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August 23, 2007 06:09 PM

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Old TV Guy

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Joined: 08/23/2007

Does anyone make a stand alone, non-subscription (non TiVo) DVR with an ATSC (digital over-the-air) tuner?  Practically every TV station in the country now transmits a digital UHF signal in tandem with their analog braodcast.  For a media monitoring project, I want to set up 6 - 10 stand alone DVR’s to simulaniously record programs off the air.  I don’t want to pay TiVo or other subscription service fees and I don’t want to invest in DVR’s that don’t have a digital over-the-air tuner since analog TV tuners will be rendered useless after February 17, 2009, when TV stations turn off their analog transmitters.  I just can’t seem to find a currently available non-subscription service DVR model with an ATSC tuner.

 

Thanks to Editor Jeff Block for his articles on stand alone and home brew DVR’s.  Because I need to record multiple channels simultaneously (6 – 10 channels), I don’t have the time to build multiple home brew DVR systems for this project, but I might build one for myself.

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  • member since: 08/27/2007
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August 27, 2007 1:46 PM

The simplest way I know is to go the PC route.

 Windows Vista Home Premium or Ultimate gives you Windows Media Center - which can support two ATSC OTA tuners per PC - with no subscription services needed.

Current FCC rules require vendors to sell TV-card equipped PCs with dual mode tuners (ATSC plus NTSC).

 Vista Media center can support up to 4 tuners - 2 NTSC and 2 ATSC..  If you have a beefy enough PC (ie, at least dual core and a LOT of RAM)  you can record 4 at the same time.  To make it easy for your project, you can share the recorded TV folder on your local network and access the files from other PCs using Windows Media Player or Media center on those PCs.

 Check out the HP Media Center M8000 line of PCs - I think they come with a single (dual-mode) tuner - and you can add another card to them if there is an empty slot available (I like Hauppauge cards, myself).  So - two cards=4 tuners (2 NTSC, 2 ATSC).

 -Dale

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August 29, 2007 10:18 AM

Thanks to Dale for the commment.  It seems that at this time, the only way to do this is to home brew a DVR with a PC.  Dale's recommendation is for Hauppague cards.  I'll go back through the home brew section to look for other ATSC tuner card recommendations.  I'd welcome anyone else's recommendation on ATSC tuner cards and DVR cards.  Thanks.

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  • member since: 08/30/2007
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August 30, 2007 6:14 PM

Your best bet is probably the Sony DHG-HDD250.  It's officially discontinued, but you can still find it on EBay (as I did) for $200-300.  It's an ATSC tuner w/DVR that records about 30 hrs of OTA HD, using a free program guide (TG Guide OnScreen).

(LG also had a model a couple of years ago, but it had less capacity and is even harder to find.) 

Good luck.  I certainly wish more manufacturers would produce machines like this for the US market, but apparently they're under the (erroneous) impression that all Americans want to subscribe to cable or satellite service (and pay an extra monthly fee to rent a DVR), or at the very least pay a monthly Tivo fee.  Grumble...

Generic Member Avatar
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December 26, 2007 8:49 AM

I purchased a Polaroid DRA-10601a (cost $150.00 on ebay) Recorder with a 160GB Hard Drive with the below features.

The problem I am having is when viewing on channel 3, faint vertical raster lines scroll from left to right on the screen. Also when viewing the recorded programs on the Harddrive or DVD, the sound of something coming from the DVR can be heard on the recorded media. I dont know if I have something setup wrong or not because the manual that comes with the unit is almost useless.

Currently the way I have the connections to the TV are as follows. The coaxial cable from the cable company (No cable box) is connected to the Analog coaxial input of DVR, coaxial output is going to the coaxial input of TV, the s-video output of DVR is going to the S-video input of TV and the audio output of the DVR is going to the audio input of TV.

I tried to disconnect the s-video link between the DVR and TV, but when I did, I could no longer get the DVR setup menu to display, so I put the s-video cable back in.

Question:

1. Can anyone tell me if maybe I have it connected right? Or what to try to get rid of the vertical raster lines on channel 3 and the recorded noise of the unit being recorded?

2. What is the coaxial from the cable company (Charter) considered without a cable box, Analog or Digital cable?

Features§         YesDVD enabled indexing, auto chaptering, organization, and sharing of multi-media content §         Front USB and SD card reader ports §         Simultaneous DVD playback and record movie on hard disc §         Record in different quality and length (HQ, SP, LP, EP, SLP) §         Easy one-touch recording with auto index creation §         30-second skip lets you jump over commercials for commercial-free viewing §         10-second replay allows you to go back 10 seconds to replay what you missed §         Easy editing on recorded video content §         Records to DVD+R/RW and DVD-R/RW §         Plays DVD, DVD+R/RW, DVD-R/RW, music CDs, CD-R/RW §         JPEG image compatible §         Progressive scan (480p) video output §         Front panel VFD display  YesDVD Software gives you the professional DVD features from your recordings.Recording to HDD
When you record to the hard drive, a list will show your recordings. Each YesDVD recording will contain its own set of YesDVD chapter menus with video motion previews.

Archiving hard drive recordings to DVD
This feature allows archiving or "dubbing" of one or more YesDVD recordings on hard drive to DVD disc. The finished YesDVD discs will include the YesDVD chapter menus and DVD case coversheet files for printing from your PC.

 

Input/Outputs

§         HDMI output §         Front USB and SD card reader ports §         Front audio/video output §         Front IEEE 1394 input §         S-video output §         Coaxial digital audio output §         2-Channel audio output

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