Zenith HDR230 HDTV Personal Video Recorder
September 2003
The wait is over
By Grant Clauser
Zenith HDR230
$999
HDTV off-air receiver
80-GB hard drive
Great picture
Commercial editing
www.zenith.com
As someone with a fairly hectic schedule, I've become addicted to television viewed through a PVR. The two models I own — a Philips TiVo and an RCA UltimateTV — allow me to watch whatever I want, on my time, without worrying about when the broadcaster wants to show it. Unfortunately, until recently, high-definition TV has been left behind in the PVR world. If I wanted to watch HDTV, I actually had to know when the program was running, and make sure I was on the couch to catch it. And forget about pausing the show for snack breaks or other time-outs.
Of course, we all knew that high definition-capable PVRs were destined to come to market, but Zenith is the first manufacturer to introduce one. The new HDR230 HDTV is an off-air ATSC high-definition television receiver, which means that it receives its HDTV programming for free via an antenna, and doesn't require a satellite dish or cable set-top box. Programs are recorded onto an 80-GB hard drive, which can store about nine hours of HDTV or 27 hours of standard TV.
Zenith proves that HDTV doesn't have to be complicated. Without even consulting the manual, I had the HDR230 connected and comprehended in short order. You can select the output resolution (480i, 480p, 720p or 1,080i) to match your display's resolution; I connected it to my reference Marantz VP-12S1
DLP projector with a set of Monster component cables. It also works with a 15-pin RGB cable, which is helpful when the com-ponent inputs on your high-definition set are taken up by other things. My antenna, a small indoor Zenith Silver Sensor, hooked up to the antenna jack. Audio came from a digital optical cable into my A/V receiver.
The first thing I did with the unit was to run a channel scan to find local digital channels. The scan went fast, much faster than any other high definition receiver I'd used, and turned up five options (ABC, CBS, WB, FOX and PBS). Missing was NBC, which frequently gives me, and other people in the Philadelphia region, signal-tuning headaches. (A larger antenna, such as the Terk TV 55 I've used in past, would probably solve my NBC problem until the station turns up its transmission power.) An on-screen signal meter told me that all of the other channels had very good signal quality, despite the rainy weather.
By Grant Clauser
Zenith HDR230
$999
HDTV off-air receiver
80-GB hard drive
Great picture
Commercial editing
www.zenith.com
As someone with a fairly hectic schedule, I've become addicted to television viewed through a PVR. The two models I own — a Philips TiVo and an RCA UltimateTV — allow me to watch whatever I want, on my time, without worrying about when the broadcaster wants to show it. Unfortunately, until recently, high-definition TV has been left behind in the PVR world. If I wanted to watch HDTV, I actually had to know when the program was running, and make sure I was on the couch to catch it. And forget about pausing the show for snack breaks or other time-outs.
Of course, we all knew that high definition-capable PVRs were destined to come to market, but Zenith is the first manufacturer to introduce one. The new HDR230 HDTV is an off-air ATSC high-definition television receiver, which means that it receives its HDTV programming for free via an antenna, and doesn't require a satellite dish or cable set-top box. Programs are recorded onto an 80-GB hard drive, which can store about nine hours of HDTV or 27 hours of standard TV.
Zenith proves that HDTV doesn't have to be complicated. Without even consulting the manual, I had the HDR230 connected and comprehended in short order. You can select the output resolution (480i, 480p, 720p or 1,080i) to match your display's resolution; I connected it to my reference Marantz VP-12S1
DLP projector with a set of Monster component cables. It also works with a 15-pin RGB cable, which is helpful when the com-ponent inputs on your high-definition set are taken up by other things. My antenna, a small indoor Zenith Silver Sensor, hooked up to the antenna jack. Audio came from a digital optical cable into my A/V receiver.
The first thing I did with the unit was to run a channel scan to find local digital channels. The scan went fast, much faster than any other high definition receiver I'd used, and turned up five options (ABC, CBS, WB, FOX and PBS). Missing was NBC, which frequently gives me, and other people in the Philadelphia region, signal-tuning headaches. (A larger antenna, such as the Terk TV 55 I've used in past, would probably solve my NBC problem until the station turns up its transmission power.) An on-screen signal meter told me that all of the other channels had very good signal quality, despite the rainy weather.
