Oddity Archive: Episode 217.5 - Ben’s Junk: GPX Digital TV Tuner + Recorder
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- Опубліковано 28 кві 2021
- Can a (relative) cheapie from Menard’s drag the Archive’s off-air recording capabilities (kicking and screaming) into the 21st century? Sort of…
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"It's a Giant Spider Invasion of savings at Menards!" - Mike Nelson
The Menard’s in Eden Prairie is two floors. You take your shopping cart onto the escalator. It’s awesome.
That's like twice the Menards. Twice the savings of big money.
We had a zellers/target like that. Mew misses her escalator rides.
I've seen a Walmart near Albany, NY with that setup. The cart escalator wasn't working that day, though..
Menards it's not just lumber, power tools, grill supplies, cleaning supplies, deck furniture, lights, and appliances here.
You have to admire Menards’ ambition when they can offer you Jack’s frozen pizza on sale, an automotive battery, and plans + materials for a DIY house building kit in one shopping trip and with an 11% rebate store wide
As much as you can fit in the bag.
And Sprecher's soda. I've never seen it anywhere else before we got a Menards (I'm in Ohio).
@@Derekthepersonable I loved to drink those all the time when I worked at one in central IL. That cherry cola is straight up addicting.
@@DerekthepersonableIt’s a small soda/beer company in Milwaukee. When you tour the brewery they tell you that Menards is their biggest retail customer.
3:24 OHH MUH PUKKCELLS!!!!!
dankpods moment
I was hoping someone would say that lol
When I saw the batteries were PKCELL, I thought of DankPods quickly.
This is a rare (if not the first) “Ben’s Junk” to showcase a post-2000s product, since external DTV tuners weren’t mass produced until the mid-late 2000s, on account of the 2009 analog-to-digital conversion.
I feel for Menard's employees having to hear that jingle on the loudspeakers every 5 minutes. My dad sat next to the "Menard's Guy" on a plane trip from Dallas to Omaha one time. Is it just me or did he seem to be in pain as he says "Menard's" at the end of each commercial, especially as he aged?
I know what you mean. When I started hearing that commercial in the late 90’s, he sounded like he was going to crash right through the screen, yelling at you
Speaking from experience, eventually you just get used to it until the point you just tune it out.
Not just hearing it at work, but also hearing it on the radio or tv. I've worked for Menards for almost 15 years and have become numb to the jingle because it's drilled into my brain so much!
Those South Dakota local TV commercials are sooooo, quaint. Bless their heart.
That's what I like about them!
3:30 DankPods weeps for fallen PKcells.
The antenna power option allows the box to substitute an external power supply used when you had an pre-amp plugged on your rooftop aerial
Ah a ben+menards always a great combo
I used to find these converter boxes at my flea market, at some booths that sold store returns. In hindsight, I really should've bought one of these early ones. Dodginess aside that's some good video recording quality... for the most part.
Agreed I have an earlier RCA branded one, and the remote is nearly flat, and takes a coin cell(it also has to be dead on with the aim as well). I also don't think the tuner in mine is as bad as this(not great compared to my 50in Samsung 1080p TV). I've also found it helps if you format the flash drive/HDD in FA32, and use USB 3.0 even though the box makes no mention of needed it anywhere on it, or in the printed manual/online, or the signal will drop out, or just not record at all, and lastly I had to use a 500GB external USB 3.0 HDD to not keep swapping it out a lot. I paid $30 for mine when I get it a few years back.
My Converter Box Has Almost The Same Interface!
Also, The Loop Through Modulation Is Very Interesting.
yeah these days the boxes are made out of a common 'mold' wrt hardware/software with modifications of the standard used (like DVB, ATSC or possibly T-DMB (cuz these come from china))
@@surrodox My Converter Box Actually Has Some Pre-Installed Games.
Also, Nice To Know.
After hearing the Menard’s song so much... I feel it needs a metal cover. And, also, "Ohhh! muh PKCELLS!"
Didn't know they had that exact jingle for so long.
not the pkcell!!
I never knew I wanted a metal Menards jingle.
MY PKCELLS!!!
The thing about DTV is that the signal is digital, it's already compressed by the station. So "recording" is just storing the stream received from the tuner. 4GB per half hour is normal if the box is recording the entire transport stream for a station (which includes all the sub channels). ATSC OTA here in the US is about 19 mbit/sec (slightly over 2MB per second). It doesn't need to do any real time video compression for that reason... which is also why it won't take composite/component/HDMI input, because that *would* require real time video compression. The stream sent over the air is an MPEG-2 transport stream, which when written to a file has the .MTS extension. Modern camcorders record to .MP4 or .MTS as well.
