Best OTA DVRs for Cord Cutters: (Review)

the best OTA DVRs for cord cutters are the fire TV recast and a couple different models by HD homerun and tableau you can find DVRs designed to record free over-the-air channels first cheapest 35 bucks on Amazon and elsewhere but if you want to watch local stations such as NBC ABC CBS and Fox on a Roku or an Apple TV amazon firetv or your smartphone these picks are the best in this video I'm gonna show you what makes these DVRs stand out and why they are the most cost-effective for putting together an alternative to cable TV or satellite this video is drawn from a brand new review that you can find on my website cord-cutting report comm you can find a link to that review in the description below or sign up for my monthly newsletter that covers tech and streaming if this video helps you and you're gonna buy one of these DVRs please consider using the links below I'll receive a small commission at no cost to you and it will help me keep making more reviews and more videos like this one one more thing before we start the DVR is made by silicon dust and Tablo came into the site free of charge for this review everything you're about to see and hear is based on my own hands-on testing and at the end of this video I'll give you some tips on how to figure out how you can use some low-cost streaming options to watch and record channels such as a me ESPN Hallmark Channel so why am I not picking just one brand or model after spending the last few years using a variety of different DVRs while putting together reviews for my website became clear to me that there's no runaway winner and how you plan on using your DVR should absolutely steer your choice so if you're using a fire TV cube to watch most your television then buying a fire TV recast makes the most sense if you're a Roku or Apple TV owner then you'll want to buy an HD homerun or Tablo if you're not into streaming devices and just use apps on a Smart TV then you'll probably want a tableau or HD homerun all of these DVRs have a you things in common that you should know about your connecting the TV antenna to the DVR not your television once you have one of these DVR set up multiple TVs in your household can tap into it for live television or recorded programs each TV will just need a way to access the DVRs app an inexpensive Roku or fire stick will do the job and if you're into projectors like I am you can even tap into live over-the-air channels or recordings from your OTA DVR here's another thing these style of DVRs also let you watch live TV and recordings on devices across your home network so you can use a smartphone PC tablet and watch live TV in your backyard kitchen basement or garage wherever you don't have a TV handy now becomes a spot where you can watch live TV that's pretty nice and it's a feature that I've come to use even more often than recording shows you do need to have these DVRs connected to the Internet for them to work the way they're supposed to on your television let's dive into my picks I'm gonna go in alphabetical order here I'm not ranking these DVRs because like I said it's all gonna depend on what kind of setup you want to have the fire TV recast is the first high-end OTA DVR that doesn't charge a monthly fee for guide data for the price conscious chord cutter that alone can be a big selling point the recast works with fire TV devices fire tablets Android and iOS smartphones if you own a Roku or Apple TV you need to keep shopping the recast currently does the best job among its competitors at integrating over the air channels like your local ABC NBC or CBS stations with free and low-cost streaming services if you wanted free antenna channels and nothing else you could use the recast with a fire stick or fire TV cube and never pay a dime for TV again the recast lets you record whatever you want comes in two models the two tuner model lets you watch or record up to two programs at once and has a 500 gigabyte hard drive seventy-five hours of recording it's priced at about two hundred and twenty nine dollars two hundred and thirty dollars but Amazon regularly puts the recast on sale throughout the year the Fortuner model has a one terabyte hard drive which is over 150 hours of recording space it usually retails for about 280 bucks you don't need to have the recast set up a near your TV or a Wi-Fi router to work you'll need to download the fire TV app to your smartphone or tablet for setting up the recast during the setup process the app will tell you the best direction to set up your antenna and recast the recast records channels in native format so if your local NBC station broadcasts a signal in 1080i then that's the format that it's recorded in same goes for local Fox station that broadcasts in 720p DVR enthusiasts will tell you that the recast transcodes its recordings quote on the fly in 720p at 60 frames per second but for the average user you're not going to notice the difference too much the picture resolution is