RCA DPH-1000R HDTV Recorder - Page 3

What exactly are you referring to, when you say "time shifting"?

I'm referring to the ability of pausing live television or being able to rewind live television. Pause and rewind only work on recordings.

Also, I took a picture of the box (crappy phone quality, sorry). Looks like the specs are a bit off. The box states that the hard drive is 320GB.

Thanks for the nice overview. I'd also be upset with the lack of ability to pause and search live TV and I'd be REALLY upset on having two tuners but the ability to only record one. From your descriptions of this product I totally agree with your assessment, maybe workable for some but if your use to a full fledged dual tuner DVR you won't be too happy with this product.

Yes, that seems obvious to me also. It is a bare-bones device for people looking to spend as little as possible, accept an unfinished product and who are willing to make a career out of its operation.

Box sure shows 320Gb. That's strange.

What do you call recording a show to watch at a different time?

I called a business last week. The person had to check something. She wanted to know if it was ok to "put me on pause". I said ok, but thought since when did "hold" become "pause"?

Maybe it was menopause.
Thats as bad as telling someone that they "copied you", meaning they forwarded your e-mail to someone else. (Took me a little to figure out what she meant)

The thing that made me wonder what he meant was that it said the unit does "trick play" in the specs. So I figured it probably did the buffering of live TV thing, because that's usually part of what the description of "trick play" covers in a DVR nowadays.

In fact, if he didn't report that here, I would've ordered one expecting it to be able to do that.

Kind of deceptive.

I saw the "trick play" thing too, but had to use a lot of restraint to not make many, many jokes. With the specs on the Magnavox saying that it could "freeze" live TV, I asked them to change it to "pause".

But they're only words. Everyone is free to play with them.

Can timer recordings be set by time and channel, or is it guide based only?

Judging by the review:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/cont...&RCDPH1000R=&Q

I think there is a 99.9% probability that manual recording can be done. The reviewer stated that manually setting "time" means no title. Manually setting "recording time" was probably the way it should have been stated. This means, of course, that the guide is whatever you get via PSIP.

Just speculation.

That's why the price difference.
We will have to see how long this thing will last. Longer than that BrightView (or should I of said DimView)?

Might as well buy from one of the hundreds of Hong Kong sellers on eBay.

I was looking for something to record OTA programs to watch a day or two later. So time shift is not a big deal for me. In fact you can time shift.
Press the "record" button to start recording.
Go to the playlist and choose the program you just started recording.
You are now watching the program you are recording.
You can pause, FF and rewind.

The 24 hour clock takes a little getting used to when programing the timer recording manually. I haven't tried programming from the program guide yet. In fact the program guide only showed the next 12 hours of programs. Even though you can choose several days in advance the guide is not available. It may be different when hooked to a cable system but for over the air (OTA) you get a 12 hour guide for the current day.

I just got the unit today so its early yet to say how dependable the unit is. So far I like the picture & sound on my Toshiba 15 inch LCD.

What I don't like:

No skip. You have to use FF to get past commercials.

No back-up battery. If the power goes out you loose the clock. And you don't get it back till you go through the time setup again. Not a huge deal because the grid is fairly reliable here.

The universal remote can be tricky. It would have been nice if you can tell what the remote is controling. I accidently hit the TV button without realizing it. When I tried to control the DPH1000R nothing happened. I thought there was a problem with the unit or the remote but it turned out to be fat finger syndrom.

Not deal breakers for me though. So far I'm satisfied.

mark
Edited by mark8too - 7/5/12 at 3:08pm

I couldn't find an operating manual for the DPH-1000R, so when i bought mine, I scanned the manual to a .pdf file. Anyone want to host it?

I like the OTA tuner on this thing. It's much better than the Sony DGH and a little bit better than my Panasonic HDTV. I only bought one as that was a major concern. Now that I see it picks up everything I tried ordering another one. B&H no longer has it. Anyone know where i can find one?

It's 7 years newer, that's why.

 

Adorama appears to have it, @224.99?

 

Don't know anything about Adorama.

seems to be gone - oh well.

one thing i don't understand is some of the higher OTA channels are listed correctly but when i hit guide it list a different channel number and description. The program lineup is correct. So, if I schedule a recording it schedules it to an incorrect channel. I have to manually change the channel.

Adorama is usually more expensive than everybody else - usually MSRP.

Has this little box been discontinued already?

I'm interested in recording OTA broadcasts with this unit. I now receive some OTA programs in Dolby 5.1 Would this unit record and play in 5.1 if the broadcast was sent out in that format? Thanks, David

Yes, if the OTA broadcast signal has 5 channel surround sound, the DPS-1000R records and plays it back fine. I personally verified this on playback of a CBS golf tournament, by listening to each of the 5 speakers powered by my Yamaha receiver. No problem. Surround sound is good (depending of course on the broadcast program sound quality).

NOTE: If/when sound from the DPS-1000R dies completely (mine did after switching USB memory sticks) it is easy to fix. Go to the Setup Menu and Reset to the factory settings, including re-scan of channels. (I get 19 digital channels OTA and this took about 5 minutes). Magically the sound is fixed like new.

More good news: Programs previously stored on the 320GB hard drive are not affected by the machine reset process.

Had a Polaroid unit that was years old - no tuner so had to use a converter to record one channel at a time. Ran hot and poor picture quality. Failed last week.

