Article first published as Product Review: AverMedia HD EzRecorder Plus on Blogcritics.My first experience with AVerMedia was at the Show Stoppers event at the E3 Expo in Los Angeles, earlier this year. Probably best known for their PC game capture devices, the Taiwanese company recently released a capture device for gaming consoles. Often used for capturing the action in games or for walkthroughs, the game capture device, which came with adapters for the three major consoles, received mostly positive reviews. Building on that success, AVerMedia has now released a DVR device, the HD EzRecorder Plus.
AVerMedia's HD EzRecorder Plus is a standalone video capture box which allows users to preserve HD TV shows, or record your own content in 720p or 1080i. As an added feature, the recorder also allows the user to take snapshots with the press of a button. Standalone however does not mean that it is usable straight out of the box. The EZ Recorder Plus does not include storage however, there are a few options. If you flip the box over, there is a door where a standard 2.5 inch SATA hard drive can be installed. The box also has a front USB port where a flash drive or external USB hard drive can be plugged. The device also allows transferring from the installed hard drive to the USB device.
Once you have your storage situation straightened out, you can hook the device up to your system. While not designed for gaming applications, anything with component video outputs can be plugged into the device and recorded. What the HD EzRecorder is designed for, is working as a DVR. The package includes an infrared blaster to control whatever set-top box you own. Though only a couple of devices are preloaded, the EzRecorder will learn your remote well enough to turn on and change the channel on your set top box. The HD EzRecorder Plus offers a cyclic schedule recording function so, it can independently handle the whole video recording task without using a PC. You can of course just use the included remote to record on the fly.
At the max resolution of 720, the HD EzRecorder Plus did an impressive job of capturing video. Leaving the setting at optimal or 15 Mbps will allow recording a little over an hour on an 8GB memory stick or 125 hours on a 1TB hard drive. The still pictures will be captured at the same resolution of 1280 X 720. Dropping down to 480p will nearly double the recording capabilities. Besides the six resolution options of: 1080i, 720p, 480i/p, and 576i/p, the bit rate has two lower settings, as well. With a 1TB hard drive at the lowest resolution and bit rate, users could record 650 hours. If you want your TV shows for your phone, that setting is probably fine.
The pretty straightforward menu makes pulling the files off of the HD EzRecorder fairly easy. The problem most users will have is that the avi file format is incompatible with most other software and devices. The AVerMedia website does contain links to file converters so that the media can be played on mobile devices. The native H.264 compression is also incompatible with Real Producer and Sony Vegas or Vegas Pro and will need to be converted before editing, which is bound to result in some loss. It is also worth noting that as good as the captured video looks, the audio is only captured in stereo.
I must confess that I like the HD EzRecorder Plus more than I thought I would. The box is nice looking and the menu system is straightforward and easy to use. The remote, while basic is better than others I have seen and used too. The biggest problems that I found with the device are a terrible adhesive for the IR blaster and an HDMI input would have been useful. Actually considering the cost and additional equipment necessary, HDMI really should have been included. That being said, the component pass-through works fine. Most users most likely have a DVR in the living room, on the main TV in the house and this would be used on a secondary setup because the STB must be playing whatever it is you want to record. With that in mind, the HD EzRecorder Plus works very well in that type of usage and produces great video and sound quality for smaller TVs and mobile devices.
I see this product is new and I am the 1st reviewer.
I just received the device and hooked it up. One thing to note with the hookup which is annoying. It is component cables and not an hdmi cable. I didn't know this but I had to disconnect the HDMI cable from the cable box in order for the component cables to work. If both are connected then your HDMI cable has priority and the component cables will not work. I did a couple of tests and it worked well with a USB connected hard drive. It does change the channel as requested and is in HD. I do think the HD quality is a tiny bit worse via the component cables vs an HDMI. This may require additional testing though. It is basically a digital VCR. While it records shows like a TIVO or your cable company's DVR it does not have the advanced features of the other 2 (more expensive options). If you are happy in setting the date and time for your recordings manually without being able to do so from your pc or phone then this works fine for you. Also, it saves the file as an AVI. so you can watch it on a laptop if you are traveling.
I have 2 TVs (living room and bedroom) that I watch often. I may get a 3rd (less expensive tv for the 2nd bedroom) for this unit since I fear it may affect my HD broadcasts.
I hope in the next version of this device that they scrap the component cables and add HDMI ports. I would like to see 3 inputs (cable box, video game, laptop, video camera, blue ray) and 1 output (TV).
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FIRST THE GOOD:The picture quality that can been recorded is great. It gives you 3 quality selections.
You can play them back from this box.
It does the job of recording from a set to box, even a Tivo.
I have even recorded those programs that have copy protection on them.
It takes a hard drive. (up to 2 TB) and it has a USB port that can accommodate a pen (flash) drive or a USB hard drive. Either one can be used to record to. (Not both at the same time.)
The AverMedia box can output a IR signal to change the channel of the set top box. (It has a setup that learns from your existing remote.)
NOW THE BAD:
You setup the scheduled recording time MANUALLY and the length of the recordings can only be set in hourly increments.
Only 1 hour or 2 hours or 3 hours etc. There is no way to set it to 1.5 hours or 30 minutes etc.
Because of this you have recordings that are always too long and you have to edit them to make them right.
All recordings are named something like REC-1155130413 which is a Time & date name. There is no way to change or edit this.
USB IS 2.0 SLOW!
You can put in a USB Drive and copy from the internal one you installed to the USB drive, but the file copy progress menu is always displayed on the screen and this prevents you from viewing any TV while it is copying.
I contacted Avermedia about this and the said that there is no way to get rid of the copying display that covers your tv screen
They said it was there to let you know that the copy is going and if it was successful. They could hid the copy dialog screen and pop up a finished message when it was completed but they don't see it that way and wont make the change. They should at least make the display very small and put it in the corner of the screen.
With USB 2.0 this is very slow. I have a very fast SSD drive installed and a fast Flash pen drive installed. (Still slow.)
It has no LAN connection so you can not Move, Copy or Watch the shows from your computer.
I brought this unit to copy programs off my set top box (Tivo) and keep them on my computer to share on my home network.
This box makes it hard to do that.
MY WORKAROUND:
I HAVE COME UP WITH A WORKAROUND FOR THIS PROBLEM:
I use a 1 TB USB drive connected to the USB port.
I don't even put a drive in the internal slot in the box.
I record to the USB drive and I have a USB switch that lets me switch the USB Drive to my computer.
I then can rename and copy the program to my computer. No more copying screens blocking the TV and much faster copying into the computer. You could just unplug the USB drive and move it to your computer for the renaming & copying but my setup is right next to the computer so a switch works well for me.
I guess if you just want to record from a dumb set top box this unit is OK . You will have to remember the file name it creates because it will be hard to select 1 of many to play back later.
If they come up with new firmware I will update this review. Review data 4-13-2013
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Hooked it up, pushed in a external usb hdd, set it up and it worked. Simple to use, great recording quality, pull the external HDD, hook it up to the pc and make blue ray movies! I defintely recommend this for those that want to record television programs to play back or make DVD's with. The only negative is the IR until doesn't stick to the set top box well and covers the window on mine so much that it affects my remote. Oh yeah, the channel option is only 3 numbers long, so if I want to record channel 1301 I have to manually change the channel and start the recording. I suspect there's a firmware update coming, but who knows?Want AVerMedia C283S HD EzRecorder Plus- Record Off Your HD Set-top Box 1080p Discount?
Moving away from DVDs to hard drive to save space. Component video quality is excellent. Would recommend this to my friends.Save 12% Off
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