Brite View BV980H Digital Antenna HD DVR Review- How Good is the Brite View Digital Antenna HD DVR?
The Brite View BV980H Digital Antenna HD DVR is one of the many antenna DVRs on the market today that you can use to record HD programming and over the air digital TV. I did some digging and found out some good information on the Brightview HD DVR in here is some of what I found.
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First of all I’m going to list the features and specifications the you know what the unit comes with and what it’s capable of.
- The Brightview DVR is designed specifically for recording digital TV, which makes it technically a digital TV DVR. It has a 320 GB hard drive built-in.
- The Brite View is capable of recording over 450 hours of standard definition content or if you want to use high-definition content they can only record up to 39 hours, which almost sounds like not a lot of time but if you put it in perspective it’s actually pretty ridiculous that we would need to watch that much TV!
- It comes with a proprietary electronic program guide and it does contain closed caption support etc.
- it has ATSC and QAM digital TV reception like most other antenna DVR’s.
- The manufacturer claims it has a very simple to use interface which may be true however a few users reviews that I found as you will see later testified to the contrary.
- It is easy to upgrade the firmware via a USB update.
Click Here to See The Brite View On Sale
Is This DVR Worth It?
This DVR for antenna is built with high quality standards and feels like it is a good product. Unfortunately the user manual is not very useful (no big surprise there) but I was able to get the new version from their website (by the way the user manual is available in this website). The remote control was not the best part of this high-definition PVR, but it’s not really that bad I’ve seen much worse.
I have the great things about the Channel Master CM-7000PAL Digital Video Recorder, but I have not had a chance to try it out myself. I will get to that at some other time. I know that the Brightview unit is a little less expensive than the Channel Master and it’s also less expensive than the Magnavox MDR515H 500GB HDD and DVD-R with Digital Tuner, as far as I know.
The video quality is very good and for the price point I really can’t complain. I am using a DVI Gear HDMI Cable, which is very inexpensive and performs very well. I am using the ICA AMT 1650 with this product and the reception is great. The user interface is not my favorite part of this product in my opinion it takes way too many steps just to play the recordings under the file management tab. For the price and usability I think this is a decent product it’s not the greatest most fancy or technically astonishing HD television receiver I have ever seen, and it may not be the best HD DVR, but it is a high-quality digital TV recorder with a decent interface that is not extremely expensive.
Now let’s explore a possibly more negative approach to reviewing this product. I did a compilation of some negative reviews I found online and here’s the results of my compilation:
Possible Issues?
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This DVR digital TV receiver is a great idea, unfortunately in the implementation it seems like a manufacturer may have faltered slightly. The user interface is not what I would really like to see in and OTA DVR, but I suppose user interfaces are something that we could go on and on about and I’m not sure any manufacturer can make the perfect user interface if they could they would rule the market! Speaking of interfaces although it’s not exactly the same kind of product I really enjoyed the interface of the ROKU 2100X XDS Streaming Player, just in case you were curious.
Be sure to check elsewhere in this informative website and read the detailed Zinwell ZAT-970A Digital to Analog TV Converter Box Review, which can also help give you some insight into another possible idea for you to purchase for your home system.
This particular unit is not my favorite that I’ve ever seen but it’s not awful. The one saving grace of the Brightview BV 980H Digital antenna HD DVR is that it has really high quality video and make beautiful recordings. Although I am not the biggest fan of this units interface I cannot say that it’s quality is not good. This is a decent digital television recorder at a decent price point but in my opinion I would rather spend a little more money for a better interface!
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Comments on Brite View BV980H Digital Antenna HD DVR Review- How Good is the Brite View Digital Antenna HD DVR?
I was surprised how good the tuner was at picking up weak signals.
It is better than the HomeRun ATSC tuner i have on the same antenna.
It can run off 12V, good for my RV.
It is a PAIN in the #$% to use.
Yeah for the price it is a really strong tuner. This brite view has been selling a lot lately. It is actually starting to overtake some of the more popular models. I forgot to mention that it’s tuner is really good in this review.. good point, man, thanks for the reminder!