Teac HDB850

HDB850 TEAC STB – i notice a lot of people complaining about this unit - I bought mine second hand from a Trash n Treasure market for 15 bucks - set it up, scanned channels - perfect. I admit it's an entry-level unit & the user interface is very dated but it does what its supposed to do - I have recorded onto USB Stick, External HD & the recorded images/movies etc.… Read more

were as clear as the original. Not sure why people are so angry - I did notice a lot of people saying they were having trouble with channels dropping out & not picking up all channels but i haven't had one problem. The remote does what its supposed to do - the ONLY issue I've had is occasionally the unit will interfere with my PS3 via similar remote frequencies but that's not a deal-killer as far as I'm concerned. For $15 I can't complain.

*Several people are having problems with scanning TV channels - I'm not being a smart butt but the TEAC needs to be plugged in series via a coaxial lead from your TV's wall socket then a 2nd coaxial cable from the TEAC to your TV. I suspect that some people assume that the unit will operate simply with the HDMI lead but this is not the case.

Day 1, total disatisfaction – I live out bush, so no convenient retailers to visit. purchased 3 online as temporary measure after 2x HD-DVD recorders died of old age and over use, decided on Teac being a known "NAME BRAND" not an unknown cheap Chinese import, 2 to use, 1 as spare. Everything was working perfectly on my old stand-bye spare "Grundig" STB. So hooked up Teac… Read more

STB, output signal on rca connections atrocious on all 3 units. eventually got stable signal but colours were over saturated almost beyond adjustment capabilities of my Samsung TV. menu and display options are almost identical to my old "Grundig" so I suspect same chip set. (but it was more stable and reliable)

So I tried tuning, all 3 units refuse to find ten network, no signal on I think it was 557.5mhz ch32. old STB says 80-100% signal quality.

Tried reset to factory default. still refuses to tune in 10 network.

So now I'm looking for software updates and waiting for reply from online retailer to decide on my next action.

but for 100% failure rate on the first day, just to tune in my second strongest signal, well it is not an impressive start, and for all 3 to be the same, well they are consistent. so far, I regret my choice, but what other known brand are available on line? not many

Exiting Radio – This is a nice littlIe set top box. I bought 2 of them as I liked them. The box was simple to setup. I just pressed auto setup and it did the whole thing the switched on the first chanell when it had finished. I did one in my town hose and then bought another for my country house. The country stations were just as easy and very clear. I have had a… Read more ·  1

few set top boxes and I like this one. The service is good. I couldn't find anything in the manual about the radio and while playing around I switched on the radio stations. I couldn't get out of them and back to TV so I rang the service enquiry number. There was no wait. I got straight through to the recording which asked me to leave my contact number. They came back to me within the hour and said, "To access radio press OK then press the LEFT VOLUME button. To exit radio press EXIT twice. Very happy.

Jim E. simplicity and style. Also inexpensive. Info about radio was not in the manual but they were quick to come back with the info.

Good device - especially if you know how to install software updates – Australian TV stations are notorious for changing their 'codecs' (signal formats) without warning anybody. That means your TV will stop picking up stations it used to or else won't pick up the new ones at all. A classic example are all the SBS stations which vanished a few days ago. But it's easy to get round that by storing the new formats on the… Read more

HDB850 set-top box. Just download the zip file from TEAC, store on pen drive, extract the file and plug into your set top box. Although you get a 'file not found' message, it really is there and you get back all your TV stations. Quite a handy feature. Certainly saves you going out and buying a new TV.

SATISFIED USER – I have just purchased the HDB860 TEAC STB. At delivery it had the problems previously reported. When recording from the EPG the picture would disappear from the TV set and also every time the STB was powered off the USB would no longer be detected and would not be detected again until it was disconnected and then reconnected. I reported this to… Read more ·  1

TEAC support and they sent me a software upgrade. This took only about 5 mins from download to installation and it has fixed both problems. The only reason I did not give this product 5 stars is because I feel that TEAC should not have released this product without fully testing it.

STAY AWAY!!!!! – Was rubbish from the first day I bought it. Will not even play a complete movie from the USB. Cuts out about 1.5 hrs in EVERY TIME!!! HATE IT!! The remote is flimsy and not user friendly. don't waste your money on this item as you will be bitterly disappointed.  Show details

Terrible – Unit cannot be used as remote buttons are not working!!!!!!! Why these units are still for sale? Why seller did not test at least one unit before starting selling them ...???? What a waste of time and money!!! All sellers on eBay who are still selling these units should be marked as dangerous ...  Show details

All remotes run on the same frequency – All the remotes run on the same frequency so you can not use two or more at the same time as each other and if anyone who live around you has the same set top box you can change each others channel or turn the set top box on or off  Show details

Ok so far – Easy for me (78) to set up but I can't get the sub titles to work. Can't connect with HDMI cable is this because I have an older tv, I also found the power cable was way too short so I used my old set top box cable, worked well  Show details

A bit of a joke – I purchased this set top box and after a bit more than one year some of the buttons on the remote stopped working. The set top box works fine but cannot be operated without the remote. I called TEAC and was told a new remote costs $44.00. A bit of a joke .... when the complete set top box costs $47.00 at JB HI FI.  Show details

Disappointing – Even for a relatively inexpensive STB I would expect more. The record button is not labelled on the remote and despite having the unit for 6 months I can still not find a way to push the record button and then enter a duration, eg 2 hrs. I have to remember to switch it off in the morning! When replaying a recorded program there is no progress… Read more

bar, showing the current position and the total recording duration - very inconvenient.