There's actually quite a bit more in the MPEG transport stream than is typically shown to the user. One you did see, is the EPG data. Another one, are data packets that carry the current time. There's also the "Broadcast flag" (though that's up to the receiving equipment to use to decide whether the user shouldn't be allowed to record). It also carries the name of the channel and the channel number as well (which is why you have to SCAN for channels instead of the analog world where channel number was strictly tied to RF frequency). Here in the US these extra data tables are standardized by the ATSC and you can read the standards for free at atsc.org if you like. Over in Europe they use the DVB/ETSI standards which you can also read for free online.
uhh my pkcelll.. uh my pkcell
One more thing, regarding recording. You can’t set the bitrate, because any digital box will record the bare transport stream of the channel you’re watching, at the same bitrate as it’s broadcasted in. This is completely normal behavior.
Only some fancy high end set top boxes can transcode the stream, but even those don’t do it for recording, but for example for mobile viewing.
GPX web site has these for $50, and Amazon has a ViewTV knockoff for $33. With a little more investment in a HDHomerun tuner, you can record multiple channels to unencrypted MP4, limited only by the size of your hard drive. Currently, I believe the US TV standard supports 1080i and 720p, but when ATSC 3.0 gets rolled out we might see another generation of these boxes/tuners. Anyway cool video - thanks!
GPX your brand to disappoint you
Amazing that the firmware of these boxes are near identical, and almost unchanged for at least 10 years, even though the one I’m familiar with is DVB rather than ATSC.
It has the same firmware / UI and remote control of a house brand set top box that a former employer sold for about 39 AUD (30 USD) back around 2011-2012.
We wouldn't have these kind of quality issues on KLAK-13 just saying. Plus more deep soaking experiences. And now it will always sound like "Save Big Money At Minnotte's" thanks to the copyright gag.
I'm speculating, but I think maybe the reason the recording quality is so good is the same reason it can only record OTA and not from a VCR or external tuner input. Because it's not capturing video, just saving the digital data stream it receives OTA. What kind of files are on the SD card?
I've had one of these in the past, it saves recordings to MPEG Transport Stream (.ts)
I feel it's not an oddity archive without the eas.
Svenards: the only place where you can pick up lumber, paint, hardware & groceries in the same place. 🛒
i happen to live just next door to Beautiful Downtown Berwyn! it's the next suburb over, haha
At least you're not in Parma, OH. 😅
@@ImpetuouslyInsane it's cicero, yeah
ive managed to end up in the one corner of cicero thats both got transit and isn't totally blighted or industrial, so i feel fortunate
Just so people know, it seems that these boxes are everywhere on amazon with differing names and you might be able to find one cheaper if you want but as always, these things are hit or miss in terms of quality
How much
Agreed.. I got mine from big lots for $10 and I get 8 channels (I live 25 miles from the local TV stations) for reference of distance with the box
OMG! Benny Boy's got a sponder. I hope they pay him well. It's a pity we never got an un-boxing in the video as well. I mean, we all love unboxing videos.
Those boxer shorts at 7:48 really give a whole new meaning to the Ben's Junk title.
Also, the reason for not being able to hook up anything else other than an aerial to the box is that it only accepts digital input. You would need an analogue to digital video converter for a VCR, etc.
It always feels nice waking up to a new episode
Svenards, glad I’m not the only one. Did you mail in the rebate? I’ve tried messing with one of these too, the remote on mine seems to require it be pointed down to the hair to get it to work.
Rich Koz is consideded a genius here in Chicago. I never got it. Svengoulie...Svenards....how witty.
I've been calling that place "Svenard's" for years after that skit on WFLD-TV.
Acceptable video quality at the end. It did redeem itself.
I should also add that Panasonic also still produce and sell BluRay recorders with integrated HDDs that allow full HD recording and archiving, although they are a bit long in the tooth now and clunky compared to the latest HDD only DVRs.
I'm pretty sure it's only a thing in Japan but if it made it to the US it actually might have steamrolled those ATSC Video Recorders/Converter.
I'm still using my ChannelMaster PAL-7000 that's probably 12 years old now. The company that ran the electronic program guide went out of business, but about 4 years ago the guide started populating again. So someone came to the rescue.