Seems to be only 2 DVRs out there today. The super hot Channel Master and the Digital stream 1000 in the price range I was willing to deal with. Bought the 1000 from B&H.

Low tech needs here so this unit is several steps up for me from the Polaroid. Got rid of my converters. Hooked my DVD player to my VCR to the DS to my HDTV. Hooked a converter to my VCR just in case I want to record something quick.

Using a HDTV antenna hung inside an upstairs room next to my TV. Both the TV and DVR pick up all 30+ OTA channels from transmitters 20 to 40 miles away.

The DS DVR works great for me. Using standard video inputs and SD recording mode.

Meets all my needs of recording OTA programs and while not perfect is a heck of a lot better than the now defunct Polaroid. Having its own tuner, I can set it up to record any channel without having to change channels on a converter. It even records set programs with the power turned off so the unit stays cool. Playback is great in that if stopped, the recorded show continues from stopping point. Only thing missing from the Polaroid is a "go to" time feature for skipping ahead. The fast forward can be used but finding a point in time is hit or miss using FF.

I would highly recommend the DS 1000 to anyone with low tech high quality DVR needs. Overall, a very nice unit for basic DVR recording needs.
Edited by jms801 - 9/9/12 at 10:04am

I've just been reading this thread after having my B&H supplied 'less than month' old Digital Stream DVR drop all sound.

I was delighted to read all the way to the bottom of page 3 and find a 'fix'. I did the 'Reset' and it worked, my sound is now back in full. Thank you!

I would love to see a mfr. step up and build a decent quality DVR with two ATSC tuners and a nice size HD. Might as well throw in a decent UI with good response, too. Wonder if OPPO is listening?

Bob.

I doubt it since they make DVD players (unless something changed recently).

Would be nice but I don't think it would ever happen. Such a device, in a modest to low price range, would not be appreciated by cable operators that provide their own units from TiVo to The Hopper to the Uverse 4 channel recorder and anything else that's out there.

The few DVR's that are available would probably be ok if these lame Asians could write proper code for the firmware and understand our needs to operate a DVR properly.

Period.

"Lame Asians"? Really? Isn't that a little strong?

I agree. While my old, now dead, Polaroid was inferior to the DS 1000 by not having OTA tuners and poorer picture quality, I liked the ability it had to see FF live on the screen instead of "jumping" through the FF. Also, the Polaroid had the ability to "go to" a certain time. Worked great for going to the last 10 minutes of a show to see the ending without having to FF to get there. Also, the DS 1000 in FF mode does not show the time so finding the last 10 minutes is very difficult. And, yes, when setting the DS 1000 for repeat (daily) recording, it does not allow naming the recording. A taped show can be renamed after the fact but why. I do like the ability to put a USB stick in the 1000 and copy video to it for editing in my PC software after it's converted from a .TS file to some other format, such as .WMV or .AVI.

Yes "really". And no isn't "a little strong"!

The plain fact, the majority of all these semi-no name DVR's is poor user interface. Not necessary the electronics, but the way the GUI is setup. Basic functions, actions, ,menu structure is terrible. As much as I'm not a fan of Sony, other then the current HDD limitation and the single older generation tuner, their GUI is far superior than any of these recent entries. Not to say there isn't room for improvement, but Sony's DVR from 2005 blows away any of these considering the hardware limitations of the device.

No, it's wasn't perfect, there are changes that could of been made, but ti was light years ahead of it's time 7 years ago. Their TVGuide bases 'Guide' is far superior than what TWC's "lame" so called "Navigator" is.

I need some advice and when researching information on products Ithis great and informative web site kept appearing, the AVS Forum so here I am.

Our situation is this, we have an older LCD Tv with no digital turner built in, purchased before the "great change" .
Right before the change we purchased an Accordian HDTV turner through radio shack, which has been great but dying a slow death.

It has lost one over the air channel the other tv's receive, rescanning does not help.

We set it to turn on in the morning as an alarm clock and to go off every night. It turns off but will not come on in the morning, resetting the
clock is no help.

The power button on the remote will not opperate, has been over a year (all other buttons work)

Lastly the power button on the unit failed two days ago, turns green but takes hours to turn on

So our choice was to buy a new TV or something with a turner built in, then I though why not an HD recorder. We already have a Panasonic VHS-DVD dual recorder with analog turner, so the DVR-R part is a non issue

I was looking at the Magnavox MDR533H/F7 at Walmart, great price on these and that has been talked about elsewhere on this site, people seem to love it. But if I am reading right it seems NOT to record in HDTV and I got to thinking what is the point of that. Also I can not find out If not recording is the output actually in HDTV?

So next step was to look into HDTV turners that do not require a subscription or cable. What I have found has surprised me, this unit and the channel master are the only 2 sold in the county that fit the bill?

So does anyone know what the video output is is on the DPH it it 480 or 720 or 1080?

It would solve two problems for me replace a dying turner and provide a HDTV recording device. Why watch HDTV and down grade it to
and old format by recording it to DVD.

Just a side question but why are there so few recording devices offered to over the air viewers, every cable or dish commercial I hear pushs a recording device, I am sick of hearing about the Hopper.

B&H photo has it for 249, with a 250 HD is it really a 250GB or a320?

Wallyo