RCA DPH-1000R HDTV Recorder - Page 4

I have owned this Digital Stream HD recorder for three (?) months. Several answers to questions above:

1. It does have two digital tuners. I can be recording a scheduled program off the air while I am simultaneously using the second tuner to watch a different program.

2. The unit records and plays back in whatever the transmitted OTA signal resolution was. Including 480, 720, and 1080i HDTV. The playback quality from the HDD hard drive to my Sony HDTV is indistinguishable from the Sony TV tuner, I.e. crisp and clear.

3. The hard drive is 320 GB. And when you are recording HDTV you CAN fill it up and have to delete stuff.

4. When you want to have a program recorded BY NAME it is easy. Just use the button to the upper right of the navigation bars around the OK button. Select the program you want and hit OK. Then, before the scheduled recording time hit the schedule button (left side of the remote, second from the bottom) and scroll down to the program you want repeated. Then go across to the date column and scroll up/down to get what you want, I.e. every day, or M-F or every Saturday or whatever and hit OK. The program TITLE is retained. By the way if you are missing the beginning or end of a repeated program go in via the schedule button and go across til you get to the start time and back it up a minute AND toggle across to the duration column (e.g. 30 minutes) and increment it up as desired. The recorded program TITLE is not affected by this editing of the schedule. Unfortunately if the TV network switches time slots you will be recording a different program with your old Program title, which forces you to delete that schedule item and re-enter it. I don't know why networks do this switcheroo with favorite programs.

The Magnavox like all DVDRs only output SD, myself and others don't like it but that's just the way they are, everything is downrezed to record to DVD even if you just watch it live.
HD tuners start ~$100 so I kind of agree, if you can double that a DVR like this is a much better choice. You can still use your Panasonic to make realtime SD copies of things you've recorded on the DVR so personally I wouldn't get rid of that.
Something like the RCA isn't perfect but would probably work fine for what you want.

Because a digital VCR isn't what most people want, and a DVR is basically a computer with a remote controlled GUI (and thus not cheap). Because OTA viewers don't want to pay a lot of money for this sort of device. Because OTA TV in the US doesn't include reliable guide data, and TVGoS is dying a slow death. Because Chinese makers make cheap, half-assed devices that scare off potential buyers, so good devices never get a chance.

There are a variety of reasons. Suffice to say, this is what you get when you get weak regulation and an economy based around outsourcing to the lowest bidder. You get a short list of choices where the ones that are cheap aren't very good, and the ones that are good aren't very cheap.

Actually regulations in the U.S. are quite strong, but they're drafted by the entertainment industry to prohibit consumers from doing anything that might cut into entertainment industry profits. We aren't allowed to buy better products that are offered in less restrictive markets. And it may get even worse now that the Supreme Court has ruled that corporations can essentially buy political candidates by flooding elections with so much money that ordinary citizens can't compete.
Edited by L David Matheny - 9/25/12 at 8:06am

In trying to find more info on this unit, I still can't locate it on a manufactures web site, I came across their products for the United Kingdom.
At least I think they are for that market since there are labeled "FREEVIEW," which appears to be UK programing. If the same company, what is being sold there far surpasses
what is offered here. Digital Stream is owned by Samsung as well as some other companies. Look here to view the products I am talking of, http://www.dstreamtech.com/english/product/product_list.asp.

I got one of these about a week ago as a replacement for a DTVPal. I loved the ease of use and features of the DTVPal (for example, just pressing the Pause button to pause live tv). However the bugs of the DTVPal (it would sometimes record programs in Spanish when I never selected Spanish) had me throwing in the towel and getting a diferent DVR.

So far I am learning to like the Digital Stream DPH-1000R. However the first thing I noticed was that I didn't like the original remote which came with the unit. The "play/pause, stop, fwd, rwd, rec" buttons are too tiny. Also, what I missed most of the DTVPal remote was the ability do a 30 second skip past commercials.

To address both issues, I ended up getting a macro programable and learning remote control.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/765536-REG/Universal_Remote_A6_URC_A6_Pre_Programmed_Learning_Remote.html

With the new remote control, not only does it have better keys for play, stop, etc. but also I was able to create my own macros to simulate "skip forward approximately 30 seconds" and "skip backward approximately 10 seconds" keys. It isn't perfect (When I press one of my define "skip" keys, I have to point the remote at the DVR for about 2 seconds to make sure the macro runs), but gets the job done. I'm a happy camper now.

I bought one. Clunky setup, especially the channel add/remove. Did the job for two weeks, then started dropping the sound, requiring a full reset. Annoying. If I don't get an answer from Digital Stream, which I don't expect, it's going back.

I though this wasn't sold any more and was a dead issue.

myavsname;
That seems to be a half way decent remote especially considering the price as long as you don't need specialized buttons that it doesn't have. But, that one review about not being able to :learn" a command just because the devoice isn't in their database didn't make sense. The purpose of a "learning" remote is to learn codes that aren't in the database of that remote.
Edited by videobruce - 1/31/13 at 6:07am