Top positive review
67 people found this helpful
OTA (over the air) DVR Worth Owning
By S Thom on Reviewed in the United States on February 2, 2023
To start with I had been looking for a replacement OTA DVR as the one I owned was no longer supported nor sold. Many of the potential replacement DVR's featured saving and streaming OTA content via an app with support for various platforms or smart TV's. So which one to pick based on the technology available today? I was not trying to be cheap but one of the attractions of the AirTV2 was the 'free' TV guide and no recurring fees. Now this piece of hardware did require an external hard drive to enable the DVR functionality and of course as a network device needed a home network/internet connection. The last required item was a smartphone as the initial setup was accomplished via the Sling app. I learned most of what I needed to know either via the website for the product or YouTube videos which are available from other reviewers. I decided to throw this in; This is an OTA device and I already had an outside TV antenna in place to make this work. It works with Sling so it does streaming content from Sling ..... you can do the research on Sling as they allow you a free account and have paid options available. The end results; PRO: (1) Good picture quality (2) DVR functions well and is easy to use (3) I have both a Roku & Amazon Fire TV and the app works well on both (4) Size of the unit as it has a small footprint (5) Decent guide (6) The two TV tuners pull in lot's of stations in my area CON: (1) small issue but the power transformer is large and the plug is proprietary so don't break it! (2) The setup was done via my smartphone Android Sling App. Not a terrible process but you do need to pay attention. That being said I found a YouTube setup/review online which I watched first. Is it really a CON? If you are not a little bit tech savvy it might be. (You of course need to at least sign up for the free Sling account to make it work) (3) There really isn't any instruction for using the device. I downloaded the Sling App for Roku on my smart TV and just made the plunge. It's then a matter of trying to figure out navigation in the App itself and figuring out how to record or playback from the DVR functionality. It took me about two days to get a comfortable feeling using the device. Sling does provide some free streaming content and I soon learned I needed to mark my OTA channels as "Favorites". Otherwise the OTA channels became hard to sort out from the streaming content in the guide. (4) To watch OTA channels there is a 4-6 second delay if you change channels. (channel surf) My Summary; Yes, I would purchase this again. Once I got my comfort level selecting various options and making a few OTA recordings it really works smoothly. I don't use it to watch OTA television as the televisions I own have their own tuner and guide so changing channels is much smoother using them directly. If I know I want to record on the DVR I switch to the Sling App on the TV or smartphone, setup the recording schedule, and return to my TV for any regular channel surfing. It does exactly as I want by recording things I would otherwise miss and playback is smooth, clear and just looks good. With that in mind it makes a great OTA DVR.
Top critical review
10 people found this helpful
Not what I was hoping for!
By Goldndoodle on Reviewed in the United States on January 10, 2025
I have been a long time user of HD Homerun and Channels Whole House DVR - I have a lot of experience using an over the air antenna hooked up to my WiFi to broadcast TV signals to every Roku and AppleTV in my house. Over the years I’ve gotten tired of switching between apps for premium content, then to Channels app to watch network shows. In an attempt to combine everything into one app, I signed up for Sling Blue because I read that the AirTV would put my locals from my OTA into the Sling guide, and allow me to record OTA series into the same app. Sounded great - just what I was looking for! Unfortunately, reality did not meet expectations! In order to get the AirTV 2 to record, you need to attach an external hard drive to it. Depending on which external drive you select, you’re talking anywhere from $30 - $100 dollars on top of the price of the AirTV 2. Not too bad, but needs to be considered. I connected the AirTV to my OTA, my WiFi (an Eero 6E router) and the hard drive. You can only set it up with Sling via a mobile device connected to WiFi. Setup was glitchy through out. The AirTV would lose the connection to my iPad during the setup, randomly shut down several times, but finally connected and scanned for local channels after about 30 minutes of frustration. Once connected the good parts were few - the channel logos on the guide looked nice! That’s it! That’s when the real frustration started! The frustrations - Some shows being recorded from the OTA lacked icons. Some shows could not be setup for a “Series” record - they would have to be done manually every time they aired. And I’m not talking about some local produced weekly show, I’m talking about NATIONAL shows - SNL, This Week, Celebrity Jeopardy, etc. Any show that would allow a “series” recording would only do so with the “Record new and reruns” option. It would error out whenever I tried to set it to “Only record new episodes”. The resolution for the live shows was HORRIBLE! Blocky, smearing - just miserable. Made my 4K OLED look like it was playing 1970’s low def rabbit ear antenna broadcasts. Just to confirm, I dropped out of Sling and checked the same shows on Channels - looked like they were in 4K off of Channels. Live shows were buffering so much, it was nearly impossible to watch. It was literally buffering every 2 to 3 minutes for LONG times. Again, checked Channels - no buffering. I figured a recorded show would not have issues with buffering - I WAS WRONG! The recordings looked just as bad, and were buffering just as much. I next thought maybe it was the WiFi connection limitations - connected the AirTV to the nearest Eero station via Cat5e cable - still horrible resolution and buffering like wild. Checked online for solutions to fix either issue - the only thing I found was to unplug the AirTV for 10 seconds, plug it back in, hard reset the app, wait 5 minutes, start the app again. Did that - no improvements. I contacted the Tech Support line for the maker of the AirTVs - their solutions for everything was to tell me my antenna, WiFi or Internet providers were probably to blame. When I explained that I had experience with, and still using an HD Homerun w/ Channels, and there were none of the issues with the Antenna, WiFi, Internet providers on that device like I was having with the AirTV - they basically told me they couldn’t believe it. In the end, Tech Support could not provide a solution to fix the issues. So everything got removed, and returned to Amazon. Sling subscription cancelled! Back to the drawing board!
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