Anyone have a Channel Master DVR?

I have three Sony HDD250 DVR's. One of them bit the dust six months
ago, but Sony no longer carries parts (Hey, it's only 5 years old).
Does anyone else make an OTA DVR?

I stumbled across the Channel Master CM-7000 and it appears to be
exactly what I'm looking for. Not only that but (if I read it
correctly) it can be recording two shows at the same time (Pretty good
when there are conflicts).

Before I shell out $300+ for this thing, anyone have any experience?

On Sat, 01 Oct 2011 07:17:19 -0700, NadCixelsyd wrote:

I have three Sony HDD250 DVR's. One of them bit the dust six months
ago, but Sony no longer carries parts (Hey, it's only 5 years old). Does
anyone else make an OTA DVR?

I stumbled across the Channel Master CM-7000 and it appears to be
exactly what I'm looking for. Not only that but (if I read it
correctly) it can be recording two shows at the same time (Pretty good
when there are conflicts).

Before I shell out $300+ for this thing, anyone have any experience?

There are over 100 reviews for the CM-7000PAL on amazon. I also found it
for under $200. I run networked MythTV with 6 tuners, but if I were
looking for a standalone unit, this would be in the running for sure.
Just be aware that it doesn't support many advanced features found in PC
based HD dvr's and it doesn't have a lot of storage for HD.

On 10/1/2011 8:23 AM, Wes Newell wrote:
On Sat, 01 Oct 2011 07:17:19 -0700, NadCixelsyd wrote:

I have three Sony HDD250 DVR's. One of them bit the dust six months
ago, but Sony no longer carries parts (Hey, it's only 5 years old). Does
anyone else make an OTA DVR?

I stumbled across the Channel Master CM-7000 and it appears to be
exactly what I'm looking for. Not only that but (if I read it
correctly) it can be recording two shows at the same time (Pretty good
when there are conflicts).

Before I shell out $300+ for this thing, anyone have any experience?

There are over 100 reviews for the CM-7000PAL on amazon. I also found it
for under $200. I run networked MythTV with 6 tuners, but if I were
looking for a standalone unit, this would be in the running for sure.
Just be aware that it doesn't support many advanced features found in PC
based HD dvr's and it doesn't have a lot of storage for HD.

If NadCixelsvd has a router networked, Windows 7 PC with one or more
wired ports available on the router, the HDHomeRun for unencrypted cable
or OTA recording is $100 for a dual tuner unit, and their new cable-card
capable units are $250 for a three tuner unit or $500 for a six tuner
unit. In either case the unit only connects via a router and will
interface with MS' MCE - otherwise the capture playback software needs
to be bought from a third party for about $100. Since the connection is
via router, any PC in the network has access to the tuners.

"Elmo P. Shagnasty" wrote in message
...
...
Or if it doesn't have Media Center, I'd maybe look at the Hauppauge
offerings--for under $150 you can find either a plug-in card or an
external USB tuner, either with two tuners plus their WinTV application
to watch the recorded TV. In addition, at that price those tuners
include their own hardware encoders that can process analog video into
digital, should you ever end up with analog video (basic cable or
something), taking that task off of your PC. That lets you use a
cheaper, less powerful PC for recording analog video.
...

I was very unimpressed by Hauppauge WinTV6 on XP and switched to Windows 7
MC with the same $50 HVR-950 USB tuner. How good are their later versions?

jsw

In article
,
NadCixelsyd wrote:

I stumbled across the Channel Master CM-7000 and it appears to be
exactly what I'm looking for. Not only that but (if I read it
correctly) it can be recording two shows at the same time (Pretty good
when there are conflicts).

Before I shell out $300+ for this thing, anyone have any experience?

Yes, it has two tuners. However, it is not smart enough to pick two
subchannels off of the same signal on one tuner. So recording two
subchannels of the same channel uses both tuners.

Mine would be perfect if it didn't randomly crash. I have no idea if
it's crashing because of bad hardware (most likely would be RAM), bad
software, or software that dies from bad data due to tuning in weak
stations on the other tuner to get a guide update (I have one marginal
station I keep around that I can normally only get on Saturday
mornings). It crashed twice in the same half hour this morning, and a
few weeks ago once crashed while re-scanning the channels for guide data
after a previous crash. No flaky behaviors, just wham, it reboots.

Aside from the random crashing it works as well as you can expect for
only using PSIP guide data. It won't know episode numbers or sports
delays, it'll just record what's in the slot.

In the first couple of weeks I would come home to find it happily
reporting finding some random stations from adjacent market areas that
it tuned in just long enough to identify. One caused a local (real)
channel 29 to get renumbered to 70 when it saw another (virtual) channel
29. But once I deleted them, they didn't come back.

Also, scanning back and forth in a recording can cause audio to get out
of sync, but you have to be really jumpy on the buttons, and you can get
it back in sync.

FWIW, it was a returned box deal at a Fry's. (They only had the two
returned box units and haven't gotten any more three months later,
though they still have a demo DVR unit up on the endcap shelf.)

If you're really serious about building stuff, you could put together a
MythTV, but I don't have the time to hunt down the parts and make one.
This works out of the box. (more or less, in my case)