Aerial Industries AIHT652

Fairly good if you just want to watch TV but when it comes to recording, forget it. Firstly a shout out to the online seller, Elite Electronics, from whom I bought it. I appreciated their fantastic service in assisting with attempts to resolve the issues and then the refund when no resolution was forth coming. Biggest issue is recording failures. A lot of the time recording was a success but still way too many failures. If I had to make a guess, 20% to 30% failure rate. Most of the failures, the recorded program would show a length of 0 hrs but sometimes several hundred hours. In these cases, fast forward, reverse and skip buttons wouldn't work. One time it failed to record at all. Attempting to rename ended up corrupting the internal database they use for PVR recordings making it look like the recorded file was deleted.

There are many other usability issues such as being able to rename scheduled programs/file names. One has to delete every character from the end just to change a few characters or a word in the middle of the name. Renaming programs scheduled for recording is a very useless function as the new name isn't carried forward to the saved program name. And there are other usability issues.

I tried looking online for updated firmware but only found hints of a possible newer version. However, the online seller's supplier ignored to my queries/requests for an updated version. Instead, the supplier's final reply was "As this is a STB with a recording function, rather than a professional PVR, replacing the unit is unlikely to resolve the multiple issues raised. The current firmware is not able to handle what you are requiring it to do".

I knocked this review down a star for this reply. I wasn't looking for a full blown, professional PVR. I don't need multiple recordings and being able to watch TV all at the same time. Any functions you claim it has or it contains, I expect it to be functionally usable and actually work. And definitely don't claim it has those functions when it doesn't. This is misleading advertising.

A better way would have been to supply updated firmware and even fix bugs and usability issues. But what do you expect with things made in China. Adding a whole heap of functionality that don't really work and then having this type of attitude is pretty typical.