Customer Ratings & Reviews

Easy to set up and easy to use. Reception and picture were both better than from the unit it replaced. Time will tell if it is durable (as other reviews indicate it is not). I did not need (or use) the recording feature.

This is a good product which holds channels on two different location AV and HDMI. You scan for channels in both formats. AV doesn’t have as many as the HDMI but close. This allows recording on two different formats at the same time. Nice little perk. The machine does freeze up sometimes when fast forwarding or rewinding but just hit the button again and it starts moving. Great picture in both formats. Well worth the investment.

I don't have cable and was looking for a way to record live TV from my over-the-air antenna. I searched the internet for hours for a solution, and ended up coming across this gem. It's a fraction of the cost (only $30, which is really hard to beat at a decent quality!) of other over-the-air DVR products, and does everything I need it to do. The interface isn't the sleekest or most intuitive, but a quick look in the manual helped me do everything I wanted to. I only encountered one small glitch when my TV recording stopped playing when there were a few minutes left. (The full recording was intact, so I just plugged my external hard drive into my computer and watched the rest on there. No biggie.) I would recommend this product to anyone who wants to be able to record shows from network TV without a cable box, doesn't need any additional fancy features (see Tablo), and doesn't want to spend a lot of money.

Wonderful product which allows me to record the programs I wish to view later.

It did not pick up the data from the provider necessary to present the channel identification in the same way the channel listing stated it. Instead it assigned its own channel identification which required manually creating your own channel listing.

Very easy to install. Comparison is to a Tablo which was impossible to get to work. In contrast this unit is as close to plug and play [record] as you can get. Do need to have a thumb drive for storage. Rep not supportive of using an external hard drive. Yet manual indicates works with one. Wish it had easy way to view a tv guide. Have to use Sony TV controller to view tv channel guide esp for upcoming shows. Then use Aluratek controller to go to channel or to schedule a future show.

I’m using this primarily to record local tv programs. I have DirectTV but there are local channels I like that DirectTV doesn’t have. I have the Aluratek coax input connected to a external antenna and the coax output going to a HDTV. There’s also a HDMI output that can be used as well. It picks up all the local channels with no problem and has a program guide that shows what’s on and allows you to select what you want to record. The program guide only shows about a day in advance but you can set weekly programming or manually set any date and time. Only downside is you can not record multiple programs at the same time. You can record several programs as long as the times don’t overlap. It’s perfect for recoding programs while your away and the price is great. A external hard drive or flash drive is required for recording.

It records well, but I sometimes like to record one show while watching another. Unfortunately, I can't do that with this devise. You can only watch the show that's being recorded.

For what it costs it is very good, the instructions are not clear (bad) but after you play with it it does what is made for.It says it has 2 turners ,but you can not record and watch another channel. If you record the dvr on a dmv and put your tv on antenna you can.

I'm thinking of returning this device for a couple of reasons. First, the documentation is scant at best, confusing, and often wrong. Even the on-screen "help" displays are sometimes wrong. I asked their support for a better manual and was directed to an online version which was exactly the same. Second, a description on the box says the device can record one program while you watch a second - false. A related limitation is that the only option you have while something is recording is to watch it live. One thing I (and probably you) like to do is start a recording, go away for a while, and start watching from the beginning and skip commercials. Can't do. One must wait until the recording is done and THEN watch it from the beginning. All that said, it seems to be a pretty good tuner. I use it to receive OTA programming, connecting to my A/V receiver via HDMI. The picture and sound quality are sometimes as good or better than I would have gotten over cable, once I get the signal to come in well from my antenna.

For some reason my Vizio smart TV doesn't have a tuner, so I had been using a digital converter from years ago, but my dog ate the remote yesterday. Best Buy had one of these left. Set up was easy, power, antenna and HDMI cable, run the scan and done. Works perfect. Make sure you keep your remotes high up away from the dogs.

I cut the cable few years ago and I wanted to have something to record the Football game on Sunday since its on regular over the air antenna TV, it works great also when you watch live tv you can pause or rewind the show I use a USB 64GB memory and it works great.

Records tv antenna programs on thumb drive. Only Records one channel at a time so you might use 2 in same room. Many brands use same remote with same frequency causing problems. Mediasonic does not.

I am really surprised how well this works. Picture quality is excellent as well as the recording. I use a flash drive. Since you can only record what your watching I split the antenna using a splitter. I connected one coax to the dvr and used a HDMI cable to connect to tv. I connected the other coax to the tv. I can watch what I want while recording on the dvr. Setting up future recordings works great. I just leave the dvr on.

Gives good airwave reception for non-cable tv. Channel selection using the Guide is not the best.

We were desperate to get football over antenna due to the fight between CBS and Directv. It was a simple issue a few years ago, but now TV is so complicated. We went to Best Buy and they suggested this device. It was a little difficult to figure out and the instructions could have been better, but we did get it working and the picture was great. Now we feel confident for the next time we need to record via antenna.

Overall this product is fine, but the buttons on the remote are too small and sometimes you have to push them more than once for them to work. The directions in the guide need to be more clear. We will continue to use this one for a while, but at some time we will probably try to find a different one with morfe user freindly remotge, etc.

I really bought the Aluratek Digital Converter Box for its Personal Video Recorder (PVR) feature. In general this box gets the job done quite well, but needs a bit of polishing in its electronics design, because it is not intuitive to use, not to logic in the functions of the remote control vs the general standards, and the instructions manual does not help much in many aspects. On top of that, the company does not reply to questions sent via email.

Overall works good, but has a few glitches. Once in a while it will completely stop responding to the remote control for about one minute and then suddenly resets itself by rebooting. It also has trouble working with some brands of flash drives to make a recording, like the ones from Kingston. But other brands work fine. Hopefully the next generation will be better.

Does everything it has promised. Easy set up and delivered more stations than we expected. Nice feature was being able to put a drive card and use as a dvr.