Magnavox 537, 535, 533, 515, 513, 2160A, 2160, 2080 & Philips 3576, 3575 - Page 773

It is like a VCR with a DVD burner. You have a nice TV and want to get the most from it (HD), then there are choices:
Build an HTPC,
TiVo with cable card,
The jungle of HD boxes with their own issues, no fee, function like a VCR and do not support a cable card. Do your homework.

Your TV gets more channels than the 533 and they are HD?

I hate to say this, but given your intended uses you probably should have simply gotten a DVR from your cable company. That way you would always be watching HD. Furthermore, with a DVR things would be a lot simpler for you. Using the 533 to simply pause live TV means that you will always be watching SD on your new "state of the art TV". Why have a nice HD TV and then only watch SD? Also, once you have a DVR, like most of us, you'll soon learn that recording shows you watch and then fast forwarding through commercials is very nice.

Forgot that. It would be a long term gain if Comcast goes MPEG-4 also. I pay for HD yet still use my 515H for shows that are not really HD and for overflow. Sometimes digital SD is good enough.

Wajo. As usual, you are "The Man"! Thanks again!

Yep It's not HD. Right now in the US, is hard to find a reliable no fee HD recorder. So if you don't want to pay a monthly fee to Crapcast, your best option is to buy a TiVo with Lifetime membership, and asking them for a discount price.

Or, if you really hate, hate TiVo and renting DVRs, you can try to buy a MTV-7000D or Mini.

... or a Ceton or Silicon Dust cable card tuner and Windows Media Center. That's much cheaper and more extensible than TiVo. Both options work very, very well for HD recordings and are excellent cable DVR and DVD recorder replacements.

SD from the Maggie is really good, but not quite as good as HD. I have used it to to move content around the house and to watch periodically. The reason for my post is that the OP just got a new TV and indicated that he wouldn't hardly be recording anything. Seems like a waste of money to buy a Maggie just to pause live TV. But, maybe he'll figure out how to get more value out of it.

I've been, for now will stay with the 533 or maybe just the VCR as I rarely record and pausing live TV is a nice not must have.
Many more and in HD.

I hear you. Thing is I record very infrequently, 1 or 2 times/year at most. Comcast charges $8/month for their DVR. I have a hard time justifying $48 - $96 /recording. The NFL is the only thing that I really want to fast forward through.

That's bad, yet not unheard of. The tuner of the Magnavox gives some people problems. Usually it's OTA though. Sometimes the cable feed skips the xxx.1 channel and that is not handled well. Sorry, but there is not much I can suggest. Good luck.

Yes. 3 times.

He could "bite the bullet" and rent a DVR from the cable company. A cable DVR can record 2 shows at the same time. For the price of 2 533s you can rent a cable DVR for many months and have HD.

There's no easy solution. If Sony/Rovi didn't screw the DHG owners it would be a good solution too. The cable DVR is probably the easiest route but it is not the cheapest in the long run. It is a shame Funai couldn't make an HD unit for the USA.

533 route: 250*2/8=60+ months = 5 years. In 5 years cable will be all digital & encrypted rendering the 533 useless as a DVR

Useless for cable maybe, depending on available cableco choices, but not useless for OTA or various other sources able to provide composite output, including HDMI to composite converters, IPTV and satellite. That which you record on your Funai does not disappear when you cease to pay the cable bill.

I understand that the cable company is now disabling the fast forward function on their DVRs on certain programs. I don't know if these are just shows from the on demand menu, or others too. You won't have that issue with shows recorded on the Maggies.

I'm wondering where this $8/month for a comcast DVR came from. Last time I checked, comcast wanted $27/month after all promos expire. That's pretty much in line with other cable and satellite systems. That will pay for a lot of DVD recorders if that's what you want. But cable cards are practically free on most systems, so I don't understand why more people don't take advantage of that.

Because I'm cheap and can't resist a bargain, I bought a WD $35 500GB SATA refurb drive form NewEgg with free shipping. I confess that it's an unauthorized drive (AA rather than AV) so we'll see how it works out. Anyway installation in my 2160A was easy thanks to the clear instructions in this great thread and for now the Maggie is working well.

JL

It's just like a 515H after installing the 727V firmware. Very sweet deal.

That's amazing. My cable company dropped the "per outlet" charge years ago. Maybe Comcast is taking lessons from the airline industry.

Our Comcast bill has an $8 monthly fee for each "additional digital output device" (or some such similar term).