The DVR situation in the US seems very weird to us over the pond in the UK as we have a decent number of choices for recording FTA TV either via satellite or antenna. Humax have recently launched an Android TV based 4K unit called the Aura which has multiple tuners, a 1 or 2Tb HDD and our Freeview Play system and it replaces their older HD only units with similar functionality (although not Android). Humax also produce similar units for FTA satellite. Other companies such as Manhatten and Panasonic produce similar DVRs too both with and without built in HDDs. So I can go to a store, buy a box, plug it in to the aerial, run the setup and in just a few minutes be able to watch and record easily. No smartphone apps needed, no need to buy an external HDD, no need to rent or pay additional charges to a Pay TV company, no subscription needed for a full 7/8 day full function EPG. Freeview Play also allows me to scroll back through the EPG to watch shows I may have missed as the catchup services from the major channels are fully integrated. Surprised such an easy to use all in one box is so difficult to buy in the US. Of course if we want to go Pay TV we can do so either with through Sky TV for satellite or Virgin for cable TV if in a cabled area. The only downside is archiving HD content, as that tends to be encrypted but SD content isn't an issue. The Humax recorders can be connected to a home network and SD content can be access directly from the box and archived easily. There are some boxes available, such as from VBox, that do allow unencrypted HD recording but they are similar to the units available over there, in that they are just tuner and network connection devices and you need to add your own HDD.
The greed of the movie industry has made DVRs and DVD recorders in the US useless or extremely restricted.
Seems your Weather Warnings episode sort of came true, also never have seen that EAS screen at 22:09 on OTA before, thought it only aired on cable.
None of these have an analog tuner in them, so thats what nothing with an RF output would be detected. Its ATSC 1.0 or GTFO. Also HDMI capture is a whole other thing entirely and there are some devices out there to handle that as an input.
Quality is never really an issue with these devices as they are literally just grabbing the OTA transport stream and saving the digital data, so as long as your signal is OK its going to look exactly the same as transmitted.
There are a bunch of other standalone DVRs out there to do the job as a DVR, most not $40, but you get what you pay for.
www.tablotv.com/products/ has a few models.
Channel master sells a Tivo Enabled DVR/Stream box
Amazon's firetv recast: www.amazon.com/Fire-TV-Recast-over-the-air-DVR-500GB-75-hours/dp/B01J6A6H74
and my personal favorites www.silicondust.com/ hdhomerun series of devices. These are essentually OTA>IP tuners that allow you to connect your software of choice on a PC to handle DVR duties and can be watched on TV through your smart tv stick of choice., but they do also make a device that is the network tuner and DVR in one.
DankPods would be loving those batteries.
I'm guessing the compression setting is just a direct grab of the digital signal written straight to the USB device.
I have a ViewTV tuner box with the same exact menu, so a lot of these must be made by the same manufacturer regardless of the brand. The cable TV industry is keeping manufacturers from making these tuners where they can be used on cable.
Oddly enough I use my tuner to record Svenard (Svengoolie) on Saturday nights. :-)
I've owned the same unit here in the New York City area for over a year one thing I noticed I've done a lot of recording with it I have a 1 terabyte hard drive Works wonderful with it it does not like thumb drives
Those batteries are probably expired, considering that brand of batteries has been redesigned recently.
Remember, recording ATSC TV to Digital VHS tapes IS technically a 21st century solution to the problem. :P
I've had crap luck with ATSC and rabbit ears/UHF loops. It worked fine in the analog days, but it doesn't cut it with digital. Early tuners like the Samsung I used on the DVHS video had really poor ATSC tuning and need a really strong signal. Later tuners do a much better job, and one of the best that I have is the Zenith DTT901 coupon tuner. The place I moved into had an old Channel Master in the attic. Replaced the wire running to it and now I have solid digital OTA TV! I would buy something small like a Clearstream antenna and wall mount it near the TV if attic installation isn't possible.
22:00 I like how it's just garbled up words and then at the end, mini haha
The file size on the usb page of the PVR menu, is space put aside for time shifting, IE Pauseing live TV buffer not a limit on making recordings it will presumably just go untill the drive is full.
I own two different types of these boxes. One has a heart beat like signal strength in and out. The other that I use, has a sound lag problem of almost a second off.
There's no Menards around my way. But I assume somethin' similar to Home Depot or Lowes?