It's also poor a picking up the TV signal - reception is not good where I am but my Soniq tv always gets a single whereas the TEAC unit quite often doesn't.

Various other glitches as well.

Good but not phenomenal...basic entry level that gets the job done – Moving over from South Africa we needed something that would help our Samsung TV pick up the local welfare channels. This device has done the trick. Took a while to figure out that it is very sensitive to electronic interference so cannot sit on top of our bluray player otherwise channels jump and it is hit and miss as to what you can pick up. Otherwise it does the job. Really happy and way cheaper than buying a new TV unit!  Show details

Not Satisfied – I purchased this unit June 2017 Problem with standby recording. Will record currently viewed program but will not record on standby. I am assured that I am setting up according to instruction. The unit is satisfactory in other respects but not simple to operate. I need help to correct this problem.  Show details

Perfect if you have time to waste! – Purchased unit just after the mpeg channels went to air, and although I can now hear those channels, I have to constantly do a channel search to ensure ALL channels are available. The EPG is always out of date (a day forward, at least) but when correct, it only displays what's on and what's next.  Show details

TEAC HDB850 OK – I purchased 2 of these HDB850 set top boxes because the high def standard has changed and 2 of my older LCD TV's didn't like the mpeg4 format. I like these set top boxes because one TV has component input and the other has HDMI and these boxes cater for both, plus composite. Easy to set up. My only grumble is the amount of time it takes to change channels, about 2 to 3 seconds.  Show details

Very disappointing – The Auto setup organised the channels as it found them, not by the channel number. Eg: CH16 was 9 GO, CH24 was SBS HD, CH30 was ABC ME, Terrible. Then the info switches itself off within seconds, I'm pretty good at reading but couldn't read half before it was gone. EPG is only for the channel you are viewing. Video is delayed from audio. The… Read more

display looks like from the year 2001. My old set top box from 2004 was similar in price but more advanced than this piece of rubbish.

Had this for 48hrs, swapped it at the store for something twice the price but so much better, thanks Harvey Norman for allowing the swap.

Cheap and nasty- absolute crap – We have an analogue big screen TV, and needed a suitable tuner. This STB has good quality on HD, sharp and vibrant. Problems: EPG crap, when scrolling thru channels, it shows 3-4 days from now and it's messy getting to today; recording- a booked TV show only records 16 minutes; pausing timeshift (live TV) only lasts 16 minutes and then it resumes… Read more

real-time, not good if I'm watching sport and have to pause for a bit. Uploaded the updates, no change. USB- tried formats FAT32 and NTFS, swapped formats several times, no joy. Tried 4 x USB, all the same. What a piece of junk. As a tuner, it's great, except for the EPG showing 3 days ahead. For recording, it doesn't work.

Don't waste your money – Have owned 3 of these now, every single one of them has been a lemon. I admit one of them was purchased off ebay, so i took it as it may have been just a dodgy seller, bit the other two were purchased from the good guys and they were all useless. They all worked ok gor about two months then began playing up. All the remotes stopped working, the… Read more

display on the front of one of the units became unreadable, please don't waste your time or money... very frustrating!!

My cheap Chinese brand was better than this known one. Chinese one was half the price too – Constantly having to reprogram to find all the channels. And had to go back to using old school bunny ears because the antennae is woeful. I live 5 km from the CBD. There should be no excuse. This product was twice the price of my old unit which performed light years ahead of this brand. Not a happy customer.  Show details

Some good points, some bad – The good - it records on a format that I can watch and convert on PC software to save as DVD or watch on a TV. Good menu, good display, easy to program a recording. Easy to play back recordings, can pause and switch to TV and back without restarting playback. Good price. The bad. Like some others here, it sometimes loses all channels sometimes… Read more

all 9, or 7 or ABC, or sometimes just 1 or 2 channels.and must retune.A few times it has frozen and will not power down, have to unplug it to restart.

I bought another unit from chain store and it would not recognise the USB stick, so reset factory defaults and no luck. TEAC said download updates but no luck so back to store and they swapped for a new one. Again, USB was not recognised.

Quite happy – Had problems from day one with recording schedule. Schedule would disappear after a few hours although it recorded well enough when it did do. I downloaded the latest firmware update from Teac website and then reset to factory default. It now works perfectly. Remote was a bit fiddly compared to others but soon got used to it.I usually record to a… Read more

16GB flashdrive but have had it recording to a 500GB drive with no problems. Recording quality is good but a pity that there is no resume facility.

set-top box – It doesn't always replay what it recorded, or replays only a bit. It doesn't always replay a .mts file recorded by my earlier set-top box even though it produces .mts files too. It records well and voice and picture are in sync during replay. TEAC tech support are very helpful.

