Review on ViewTV AT 263 Converter Recording Composite by Ryan Brunson

I've been using it for a week. I couldn't be happier. For $35 plus a cheap USB stick, I have a fully functional digital video recorder. As a bonus, this unit's tuner picks up more channels than my TV. I bought it unlike all other Revain counterparts because it can be configured to feed an antenna signal through the unit. So you don't need an antenna splitter or additional coaxial cable to watch TV on one channel and record on another. It took me about 10 minutes to set it up and start recording. The device was more or less fully configured to work with my TV out of the box. Connect the antenna coax to the input. Connected the HDMI output to the TV. A USB drive connected. And I ran a coax cable from the tuner output to the TV input and then used the setup menu to transmit the antenna signal to the TV. I have noticed the following deficiencies, all of which I consider minor. As others have pointed out, you need to point the remote at the box for it to work. Some keystrokes are not intuitive. Sometimes when I press the wrong button I can't recover and the quickest fix is to turn it off and on again. And, unique to my setup, there is crosstalk between the remote for this unit and the remote for our soundbar. And you have to manually rewind ads. (On the other hand, the FF function accelerates to 32x the normal speed, which is very fast.) I solved all this by a) pointing the remote at the box and b) learning how to use the right keys right presses time. Here's the backstory. I wanted to record a program that will be broadcast daily. I thought how difficult can it be? I checked out Tivo and found that a) you have to pay a fairly high monthly fee and b) it's a Big Brother device that reports your TV viewing back to Tivo Central. Forget it. I then checked out a few custom built DVRs that are still available but they all seem to be in the $400 range. It seemed like a lot of money for a fairly simple task. And then there were a whole bunch of these devices - digital tuners with enough functionality to record broadcasts. Anywhere between $20-$40, but you'll have to add your own drive. With very mixed reviews. I thought it was worth the risk. And it seems to have paid off for me. Mine works great for the task I bought it for. If you want to record something at a specific time, the setup menu is as simple as it gets. Give it a channel, a start time, a stop time and it records it every day. As long as the device has power, it will automatically turn on to record. It uploads a file to a USB stick that shows the channel, date and time. To play it, click on the file name. At this point it works like any other recording device. As long as the device has power, it will automatically turn on to record. It uploads a file to a USB stick that shows the channel, date and time. To play it, click on the file name. At this point it works like any other recording device. As long as the device has power, it will automatically turn on to record. It uploads a file to a USB stick that shows the channel, date and time. To play it, click on the file name. At this point it works like any other recording device. It uploads a file to a USB stick that shows the channel, date and time. To play it, click on the file name. At this point it works like any other recording device. It uploads a file to a USB stick that shows the channel, date and time. To play it, click on the file name. At this point it works like any other recording device.