I had to give up my Time Warner Cable and HD DVR for economic reasons .
Shouldn't this shine a lightbulb to electronic manufactures as an opertunity to
provide low cost Hard Drive recorders for over the air digital broadcast ?

Click #1 in my signature for lots of info on a couple of HDD recorders with digital tuners.

thanks wajo
But these are SD not HD .
It would be very profitable for a manufacturer to make a hard disk recorder in HD even if it could not be reproduced to dvd in HD and the comercials could not be deleted .
I would gladly pay 200 bucks for a machine that would record ota hd just to watch it not copy it . And not pay a tivo fee .
Then I could use the leftover money to pay for health insurance .

Actually is sounds like the OP has also given up on cable in which case the soon to be available TR-50 aka DTVPal DVR would work quite nicely for OTA.
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=972197
$50 more than your PP but it's about the only thing like it.

jjeff
It sounds like a good product but it seems way over priced concidering what it actually does . Its a tuner 50 bucks at the most and a motherboard with bios 50 more at the most and a hard drive 50 bucks at the most . Now if you forget about the hardrive and intigrate the tuner with the motherboard and use ramdrive the whole thing adding componet and hdmi mass produced should be about 70 bucks in parts and 20 for good looks . So 200 overpriced retail .

It has two tuners, actually.

If you really think $250.00 is way overpriced, maybe you'd be better off just building one yourself.

I can understand where you're coming from as far as the economizing thing, but have you really been following things at all in the A/V world for the last twenty years?

The Sony DHG-HDD250, which has a comparable sized hard drive and one tuner, retailed at $800.00 when it came out just a few, short years ago.

A TiVoHD with lifetime service these days is somewhere in the range of $650.00 - $700.00.

Maybe you just think it's way over the price you're willing to pay - that's different. It's not just the parts that are making it that price, you know.

Yes your right
I should build my own .here it comes BUT I can get to here ,my computer and transfer it at a cost to there my tv .
But its not the same as a dvr mass produced for people like me . Sorry if I sound lazzy .
As far as lifetime service . It actually only is for the product not for the service .
Yes I have been following The AV tech for the past 20 years and it has surpased what I thought it would be . But in the last 5 years it has made chumps out of us when it comes to FREE TV

No, not lazy - maybe a little uninformed, that's all.

Anything that sells that doesn't come tied to a fee is going to cost a little more than the free or low price the provider is going to give it to you for. That's the way it works, and how it's always been.

And remember, we're talking about HD, not SD. Everything HD costs more.

But even just a couple of years back when they were still selling the major brands of SD HDD/DVD recorders in the US (like Pioneer, Panasonic, Toshiba, Sony), they cost much more than a comparably hard drive-sized DTVPal DVR.

You could look for a used Sony, LG or Zenith DVR on ebay, but even working models of those will probably cost you more.

Maybe if things such as the TR-50 become common place like VCRs used to be or DVDRs were;) Well see the prices come down. If Funia gets involved then were sure to see the prices come down but until then in the small quantities these things will be sold in I think $250 is lower than most expected it to be. Of course those willing to build their own HTPC can probably put something together cheaper but most people don't want to bother and will pay the extra cost that a turnkey product like the TR-50 will provide.

And remember, we're talking about HD, not SD. Everything HD costs more .
Yes just like everything FM has cost us more than AM .

If Funia gets involved then were sure to see the prices come down but until then in the small quantities these things will be sold in I think $250 is lower than most expected it to be.Yes, but then we have to worry about how much the quality will come down, too. ;)

Yes just like everything FM has cost us more than AM.Well, just look at it like this: It might be a big expense for a lot of people at first, but the Pal DVR will pay for itself in less than a year if you drop cable.

Just get a cheap converter box, like the Zinwell that has event timers, and hook it up to an old VCR for recording. Then, take the money you've saved by cancelling cable and buy the Pal DVR in a few months, after all the potential bugs have had a chance to get worked out.

And if it looks like crap on your HD display, just start watching on that old, analog set you've got in the other room for the time being.

Or, you could build an HTPC.

But its not the same as a dvr mass produced for people like me . Sorry if I sound lazzy .


If there are enough people like you, they'll make one. However, the demand has to be there. You can't expect consumer electronics makers to just willy-nilly whip up a product that ends up losing them money. And they CONSTANTLY look for new markets, so the fact that they haven't really made something like this should tell you something*.

Just because you can piece together the individual parts for $70 doesn't mean the company can make it for that cheap initially. Consumer markets are WAY more complex than that.



