PrimeDTV PHD-VRX Full HD 1080p Dual Tuner Digital HDTV Recorder, Receiver and Media Center Box

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Price: $229.88 $209.88   

Product Feature

• Newer Design, Better Features, PHD-VRX2!
• Two Tuner Recording Simultaneously
• Timeshifting and Pause Live TV Show (Digital Channels)
• Closed Caption Playback on Recorded TV Programs
• HD Media Player and Super-scaling 1080p Media A/V Switcher

Product Description

Get the most from your free digital Over-the-Air (OTA) and digital clear cable signals with the advanced and amazing Dual Tuner Digital Recorder, Receiver and Media Center Box, PHD-VRX, that decodes, records and plays in beautiful HD format! Thanks for its built-in dual tuner design. You can connect your digital and analog (NTSC) cable signals as well as digital broadcasting signal to tuner 1, and connect all digital signals to tuner 2 or any combinations you prefer. So that, you can watch many channels no matter from antenna or cable at your choice. Furthermore, if you need to leave the room, you can simply pause the current broadcast (for digital channels only) and resume watching when it's convenient with PHD-VRX timeshifting feature. Of course, recording digital TV shows is also very easy to do. PHD-VRX provides versatile recording methods including direct, manual schedule, or program guide (EPG) recordings. PHD-VRX is focusing on high-end digital recording. No analog channel recording and also not recording from other inputs. Another great advantage of PHD-VRX is that it records all shows to the external USB HDD. It makes unit less power consumption and also allow user to record shows freely up to hundreds of hours HD content within the range up to 2TB HDD storage size. Also, other great features of PHD-VRX are video enhancement and up-scaling on all inputs. PHD-VRX can output both HDMI and Composite video in the same time. The analog composite video output is for monitoring purpose, there are video and audio from composite but no on-screen graphic and menu. All set up procedures can be done from HDMI output. PHD-VRX comes with full-feature HD Media player. With the built-in Ethernet connector, PHD-VRX can play all HD media contents from its recorded shows or other media files and from either USB port or local network. So purchase PHD-VRX today! You will enjoy and discover all the benefits to make your HD entertainment system very enjoyable and more ...

PrimeDTV PHD-VRX Full HD 1080p Dual Tuner Digital HDTV Recorder, Receiver and Media Center Box Review

See at the end for info on December 2012 firmware update. A few features changed which helps a bit. (added Jan. 2, 2013)

Have been using this for about 24 hrs, so I am quite the novice with it. I own a Magnavox 320GB DVR, which recently quit working. It had spoiled me. Really liked that DVR. I ordered the PHD-VRX to take the Magnavox's place.

This device's two tuners seemingly do a very good job. The hi-def channels are sharp, clear, and bright. Both tuners receive ATSC and QAM signals. Only tuner one receives NTSC channels. I would have liked for both tuners to be able to receive NTSC channels since I live a good distance from TV station towers and am stuck with a cable system which does not offer many hi-def channels. Most of the shows that I watch are still delivered over cable in the NTSC standard. As a consequence, one of the two tuners on this device probably will not serve me well.

What really bothers me about this machine is the fact that it will not record NTSC channels. That was either not made clear in the information about the machine or I completely missed it. I did not see that information really spelled out until I was reading the "Quick Start Guide" that came with the tuner/recorder. The lack of that feature really lessens the value of this tuner/recorder for me. I know that I cannot be alone in wanting a digital recorder that will record NTSC broadcasts. With the dearth of television recording devices since the nation's going to ATSC broadcasts, it seems to me to be a no-brainer to make a recording device to record in all three standards. That may be the deal breaker with this machine.

I have recorded and played back a couple of shows so far. The playback picture is excellent. I am using a 640GB Western Digital Elements external drive. I have found that the fast forward and reverse feature does not work well. It could be the fault of my USB drive. The 20 second skip forward or backward does seem to work just fine however.

The Magnavox, when tuned to a channel, immediately started recording that channel and would record continuously a six hour block of time. It allowed one to timeshift back to any point within that six hours. I could let the recorder run while going and doing something else and when I was ready to watch the television again, I could easily jump back to any point within that previous six hour time span. This PHD-VRX is not nearly so flexible. First, one has to select a time between five to sixty minutes for timeshifting [Dec. firmware update extended to up to 4 hrs.], and then hit the record button. One is then stuck with that amount of time. I noticed that when I tried the timeshift option that the optical sound feed from the tuner to my receiver ceased functioning [Dec. firmware update apparently fixed]. Once I quit timeshifting, the sound through the optical cable worked perfectly. Perhaps some oversight in the tuner's inner workings or firmware.

Overall, the tuner works well. For my money's worth, both tuners should have been able to receive all three broadcast standards. It should also be able to record NTSC channels and the optical sound output should continue to work when timeshifting. The sound through the HDMI cable was not affected. With the Magnavox, one could edit a recording and then burn it onto a DVD. An edit feature with a USB output for a disc recorder would be a great touch for this device also. Just a few changes and they could have had an excellent HD tuner/recorder. As it is, I am going to knock off a couple of stars. If I choose to keep this, I may add more later. If otherwise, I will not update this review. Of course, if you live in an area that only has hi-def stations, then my concerns about the NTSC capable second tuner and NTSC recording will be of no moment to you. This machine does an excellent job with hi-def broadcasts, both viewing and recording.

As an aside, I purchased this company's PHD-8VX Media Center in Dec. 2011 to use as a tuner as I had a LG 47 inch TV that would not tune all the HD channels on my cable system. It worked well until around the first of August, then it stopped working. I contacted the company about repairing it and they immediately gave me a RMA number. It only cost me to ship it and they repaired it under warranty and returned it to me. They do stand behind their products.

Jan. 2, 2013 update --
Firmware was updated in December. The following changes (see below) were noted on epvision's website. As I noted above, this recorder needs a way to edit recordings. It also needs to be able to edit titles assigned to recordings. Titles are assigned by broadcast supplied information and if the recording starts before that info has changed, then the title of the previous show is supplied to the recorded program. Makes it hard to find the program one is looking for when there are a number of recordings to go through.

 Adding a new "Recordings"section for dedicated TV Shows Playback
 Yellow Hot key for directly accessing Recordings Playback
 Resume playback from the previous viewing point
 Ability to sort out TV programs in "Recordings"section by time, title and channel#
 Now can display closed caption (CC) during TV shows playback.
 Adding different forward skip and backward skip durations (20, 30, 60, 120 sec.)
 Adding more FF and RWD speed options (x2, x4, x8, x16, x32, x64, x128, x256)
 Timeshift buffer durations are changed to 5 min (default), 30min, 1hr, 2hr, and 4hr.
 USB Pop Up screen when USB connected now can be set ON (default) or OFF.
ɨ23; Optional channel video lock or unlock(default) during Guide screen channel browsing
 Unify time format to 12-hr AM/PM format
 Release "PHD-VRX TV Show Playback Features Guide"for new features

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