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Question: Can I make recordings on the USB drive and then play them back on my laptop or android tablet ?
Document: )(That's with an old 80GB, 5400rpm, laptop hard drive in an external USB case.) Also, the hard drive automatically shuts down after about 5 minutes when you're just watching TV, so it won't just keep chugging away, but for that reason, it's not ALWAYS recording so, if you get back from the kitchen after your show had restarted, you can't go back.
The picture even from SD broadcast appears visibly more solid with better contrast, resulting in a more vivid and sharper picture.As if that weren't enough, the unit comes with a USB port to allow you to play back a staggering variety of files off your flash drive or external hard drive. But for me, the feature that sealed the deal was the ability to use the unit's built-in recording and timer functions to do time-shift recording onto my external hard drive while I was doing other things or sleeping.
It works when I fed that to a second DTV tuner, when this unit is POWERED ON.The box also has a basic EPG, CC, parental lock, etc.It records to external USB harddisk or flash drive. It can also play back media content (quite a few format) from the USB drive.Pro: great price with many features. Check some basic DTV SD down-converter's price for the comparison :) :)Con: lousy/non-intuitive MENU navigation.
]I'll detail my experience with it, using an old TV, a rooftop antenna, and especially, its use with special populations (elders, those with cognitive/perceptual disabilities, children, etc).I formerly had a very early Sabrent USB stick connected to my laptop that finally went kaput, the HW-150 is its replacement. It also enables me to make use of a very nice TV I have that lacks an ATSC tuner.Set-up was really easy.
This does not happen with a USB hard drive which is what I've used.It will absolutely not do 2 things at the same. You cannot record a program and play back a previously recorded program at the same time. If you've paused live TV and are watching behind, you can't  open the program guide to record another program.The program guide allows you to set programs by name, but you are really only setting a time recording, you can specify once, daily or weekly.
I found when playing back recordings that if you do nothing, the unit automatically plays the next recorded program. This is Godsend for my mother, I can record a whole list of shows she likes and have them play automatically, one after the other.
It's that simple. The recording is in MTS format so you can even remove the USB disk and play it on your laptop or other portable device. You can also select &#34;timeshift&#34; mode that allows you to pause, rewind, and manipulate live TV as long as you have a USB disk connected to act as the video buffer. You can select this timeshift buffer size so you can control how far you can rewind live TV.
Even if I didn't like the box I still have a laptop external hard drive. Another nice thing is that you could unplug the USB and move your programs to another television (if you had a second Homeworx box)  or just watch on your computer by plugging into it's USB.
Perfect for daycare, nursing homes, hospices, assisted living, invalids, etc. I use it on occasion to have inspiring programs playing in the background while I'm working.The unit automatically lists recordings on the hard drive in alphabetical/numeric order, so if you want them to play non-stop in a particular order, just rename them with 1, 2, 3 or A, B, C at the beginning of each file/recording name. The renaming process is easy and works flawlessly.
I was looking for something to replace my TW cable DVR box and still be able to record in High Def. First I looked at a USB TV Tuner stick but that requires fooling around with a laptop or PC just to watch TV and I did not want to put my family through that. This small metal box was the best thing I found and the price is right - for the cost of a couple month's cable bills, you can own this and an external Hard Drive to record on.
Answer: yes.. just be sure the "software" will play MTS (transport streams)and the USB drive has enough storage space1 hr of high def video is approx 16bgstreams are blu-ray compatiblei play them with VLC player and Media player classic