ALTECH UEC DSD4921RV

Took a while to get to know it – My home TV feed here in remote Western Australia is via VAST, which limits the range of receiver/recorder set top boxes one can choose from. With the Altech 4901, my recording of FTA TV shows got off to a rocky start, with many shows seemingly recorded successfully, but unplayable. Things suddenly got better after several weeks of anguish, and I suspect an OTA update may have come in and fixed a lot of the problems. I still get a few unexplained no-gos, and have a low success rate when recording via hitting the 'record' button on the remote, especially for already-running shows. I have found that the way that works best for me is to record scheduled shows via the EPG, and pressing the 'Record entire series' button displayed on the screen, even when it is a one-off show. There may be better ways of recording such that playback is more successful, but I no longer have the time or energy to explore them.

Other than that, its' ability to record many shows simultaneously is terrific, and its 1.5Tb inbuilt hard drive has the capacity to store a huge amount of content without frequent clean-ups.

As to a wishlist, I wish it used a standard file management system such as NTFS or FAT32, and had the ability to download stored programs to a flash drive or similar for input to a Windows PC or another TV. I have had two previous VAST receiver/recorders that failed, and all stored programs were lost, including recorded content that may never be screened again.

Overall, I am happy with this unit. All such receiver/recorders (and I’ve had Satkings and Humax as well) have their problems, and I simply gave up recording on one big name box, and now use it only as a receiver. This 4901 unit meets nearly all my needs successfully.