OTA Antenna and DVR

Few months ago I cut the cable and setup antenna and DVR for OTA channels. Here is the information about antenna and DVR.

First, you need to find out what kind of antenna you need using AntennaWeb.org and what side of your house covers all broadcasting station, ignore if you are planning to mount it on the roof.

I found following information from Winegard Technical Advisor

• Install antenna in attic, you might loose signal and it might not work if you are far away from broadcasting station. Also you might have to run some extra cables.
• Snow does not effect antenna or signals however weather may cause some disruption.
• Omni directional antenna like Winegard MS-2002 is the best way to go if you don't want to install all the complex antenna hardware. Winegard web site has nice antenna categories at top including broadcasting distance.

This is the antenna I choose

• WinegardMS-2002 HDTV Antenna
• WinegardDS-200 Antenna Mount

You can build your own DVR by using Nettop PC and Microsoft Windows Media Center or some other OTA DVR boxes.

• Here are the OTA DVR boxes I found. 
• Dvico Tvix 6620N-Plus (I bought it from here.)
• Channel Master DVR+
• Simple TV (Subscription based, also required Roku to watch recored shows on TV, you can also watch shows on your mobile devices.)
• Channel Master CM-7000PAL (Discontinued)
• Channel Master CM-7400 HD (Discontinued)

Here is what I tried but didnot work. PC gets too hot in media cabinet and it is not easy for your wife to use. Your spouse can not fix it if something goes wrong and you are at work (Believe me).

• Nettop PC (I bought used one for $200)
• HDHomeRunDual TV Tuner (They have iPad app too.)
• RG6cable 50’
• Coax Crimper
• Coax Grouding Block
• RG6 Crimp-on Connectors

I like Dvico Tvix DVR because it is small and does it's job. It has few bugs but it is the cheapest and best solution I found for OTA DVR. It plays so many different file formats including ISO images.

Let me know if you find any other OTA DVR which is better than TVIX.

Channel Master is good, you can also buy them at Walmart. Channel Master CM-7000PAL does not have any port for additional storage so you maximum you can record 30 hours of HD and 140 hours of SD content.

Channel Master announced CM-74000 HD few months ago and few people left the bad reviews about it so I did not pay much attention to it and also it was about $500, they recently dropped the price.

Update: Here is another OTA DVR called Simple.tv It looks good but the only problem is one tuner. Hopefully they will launch new model with multiple tuner soon.

Perfect Solution would be

• Something like Cotton Candy
• DVR with HDHomeRun and NAS support  

tags: ota dvr, ota antenna, ota antenna dvr, tvix ita dvr, channel master ota dvr, channel master dvr, channelmaster ota dvr, channelmaster dvr