I need to record both OTA and HD cable

[particular002]

What do you think about this one? PrimeDTV PHD-VRX Full HD 1080p Dual Tuner Digital HDTV Recorder, Receiver and Media Center Box. I saw it in amazon. I too need to record both OTA and HD cable.

I just read thet it doesn't have an internal HDD, but you can plug one in the USB port. It called my attention that it has an HDMI IN conection.

Do you know any other, and better, model?

[redwudz]

particular002, Your post would be better in a new topic instead of digging up an old one.

Moderator redwudz

[usually_quiet]

What do you think about this one? PrimeDTV PHD-VRX Full HD 1080p Dual Tuner Digital HDTV Recorder, Receiver and Media Center Box. I saw it in amazon. I too need to record both OTA and HD cable.

I just read thet it doesn't have an internal HDD, but you can plug one in the USB port. It called my attention that it has an HDMI IN conection.

Do you know any other, and better, model?

I cannot tell you if the PrimeDTV PHD-VRX is a good recorder or not. What I can tell you (if you don't already know) is that its ability to record HD cable is limited. It will only allow you to record clear QAM channels in your subscription. (Clear QAM channels are the unencrypted digital cable channels that a TV with an ATSC/QAM digital tuner can tune on its own.) It appears that the PrimeDTV PHD-VRX's video inputs only allow it to share its connections to the TV with another device. It cannot record from its HDMI or analog inputs, which means that you will not be able to record the output from a cable box. The PrimeDTV PHD-VRX also lacks the ability to record NTSC analog channels from cable, over-the-air, or a cable box's RF out.

If you need a device that can record the output from a cable box, I very much doubt that you will find an HD ATSC/QAM HDD recorder that can do it. These machines just record the output from their tuners, which is an MPEG-2 transport stream in N. America. They have no ability to encode and so can't record analog signals or HDMI signals.

The PrimeDTV PHD-VRX requires an external hard drive for recording, but I don't think that is really a negative. It adds to the cost but allows you to change over to a new hard drive if the current one fills up.