still going to be clearer and bright and it's better than what's served up on a cable TV provider why because over the air digital signals are uncompressed but what's really impressive about the recast is how much you can customize and build upon your channel on up Cluedo TV is an ad-supported platform that now carries more than 200 live channels that appear alongside your antenna channels there's a surprising amount of washable movies and TV shows news and some unique live concerts there are some inexpensive live TV streaming services such as Philo that can be added to the channel guide so you could have 58 channels that you used to get on cable such as A&E and HGTV hallmark channel's alongside the local NBC and PBS stations coming in from your antenna you don't need an Amazon Prime subscription to use the fire TV recast but if you do have Amazon Prime you can add live streams of HBO cinemax and then a number of others were subscribing to Amazon so if you're getting decent antenna reception like me say 50-plus channels you can add live HBO Cinemax Showtime stars to your over-the-air channel lineup I signed up for HBO which added a number of live HBO channels to my channel guide HBO appears right alongside my live over the year channels and free channels from Pluto I can also use my HBO subscription to activate the HBO now app after testing out a couple of different fire TV models there's no doubt that the fire TV cube is the better one to use with the recast instead of the Amazon fire stick why because you can use voice commands to tune into local over-the-air channels in fact recast has a number of voice commands that set it apart from a competition there is one feature I wish was better you can start recording a show using the fire TV app but there's no good way to use the app to record programs days in advance that's too bad but it's not a huge deal so the fire TV recast gives you a lot of value it incorporates over-the-air channels and certain streaming services into a single menu and there's no monthly fee for a channel guide silicon dust has been making HD homerun tuners for more than a decade they are latest model ascribe DVR is a first for silicon dust because the scribe has an internal hard drive the scribe comes in two models the scribe duo has two TV tuners so you can record up to two programs at once described Quattro which is what I tested let you record and watch up to four programs at once the Quattro has a one terabyte hard drive it's a pretty small device and records an mpeg-2 format HD homerun record shows in the full format of the broadcast so that means up to 1080i or 720p the picture is really crisp it's as good as plugging your antenna directly into a TV the HD homerun app has a side bar style channel guide that company calls slice view if you're all about the old-school cable TV grid you might not like this but I actually favored this over the traditional cable light guide especially when I'm washing live TV on my phone and I want to quickly jump to another channel HD homerun sports 5.1 Dolby surround sound and closed captioning you can use the scribe without a guide subscription and get 24 hours data to schedule recordings but an annual subscription to silicon dust DVR service is only $35 a year so that works out to less than $3 a month compared to some other options out there silicon dust is definitely the cheapest way get a 14-day channel guide and the DVR works well under the discover tab you'll find thumbnail images of what's playing now and upcoming shows movies and sports there's a nice search function and you can set up recordings using the HD homerun app which is really convenient the scribe Quatro retails for about 250 bucks and the scribe duo sells for about a hundred and fifty at best body silicon dust has been including one year of its DVR service and free on them so it's really a good deal HD homerun tuners need to be hardwired to your Wi-Fi router it doesn't connect over Wi-Fi so you're gonna have to have the tuner next year router HD homerun also released its first piece of added storage called Serbia Serbia can be connected to either the scribe or an older HD one run tuner a servo has its own power cord in Ethernet port which connects to the router and this is really an ideal device for people who already own an HD tuner and want to add some storage space speaking of which even if you were a little tech savvy and you don't want to spend as much as the HD homerun scribe silicon dust has some other options that are really great you can get an HD homerun connect duo for about 75 bucks if you're an Apple TV user the combo you'll want to try out is an HD homerun connect duo or Quattro one of the things that sets HD homerun tuners apart from their competitors is their widespread support of both third-party software and hardware devices understand this is just a TV tuner so unlike the scribe you'll need to use an external hard drive for recordings but you are getting the same exact picture quality