I called and visited Comcast to dispute this charge as we were also paying a monthly fee for each converter box we have. They clarified that the $8 fee is for the coax cable and "digital output device." I pointed out that the coax cable in the house is RG59U cable installed around 1983, long before the digital era and RG6 cable. That coax cable was installed by an earlier cable franchise, Rogers CableSystem Pacific (USA). Over the thirty years since then there have been four or five other cable franchises providing service to this house, all using the same 1983 coax cable. Here is a picture of a product similar to the ones that Comcast calls "digital output devices:"


Edited by DigaDo - 3/6/13 at 4:23pm

They did that digital outlet crap with me too after I added my HD HomeRun Prime. It's just a backdoor way to always charge extra for customer owned cable card equipped box, and to make sure you get charged for the ONE cable card you have in use, like me, if you have one. They have all kinds of little things like that they can play with to get a few more bucks out of their customers.
I just got a deal where I signed up for two years at a cheaper locked rate. I was told last month would be included at the new much cheaper rate, it even showed up online right after we talked. We have a new to us house so some of the expenses were higher them we expected or came in at odd times so we were a bit late paying the cable bill. When I go in to pay online it claims I owe like 360 bucks!!!
When I went on chat to complain they explained my new rate was for NEXT month and I owed 200 at that point even though it said I owed a bunch more... This months bill last I checked shows I owe 99.98 or something close which is what my new rate was supposed to be:mad: They act like a credit card company sometimes I think, we're going to give you a break, wait we take that back, plus they charge a month ahead just to make it even harder to figure out what and when things kick in or are due.
If they are willing to give a discount when you complain they should give it to all their long term customers and not make you fight for everything, plus all the extra fees, taxes, and charges they never tell you about till the bill comes...
OHH, they started charging extra for outlets again out here too, and if you still have any of those crappy non HD DTA boxes whether your using them or not they are now charging 2 bucks a month for those too so look your bill over, at least if your in the Oregon region.
Edited by Dartman - 3/6/13 at 1:49pm

I understand the $8 per outlet (which I agree is ridiculous). But I thought we were talking about DVR replacements. A comcast DVR is still $27/month when all is said and done. That's why I was surprised at the $8 figure being batted around.
I'm cheap too. I'm not advocating spending $27/month on a cable DVR. I'm advocating using a cable card tuner and getting full HD recordings, full guide and schedule, limitless recording space, gorgeous user interface, integration with netflix and hulu and your personal music/photo/video library, easy expandability to every screen in your house, and 4 tuners. So unlike the maggie, no more manual timers required, no more crappy SD picture, no clunky editing, no limited recording space, no having to watch the same channel you're recording (assuming you use a cable box). Just seems like a better, cheaper solution. Not cheaper than $35, but still pretty cheap, $100 maybe.

Perhaps, looking at my rates, I could say the cable company's HD DVR is $8 a month also. But that's not looking at the $13 for the HD tier, and $5 for DVR "service". Many people fail to check all the numbers.

While I can understand having the HTPC as an alternative or even a hobby, the Mag units are still at a price point where they sell quite well at Walmart. And probably most people on this thread think they have quite a value. I do.

I also have a TiVo and it has unlimited storage too. Not cheap but decent support and simple to use.

I use an XP desktop - no WMC. I use Win7 on a laptop - no PCI card for 5.1 audio but WMC does work. I tried it once.

I have a Sony DHG-HDD250. It's not a DVR it's an adventure. Still works for OTA or cable HD until everything gets encrypted. It supports a cable card unlike the Mag.

Isn't it amazing how many people would be happy with just analog and their 27" CRT televisions and VCRs.

All color has gone black and white including all screens including ones that are usually blue are all now black and white. The recorded items also play black and white as well as the channels tuned in through the DVD player.
Has anyone ran into this? If so any fix or time to get a newer model? It is not the TV.
Thanks for all the help.
Gohokiez

This is common when using component (red green blue) connections as the cables are usually so heavy and stiff that they manage to pull away from the equipment fittings.

Make sure the cable connections are fully seated in the fittings.


Edited by DigaDo - 3/7/13 at 9:56am

It looks like $200 for either to work with cable not OTA. I spoke with Comcast, they are OK with the idea, will provide a no charge cable card.


Precisely. I pay a $9.95 HD fee now along with Digital Starter, which is more than Basic or Digital Economy. They want $8.00 more to record.


32 inch CRT, but being 15 years old the picture quality was fading and the aspect ratio was causing the scoreboard of some games to be cut from view. Now that I've upgraded I could never go back hence the disappointment with the 533's SD limitation.

BTW Comcast confirmed that most everything they are sending me is scrambled.

I've got a question about my 2160. When I hook the cable up to it and do a channel scan, I don't get any channels. However, I can hook the cable up to other devices and get channels, so I know there's a signal there. Is there something I can do to get channels with the 2160? Thanks.