ATSC Digital Converter Box with TV Tuner, TV Recording, USB Multimedia Function, 1080P HDMI, Metal Case, Clear QAM, by Mediasonic HomeWorx (HW250STB)

I usually don't rate a product made in China 5 stars but I do love this digital converter box. Mediasonic is an American company I believe. If you want to cut the cable and to be able to record local TV and don't want to pay a monthly fee (makes sense if you are looking at cutting the cable) and don't want to pay a lot for the recorder (also makes sense) then this is the item you want. Set up is intuitive and went well (would have been a little easier if I had known the converter is set to channel 4 out of the box for use on an old TV using the RF1 cable). I also have it connected to a new TV via the supplied HDML cable. I love the old school interface; it is easy to understand and use.And I have found that the feature that shows you the signal strength is indeed very useful and easy to use.It doesn't come with a storage device which is necessary for recording. Mediasonic does not recommend using a flash drive, though it looks like from YouTube videos and comments that some people do use them. I had an Iomega SSD drive laying around and it is working great. I copied the files that were on it then I used the converter to format it after attaching it. I actually like that I can remove the storage device. I can put movies, pictures, or music on it to play on the TV. And I can go in the other direction too; my wife has me use American Idol recordings to create MP3s for her music player. That will now be easier as I can plug the Iomega into the computer and use Audacity to create her MP3s.Know that it can only record 1 program at a time. That isn't a problem for us. There is a 15-20 second gap between the recordings of my wife's Young And The Restless and The Bold And The Beautiful which follows it.I haven't tried the "Loop Through" function that allows you to watch one station while recording another but I anticipate that will work easily. Similarly I haven't yet tried the feature that allows you to pause and rewind and then fast forward with live TV.Only sort of related; for cable cutters now looking for antennas; if you are within 10 miles of most of your broadcasters like me, or maybe even within 30 miles, with no big hills in the way, then I suggest also getting the simplest least expensive antenna. The $11 Phillips antenna works fine for me. They are just pieces of metal attached to a cord. Check out The Antenna Man's YouTube channel for a lot more detail on that, and a review of this converter box.

Nice box and finally an updated version from older model. However... I can't record and watch a different channel at the same time. The manual sticks and offers no scenario's to Expect when recording. I find this hard to believe that this box, while recoding one channel, will nit allow me to watch another channel. That stinks. Pkease pleade someone yell me I am wrong before I return this!

I don't mean this in a bad way. But it's a cheapo deluxe OTA DVR. (I think the marketers call it a value product)If you're expecting a Tivo, well, I'm sorry for you. But dollar for dollar it wipes the floor with my old Tivo.The user interface is not in the same galaxy as the Tivo but again, neither is the price.If you think of this as a tuner with a free DVR you'll have better expectations.The tuner is very good. The signal strength meter is nearly worth the whole price. (hit the info button twice)Quick OTA hack. Almost all TV antennas are directional. Search up a map of the towers you want to receive and pick the one in the center. Now find what station is on that tower. Tune to that station, turn on the signal strength meter and adjust the antenna until max value. Now you've got the antenna as good as you can get it.If you can't get a good signal on a tower 40 miles away with this device, you need to get a better antenna.I'll probably use this about 10 times a year and for me this is a great budget friendly solution.

This is the one! Worked right out of the box! Read my external drive without a problem, and I successfully recorded from my digital antenna an hour after opening the box. Easy installation. Thrilled to be able to schedule recordings from my external antenna. Highly recommended.

Worked (sort of) for 1 day, then died.Now hangs on the bootup screen - I gave it 10 minutes to finish booting but no luck.When it was "working" (first 24 hours) it failed to record programs that I scheduled in the timer. The manual doesn't say that in order to record it has to be left "ON" -- it won't wake up from standby mode to record -- or maybe it was already failing.I did manage to record one scheduled program, but when I went to play it I got "USB device is removed". I had to unplug and re-plugin the external hard drive to get it to playback.The second day I tried to playback a program and also got "USB device is removed". This time re-plugging and power-cycling the external hard drive had no effect. So I tried rebooting the device, which is when it failed completely and wouldn't get past the boot screen.Returning.In other issues, the tuner is very weak. I live within 1 mile of the transmitting antenna of all the local OTA channels I'm interested in. I can see the antenna tower from my back yard. But the tuner had occasional difficulty locking onto the signal The OTA tuner in my Samsung TV has no such issue with the signal strength.