as the scribe HD homerun tuners are unique because they're compatible with a number of different software platforms so if you didn't like the HD homerun app or DVR service you have a number of options with tuners including plex the channels have Miss TV and a number of others but I'm gonna focus on just one of them Plex has an excellent live TV and DVR option which costs five dollars a month Plex does cost a little more than the silicon dusty B our service but subscribing to what's known as Plex Pass does get you some added features the service has been experimenting with removing commercials from accordance and you can bring in a lot of your other media into all one menu so for example I've been burning my personal movie collection onto an external hard drive and I have an extra laptop set up as a server by using Plex I can have copies of my movies at my fingertips and live TV from my over-the-air channels in a single interface podcasts local news streams web shows if you subscribe to title you can incorporate that into your Plex account as well a free ad-supported movie vault is being added to Plex and just to be clear some of these features that I'm mentioning here do not require a Plex pan subscription but if you want the 14-day live TV and DVR guide service with plex you'll need to subscribe to plex pass I have a couple of how-to guides on my site that I'll link to below if you're interested in going down this road oh and the other thing with plex you can even use some extra harddrive space from your computer for recording programs if you don't have an external hard drive handy the tableaux quad has an easy-to-use channel interface that will look familiar to anyone who once had a cable TV or satellite subscription the quad lets you watch up to four programs at once and retails for about $200 what I like most about the tableaux quad is how easily you can find TV shows or a football game to record I get a little over 50 channels with my antenna tableaus granular approach to aggregating shows movies and sports really makes you get the most out of your antenna as soon as you fire up the app you'll see a blue sidebar on the left everything is pretty self-explanatory live TV brings you a grid style menu showing you what's on and what's coming up there are four categories to help you track down programs and sporting events to record there is primetime TV shows movies and sports primetime is everything that airs between 8:00 and 11:00 p.m. you'll find everything from American masters on PBS the blacklist on NBC the alt-tab has shows from all channels in alphabetical order the search tab gives you the option to type in a title channels is a pretty neat way to see all your shows and sporting events channel by channel jump down to TV shows and you have even more to dig into you can scroll through shows under the all tab type something in search you can narrow down your menu - what's premiering or see what's up for grabs channel by channel according to my tableau I have over 800 shows to record from that's a lot to watch the sports section operates the same way look under all search or channels no matter what category you're under you can use the alphabetized index on the side to quickly jump through the menu to find something to record when you're watching live TV and you'll want to see what else is on just hit the arrow button on your remote control the quick guide overlay pops up to your left so you can channel surf and keep watching what you have on the mobile app for tableau is really excellent the picture quality is crisp I haven't run into any lag or hang-ups while watching live TV and the app is also really convenient way to schedule recordings keep in mind I'm getting them a little over 50 channels with my antenna so I have a pretty robust selection of program setting up a tableau is really simple plug in the power connect the hard drive download the tableau app to a smart phone or tablet the app will guide you through scanning four channels and selecting which ones you actually want to show up on your menu and that's pretty much it a tableau doesn't need to be near a television or Wi-Fi router in order to work but you will need to add your own hard drive you have the option of either plugging one into the USB port in the back or installing a two and a half inch drive inside the tableau quad either way you can use up to an eight terabyte hard drive and if you decide to use a two and a half inch internal drive it's about the size of a typical laptop hard drive tableau has its own DVR service which costs five dollars a month or you can buy an annual subscription of fifty dollars a year or a lifetime subscription at $150 if you do buy a lifetime subscription and can be transferred to a lure tableau device if you upgrade your hardware in future you can record shows without the DVR subscription but you will only get 24 hours of the channel guy and you won't have some of the aggregated categories that I just showed you the picture