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(More customer reviews)I was toying with buying a "Video Now" or "Juice Box" like device for my mature and soon to be twelve year old girl, but was unhappy with their proprietary media and associated high cost. I was looking for other options and happened across the Mustek PVR-A1. The price varies significantly from seller to seller, and I located it for $129. It seemed like an inexpensive alternative, so I opened the box and played with it to be sure it met my expectations before giving it to her.
Before I get critical, I want to summarize that I am overall impressed by this compact piece of technology. It does everything it says in the ads, and the 2.5 inch screen is adequate. Its capability to expand its memory with cheap SD/MMC cards is a great feature. I located a 512M card for the device for around $25 (with rebate) and according to the directions my daughter will be able to record over four hours of video. Better yet, she'll be able to delete them or transfer them to computer, making room for new ones. Try that with a "Video Now!"
The PVR-A1 appears very close in features and form factor to the Audiovox PVR1000. Perhaps the same unit? I bring this up because Audiovox says their unit will take a 1 Gig. (twice the size of 512M) memory card. Mustek says the unit is "only tested to 512M." So, perhaps some larger 1 Gig. cards will work.
So, the first thing you need to know about recording programs, etc., is that you need "VIDEO OUT" jacks to do so. Easy access to "VIDEO OUT" jacks will make your life easier. The three little hook ups on the front of your TV or VCR are usually "VIDEO IN" and won't work. If you have a portable DVD player or laptop DVD with "VIDEO OUT", then your job will be much easier. In summary, if you've never hooked up a VCR or DVD player and don't understand the basics, this unit may not be for you.
One of the easier solutions is to run cables from Video Out jacks on back of a VCR, then the PVR-A1 unit will be able to record both TV from the VCR tuner and video cassette tapes. If the jacks are already occupied, you can get "two into one" adapters at RAdio Shack.
I first experimented with recording a DVD. As mentioned above, I crawled to the back of my stereo cabinet and plugged in the PVR-A1 jacks. The PVR was set up to record in LP mode, which conserves memory by recording lower quality video. Barely adequate, as the image was frequently pixelized (visual blocks of color). But after going into the unit's set-up and changing it to SP, the image was clear - just some of the text in the credits had rough edges. The image I recorded was wide screen, and I noticed some of the screen pixels in the first line at the top and unused by the video, were white, not black. Minorly annoying imperfection, and not there when something is recorded in full screen.
The buttons take some getting used to but function OK. The On-Off button is small - so small I can't use my thumb to turn it on. And it seems I have to hold some buttons down a second or two longer than I anticipate to get the function to work - as though there's a slight delay.
The menus for each individual feature (video player, MP3 player, etc) are a little difficult to access and master the interface. The up side is these are probably items you won't have to access often - for example, changing SP speed to LP in the video set-up or the equalizer settings in the MP3 player. The volume and fast forward-rewind are the same lever, and you need to toggle the two functions by pushing another button. I sometimes found myself fast-forwarding an MP3 when I really wanted to adjust the volume.
The MP3 player sounds OK. The games are probably useless to most. The clock and calendar have little functionality, and are probably onboard only for scheduling recording times. Yes, you can set up the PVR to record at a certain time.
So, consider the price! I think it's a great trade-off for some of its shortcomings. And if you have a way to easily hook up a video source for recording, you'll definitely make good use of the device.
I looked the Internet over for a review before purchasing the device and couldn't find any. I hope you find this useful.
Bill L.
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DIGITAL VIDEO/RECORDER PLAYBACK, DIGITAL PHOTO, VOICE RECORDER,
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