*either that, or you can fall back onto the grand conspiracy theory that cable companies are behind it, just like they were behind DVDR/HDD machines downfall. I guess it helps to put the blame on something tangible rather than accept that not everyone wants what you want. ;)

Rammitinski
This is the idea of the thread . Right now is the time to mass it and make it cheap . If the quality is bad no one will take it seriously .If it is better than a converter box and a DVD recorder by 100 percent people and me will love it .

Point is, I don't know how much cheaper you can reasonably expect it to be.

$250.00 is very cheap for this sort of product - that's what we're trying to say.

Seriously, if it were any cheaper, it almost would have to be a total piece of junk.

As far as the idea of the thread, it's actually been pretty beat to death here and in the HDTV Recorders forum as a subject.

As an ex Dish customer for over 8 years and having lived through a few of their selling prototypes to customers and products that never fulfilled the promise Dish made about them... be aware that Dish sometimes looks at it's customers as paying beta testers.

The TR-50 is what it is when it gets here and then we'll know if and how well it works and how well Dish will support it.

On paper, a two tuner HDD DVR for OTA use has appeal to a market segment but remember... when your leased Dish or DirecTV DVR fails it goes back and gets replaced but you lose everything you have on the HDD.

We won't be leasing the TR-50 so when it's warranty runs out will there be an out of warranty exchange fee or is it a door stop? Dish DVRs are pretty difficult to replace a HDD in unlike a Tivo.

Now, if someone makes unit like the Magnavox 2160 with two OTA tuners then that would be nice.

Yeh I rememember thats what they said about FM , Sorry talking about the 250 price

Point is, I don't know how much cheaper you can reasonably expect it to be.

$250.00 is very cheap for this sort of product - that's what we're trying to say.

Seriously, if it were any cheaper, it almost would have to be a total piece of junk.


Considering cable DVRs retail in Canada for $400-$600, and American MSOs will whack you for about the same if you end up destroying one, I'd say $250 is a steal.

wallydog...Time Warner cable, any cable or DVR is a luxury, not a necessity. If things are that tight for you, I would personally do without a DVR. That's just me. Not trying to be mean...

Not cable OTA

You are right cable and dvr ,s are luxuries that is why I am doing without them .I would just like the industries to know that I am a new market for an OTA HD recorder that doess not want to rerecord stuff or skip comercials I just want to see it .

The $250.00 price for the Pal DVR is a major breakthrough in a way, so it'll be a long while, if ever, that you'll see anything a lot cheaper.

You can get a Magnavox SD DVR for $200.00, but that's really about the best you can do.

Any of the older, HD ones you might find on ebay that are cheaper than that would be highly suspect as far as their condition.

We all wish there was more out there, too, but we've talked about this until we've gotten ourselves depressed too much already here - that's really why you're not getting much sympathy.

I would just like the industries to know that I am a new market for an OTA HD recorder that doess not want to rerecord stuff or skip comercials I just want to see it .

Contact them and ask. It would help if you had a couple hundred thousand friends doing the same. It's not like their board of directors browse these forums, you know? ;)

We may be suprised , who broweses .

Attention: CEOs of Pioneer, Sony, Philips, and whoever else dabbled in HDD home recording! Send Wallydog an OTA capable DVR! It would help if it were priced under $200!

Thank you for your time.




Now, we'll just wait and see. :)

I do not want your sympathy . I want your suport .
What have you done to help solve this problem .

Nothing.

I don't use OTA, and I don't want a DVR. To me, it's not a problem.

I'd like a 5 or 6 disc Blu-Ray changer. What have you done for that?

Oh, and I'm posting in this thread because I agree with Rammitinski, and it is an interesting discussion.

Tulpa
Now thats what im talken bout

Tulpa
Im sorry I was resonding to rammitinski when it came to sympathy

Oh, okay. Sorry if I sounded snippy. I wasn't intending it.

Really, it does come down to enough people wanting it, and the industry becoming aware of that fact. Until that happens, it pretty much is a pipe dream. However, I think actually contacting a major maker is a first step. You never know.

Tulpa
Im sorry I was resonding to rammitinski when it came to sympathyI haven't really done anything either, because I already bought a Sony DHG-HDD500 DVR a couple of years ago that I'm using with OTA-only. If it doesn't timer record after February, I'll probably just get a DTVPal DVR.

I suppose if I was upset enough though, I'd just do what Tulpa said.

What I see is 240x320 on a personal device for 100 bucks amonth for people making 12 dollers an hour . I find this scarry . And they cant pay the house payment .
So what I want is not a pipe dream ,I should be reality

time for fringe