Mediasonic ATSC Digital Converter Box with Recording / Media Player / TV Tuner Function (HW130STB)

My new Mediasonic Homeworx replaced an older version of ATSC box that I bought directly from Shenzen on eBay several years ago. I really liked the old box until the flash memory stopped working. When new, the old box would let me create up to about nine DVR schedules. Then after about three years it went to zero. All the functions of the old box are still good, except for the DVR schedule. I am still using a second old version ATSC box where the DVR schedule capacity has gone from about 14 entries to four. I replaced the ATSC box with zero DVR schedule with a new Shenzen model. I expected it to be like the one it replaced. Instead the DVR schedule has an eleven day week and zero working flash memory to hold schedules. I am really hoping that the new Mediasonic will have better quality flash memory. Ask me in three years how the flash memory is holding up. Right now it looks very good.I have been using old model USB 1 Western Digital disk drives for DVR storage. They worked great on the old model ATSC box and work just as well on the new Mediasonic box. I assume that the new box will support USB 2, but have not tried it. The old boxes do not support USB 2. The old model Western Digital units arrived formatted as fat32. To use them for DVR storage I had to reformat them to NTFS. I suspect the reason thumb drives do not work is that they are formatted as fat32. I bet that after reformatting to NTFS, they would work. I noticed that the Mediasonic has a disk format feature in the menu. I did not need to use this, the USB 1 Western Digital drives transferred to the new box without a hitch.I had two boxes because I had two outdoor antenna. I’ve been experimenting. The first antenna has stopped working. I suspect it is because it is now pointing to the sky rather toward the horizon. I have it clamped to a plumbing vent that is now bent over after the last wind storm. I wanted two working ATSC boxes, one to watch while the other records or record different channels at the same time. I tried using the RF output on one box to the second box. That works, but there is significant signal attenuation especially when the first box in the series is working. I installed a Channel Master signal-splitter amplifier. Now both boxes get the same signal strength. I have two antenna on the roof on the same mount with a Wineguard signal combiner feeding a Channel Master antenna preamp. That feeds into the signal-splitter amplifier inside the house. All this gets me about 40-60 over the air channels depending on atmospheric conditions. The antenna mount once held a Direct TV satellite antenna.I’m thinking of another type of antenna to try. I might replace the antenna on the bent plumbing vent with something on a tower next to the house. We will see how much ambition I have.Some things to note. The Mediasonic menus are identical to the old ATSC box. The remote controllers have the same functions, but they are arranged very differently. With the two old model ATSC boxes, when I clicked the controller on/off button, one box would turn on and the other would turn off. That, I found, was a useful feature. I now have two separate controllers. I suspect, if I get another Mediasonic that this feature would return. I set my Mediasonic to the 24 hour clock. Please remember that it does not automatically switch between standard and day light time. I seem to get caught twice each year. The DVR scheduler assumes that a digit placed in one of the two hour slots means that a zero should be in the other. Why? The old model didn’t do this. I like that the Mediasonic DVR scheduler starts with the working channel. The old model did not do this.The old ATSC box DVR scheduler has an annoying bug. When more than two shows are scheduled to record where each starts on the same hour that the previous show ended, there is about a 20-30 second additional delay that adds up. This delay pushes the start time and end time forward by that amount. This means that after several iterations the start and stop times are out of sync with the shows being recorded. This is a real issue when recording one of those marathons where 10+ episodes are broadcast back to back. Making the stop time a minute earlier than the next start time seems to help. Except when the scheduler is turning on the unit before starting to record, then it turns off on the ending minute and back on at the starting minute. Fortunately there tends to be a lot of advertising between each iteration to absorb the slop in the time. I haven’t used the Mediasonic enough yet to check this on the new model. I noticed that the Mediasonic initial boot goes a lot faster than the old ATSC boxes. Otherwise there is no difference. -- It is now official: The bug described above is present in the Mediasonic.Here is instructions to reformat a thumb or disk drive to NTFS:Put the following in a Windows Shortcut Target: %windir%\system32\cmd.exeStart in: %HOMEDRIVE%%HOMEPATH%Use the following commands in the Microsoft Command PromptType "DiskPart" in the command prompt.Type "List Disk” (make note of the disk number of the target USB drive).Type "Select Disk X”, where X is the target USB drive noted above.Type "Clean”.Type "Create Partition Primary”.Type "format FS=NTFS”.Type "Active”.Type "Assign".Type "list volume".Type "Exit"Be real careful with this. As soon as you type “clean” the target disk is wiped clean. If you want to get rid of a disk drive and hide your data, use the above procedure. I suspect a well-equipped forensic lab can still get at your data, but not easily.The format can take a long time. A 1TB disk drive can take 8+ hours to format. Like those Western Digital disks noted above.

Set up is pretty easy but I already had an older RCA converter from way back, so I knew what to expect. This unit however has the built-in ability to mute and raise and lower volume via the remote (This is pretty much what I purchased this for.) As you can see by the pictures, my TV is a manual one, so all I need do now is turn the volume knob on my set to an acceptable level, then sit back and enjoy show, upping or lowering the volume from my easy chair using the remote, or muting it during commercials. "Recall" (last channel) works fine as well. My old RCA converter didn't have either of these features... pluses with this new converter.Not too many negatives but there are some unknowns with this unit. When you press the "Info" button you get channel info and a dotted line. What this line measures is unclear as the supplied manual (pg. 7) does not explain. Press the "Info" button a second time and a different dotted line appears labeled "Quality" (along with other information on the channel) and it does vary a bit with a percentage reading so I assume this one measures signal strength. Again, the manual doesn't explain.You get seven choices for screen ratios. I found that the 4:3 ratios work best for my old TV, although I did have to adjust the vertical and horizontal knobs on the back of my TV ever so slightly to get the best screen orientation (no fault of the converter.)Others have said the build quality is questionable. It is a light unit to be sure. The remote is small but does fit my hand well. It does have a finger size knotch on the under side that your index finger naturally falls nicely into which allows your thumb to work most of the buttons. So far, I have no complaints.I have not tried the "PVR" recording feature or playing a movie from a thumb drive. I will add to this review (if possible) when I do so.Update... I had a couple movies that were recorded as "avi" format. Loaded them onto a thump drive and they played well. Also tried my hand at the "PVR" recording function. This also worked well.The only negative I have is that the on screen prompts are not visually clear using my older TV. At times the "1" or "2" on the keypad is prompted but it takes some doing (and squinting) to discern the shape on the screen. This is not necessarily the fault of Mediasonic but they should know their units will be used with aging TV sets. It would be nice if the manual spelled out these functions step by step. As it is, one is left with trial an error. Mind you, this wasn't deal breaker but annoying just the same. There are other aspects with the included manual that leave the user hanging with what to do next. Because of this, I would have given this converter box five stars. Still a good unit once figured out.