resolution is really nice similar to the fire TV recast tableau transcodes it's recording some on-the-fly 720p at 60 frames per second but that does include channels that are broadcast in 1080i so if you're a hardcore video file or watch fast paced sports on a TV screen that's 65 inches or bigger it may be a note full difference to you compared to an antenna being directly connected to your TV but playback at 720p at 60 frames per second is generally good enough for most things it's still high-definition resolution it's just not as crisp as some of the channels are when an antenna is directly plugged into the TV Tablo DVRs work with pretty much any streaming device roku amazon firetv Apple TV Nvidia shield Xiaomi me box Xbox one and chromecast Tablo says it's TV are compatible with most LG Smart TVs Samsung Smart TVs Smart TVs using Android TV software and even Amazon fire TV edition Smart TVs the company recommends using Western Digital elements drives and Seagate expansion drives for recordings but says most other brands are compatible if the $200 price tag for the quad is more than you want to spend the Tablo dual light can be had for less than $100 and it has all the same features as the quads such as commercial-scale the only difference is that you can watch and record only up to two programs that wants to set up for the dual light was the first Tablo product that I've used and I ended up using it with just a spare hard drive I had around the house to keep my pasta it worked great and demonstrates that you don't have to spend a lot of money to start reporting free live TV for mere 10 so even if you picked up an HD homerun effect you all four for about 80 bucks connected it to a hard drive and bought the silicon dust DVR subscription for $35 a year that's pretty cheap and you'll definitely be able to use your setup to watch TV on phones and tablets around the house if you needed coverage from multiple TVs then you're gonna want a for tuner unit whether it's Tablo or an HD homerun that'll cost you a bit more money but still it's going to be much much cheaper than a cable TV or satellite description most of what we're talking about here is a one-time cost for equipment so let me give you some cord cutting 101 there's a lot of noise out there right now that cutting the cord or going with just streaming is gonna cost you a lot and maybe even more than cable all of this stuff is a bunch of junk I know because I cut the cord years ago and I'm still paying pretty much the same it just requires a little bit of research a little bit of moderation but I'm gonna give you a couple of quick tips that you can use if you decide to start using a DVR if you can use an antenna to get local stations such as NBC ABC CBS and Fox there are a couple of low-cost ways you can still get channels such as an e or ESPN on cheap for sports fans sling TV costs as little as $25 a month the orange plan has ESPN and about thirty four of the channels and you'll have to pay an extra five dollars more than 450 hours of cloudy ERF you want to record things there's also slim blue which has a slightly larger bundle of channels that doesn't include ESPN some people get the sling orange and blue plant together which would cost you $40 a month but the whole idea behind sling TV is that you can pick a plan there's even some smaller channel bundles that cost as little as $5 a month and you can sort of customize your channel lineup a little bit more if you're not into sports Philo offers one of the best deals in streaming for $20 a month you can get 58 channels such as Amy history HGTV paramount Network and a couple of hallmark channel's there's some limited cloud DVR and a massive on-demand library Philo's the service I've been subscribing to since December of 2017 and by the way it's one of those streaming services that's corporated into your channel guide if you're using a fire TV recast I'll leave links to both slim TV and Philo below if you want to check out those services so what do you think is the best DVR for cord cutters right now tell me what you think in the comments below if this video was helpful please consider giving it a like and subscribing to the channel and if you're gonna buy an OTA DVR like the ones featured here I'd appreciate it if you use the links below as a way to support the channel to read more details about OTA DVRs the best antennas and other hands-on reviews head over to my website cord-cutting report comm thanks a lot and see you next time

Channel: Cord Cutting Report

Views: 388,149

Keywords: ota dvr, best dvrs, ota dvr review, best dvr for antenna tv, best dvr for cord cutters, cord cutting, tablo quad, hdhomerun, fire tv recast, tablo dual lite, roku, apple tv, plex, plex server, getting rid of cable tv, cord cutters news, tablo quad ota dvr for cord cutters, sling tv, over the air, tv, ota on roku, ota on firestick, ota on apple tv

Id: 5Po2pyVj3CM

Length: 22min 0sec (1320 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 06 2019