

Curious Leonard if you ever purchased the Magnavox DVR w/digital tuner and whether the antenna made a difference in your experience. What do you think of the Magnavox and the price?

By: J Brennan

J Brennan — Tue, 21 Nov 2017 02:44:53 +0000

Curious Leonard if you ever purchased the Magnavox DVR w/digital tuner and whether the antenna made a difference in your experience. What do you think of the Magnavox and the price?