Only one problem otherwise perfect – Same prob... all chanel 9 channels disapear one week then all chanel 7 the next. Retuning and resetting the record list is tedious and anoying. Ap0art from that one issue i love this product. It records and plays everthing i have ever needed it to . The guide and schedual are easy to use and i have had the box for 3 years now and the chanel… Read more

dropout only started about a year ago so i persevere with the problems. There are no other issues that i have had.

It does well what it was designed to do – Although there does seem to be a problem with recording, I bought the HDB 850 primarily because I was having real problems of reception with my old Marconi SD STB (cable system) connected to my TEAC TV. The substitution of the HDB 850, together with the installation of a HD antenna on my roof has resolved all these problems: no more freezing of… Read more

pictures, and much stronger audio and visual signals- I have to turn down by as much as 50 % the sound and colour controls. Clearly the TEAC HBD 850 was designed to work with a TEAC TV and high quality external antenna.

Channels disappear. Need to keep reprogramming – First 2 weeks was good, then all channel 9's channels disappeared. Had to retune them in. A week later all of channel 10's disappeared. Again had to retune all the channels. Recorded one movie ok. Reads movie files fron external hdd ok. A shame this unit experiences these issues. Needed this unit to get mpeg4 on new tv channels.

Works fine – Had a slight hitch finding the best place to input our ancient plasma TV, but now works fine and colour is great. Some reviews i read didn't rate the unit very well, but I can only rate it as I find it. The Teac HDB850 set top box may be slightly slower to change channels, but heck what is a couple of extra seconds, it could well be an add that it trimmed down.

TEAC by name, Rubbish by brand – I have bought two Teac set top box model HDB850 last week. DONT waste your money, both of my Teac set top box will only record for 15 minutes, I contacted Teac tech' support and they said it might be my my USB stick but I have tried 4 known brands 2 x 16GB and all have been formatted through the set top box all no success, so that's not the issue,… Read more

I tried two tv sets no good, then he said to reset it to factory settings, also no good. Just a waste of money and rubbish set top box. I took one back to seller and got a refund. the other I bought on the internet, they wont accept refund, so now it's just a paper weight and bought two new set top boxes better brand but very happy

I took a chance – I live in South Africa & when visiting Australia took a chance that the Teac HDB850 would work here, it doesn't! Unit seems easy to operate & menus are clear & easily understood.

Rubbish do not buy – Ours keeps turning the subtitles on by its self,also whern in EPG mode it has a habit of going forward a few days an real pain to keep scrolling back. But for about 30 dollars what do you expect, usually you pay for what you get,in this case RUBBISH.do not buy get a hi def flat screen.

Pretty crap item! – Easy to setup and use. Recordings are the issue, this STB does not have a resume option when watching a recording. You stop it, go back to it later and hit play only to find it starts at the beginning of the recording, you have to fast forward to where you were at, and even this falls over, it's bloody annoying. No resume function sucks, and then some recordings just stop as the STB trips over itself. Poor quality item.

Waste of money, as most of the TEAC devices – I had this unit for just over 2 years. I had all kind of problems with it from the beginning (I should have returned the unit then, when it was still on 1 yr warranty). Few days ago - bingo - I started to trip my house safety fuse. It works now for say 15...30 minutes and then trips the fuse. So now it is junk. As for the past experience - here… Read more

is my brief summary:

- it notoriously kept loosing the programmed stations. I had to reprogram the unit after that.

- recording was unreliable - often the recording stopped all of a sudden for no reasons

- some recordings - say 1 hr long - stopped playing after 1..2 minutes. So broadcast was recorded for 1 hr but I was able to watch it only for the first 1 min or so

- I had to format the USB stick every few weeks because the unit corrupted it

- recording format is proprietary to Teac so user would not be able to copy recorded stuff to a PC and watch it there (or to send the file to anybody to watch).

And one more thing - when I bought it in 2013 at Harvey Norman it was at a regular price of $48. Now this junk costs on average $59 in most shops.

Satisfied – I am in a retirement complex and use a community aerial. There is interference on channel 2. I have connected the set top box into the aerial connection and the interference is now minimal.This is possibly co-incidental but it works. I also use the set top box to record. For its price I find the unit satisfactory

so far no issues – I have only recently purchased mine So far am extremely happy with it Haven't tried recording or anything as yet Trying to set up my headphones however not sure if it is friendly for them or not .Say l need to submit 50 or more words before l can submit I had nothing more to say Im happy with my purchase  Show reply

A load of junk – I strongly advise do not purchase the HDB850. Also support line seems non existent. The product is new but now I cannot obtain even one channel. I have placed numerous calls to the TEAC support line but silence reigns. I can only suggest pay extra and get a new tv which performs the tasks the HDB850 SHOULD do.