ViewTV AT-163 Digital Converter Box
ViewTV AT-163 Digital Converter Box
ViewTV AT-163 Digital Converter Box [3.0]
This is cheap DTV converter I bought at Amazon for $30 so we shouldn't expect much. I have it hooked up to a DTV antenna and an old pre-HD television.
It does the basics. Change channels, show view guide (this comes from the HD signal) and show info. You can change display options, though no matter what you're not going to see the whole HD picture (but see below).
It does do recording, though you have to plug-in a USB stick so it can record. But then you can unplug the USB stick and copy the recordings somewhere else -- they are MP4 format. Recording is about 5 GB per hour and it records HD so you can see everything when played back. You can even leave the box off and it will turn on, record, and turn off.
Beyond that there are a bunch of caveats:
*Recording over 2-1/4 hours freezes up the converter box. For long programs like sports I record in two chunks.
*Also when choosing a channel to record you have to scroll through -- you can't enter the channel directly.
*Daily recording does not advance properly but advances a week ahead. You can't get around this by doing 5 daily recordings (I tape Live! with Kelly) because it thinks you are overlapping recording times and stops you.
*Weekly recordings advance by 12 days. So my workaround is 5 weekly recordings and in the weekend I go fix the next recording times. (BTW I don't think there's a limit to recording entries).
*Cannot record and watch a recorded program.
*User Interface is very slow and often confusing. Different parts were obviously done by different teams as the UI on screen keeps changing and even controls (e.g. when changing recordings [1] deletes entry but when viewing recordings [EPG] deletes recorded program). Luckily there are hints at the bottom, which is good because the manual really sucks. (The box is made in China.)
Personally I do get a lot of "static" which I attribute more to my indoor antenna and house location more than the converter box. From experience DTV signals seem sensitive to any sort of degradation and you tend to get unviewable picture rather than staticky but viewable in traditional broadcasts.
Overall, for $30 it's a good price for my setup. I'm not using an HDTV so I don't expect good quality. It records which is a plus I wasn't expecting when I started shopping. Paired with a good antenna I think this would be a perfectly good solution.
Monday, October 24, 2016