Maybe harbor freight
I have one, they're called PVR's(Personal Video Recorders). Mine carries the *Strong* brand and I useit to catch shows usually from the ABC(Australian Broadcasting Corporation) while I'm out somewhere or other. I don't record much, if anything from the commercial stations here as they offer nothing but shit these days.
MediaInfo can tell you all the precise details of the compression it uses.
Funny thing, I happen to be watching this video in the middle of a thunderstorm...
GEEE PEEE EXXX!!! I wonder what Spats Bear would think of this one?
GPX!
GPX!!!!!!!!!!! not a good product
I have a Mediasonic HW-150PVR converter box with the same GUI, which was ordered from Best Buy, and I currently have hooked up to a 1979 Sanyo black and white CRT. The remote may be even more convoluted than the one you have, and it definitely has less buttons. For OTA digital broadcasts, it's fine, but regardless of antenna setup or TV, I can pull 10 channels reliably here out of the maybe 12 that serve the immediate area. This works in this box's favour, as 10 channels is easy to maneuver using just the controls on the box, but if I lived in a bigger TV market, it may be more of an issue. Recording, on the other hand, was a pain in the neck for me. Mine has the same Engrish translations, the buttons on the remote are poorly labelled for recording controls, and longer recordings on mine often froze and skipped ahead like a dirty CED. Could be the USB stick I used for storage, admittedly, but I can relate to your gripes. Yes, we get MeTV up here, so while there's no Menards in town, I appreciated seeing Svenards!
Aww, man, I miss that Menard's jingle and the old guy spokesman. And I rarely shop there.
Soley commenting to say
I had a GPX DVD player.
2 weeks later I called the fire department it burst into Flame
I lost my work bench.
H&M Mich Co
Po box 104
Three Rivers MI 49093
I used to hear that Menards commercial growing up in Illinois. Since I moved to Florida, I still remember the jingle.
There's no compression options, since it just dumps a stream of digital data into the USB device. It's the only good thing about these cheap off-brand tuners. I would recommend you something, but I don't have any experience in North American market (DVB here).
Most of these Chinese DVR's will literally take the original stream (MPEG2 for US/ATSC) and record that after stripping the unnecessary data (PID's, other program streams/sub-channels, etc). Most of not all of these cheap boxes have no (re)compression chips, just a single chip tuner/DVR. The MaxLenear 692 seems to be the most popular at $7.00/each. Paired with an STi-7710 MPEG decoder (originally $18.00 in 2004, I'm sure now below $5.00) and some glue logic for another $3-4.00 and plastic extruded cases, you can have a ATSC DVR box for about $15.00 mfgr floor price.
Also to record HDMI signals there is a device on Amazon called and HDML cloner that will record any HDMI feed
I Remember Watching These 2013 - 2012 Videos Back In 2019 There Were Great!
GPX was never known for high quality products.
The reason for it only working with a Over The Air signal is due to legal issues that started when the standalone DVD Recorders came out (the ones without the VHS part.)
I actually own 2 though they're different brands and models though. I have them attached to projectors (one 720p the other is 1080p) so I can now use them as large screen TVs, and they work fine as long as your using a good antenna (and I mean real rabbit ears & not those junky floppy ones.) I paid $30 for both of them so when you said you say that you paid $40 the first thing that popped in my mind is Menard's took you for a ride.
My previous set-top box, a Dreambox DM8000 was amazing. Had two built-in DVB-S2 tuners (I had one hooked up to a fixed satellite dish and the other to a motorized one) and two more slots for additional tuners. I put in a DVB-C (cable) tuner for my MMDS reception. It had a smartcard and a CI+ slot for encrypted channels, and it would record into regular .ts (transport stream) files. I could choose if I wanted to have the stream descrambled at recording or during playback. It was an amazing piece of gear. I ended up replacing it with a VU+ Zero 4K, which can do most of the above, but it only has a single satellite (DVB-S2X) tuner and no expansion options, but that’s more than good for me.
I think I had this exact thing before it died within a year of purchase. Does it get incredibly hot when it's plugged in long enough?
I have one similar with component outputs as well. Very good unit.
I bought one of these in 2010, some brand called Olin to record from the TV. The picture quality was near perfect. Though It could only record on USB stick.
funnily enough, i own that exact DVR, which was also from a local menard's. i've used mine for quite a while, mostly as a backup for my WinTV-HVR 850, which for a while none of my computers would recognize (until a little while later when it suddenly worked again)
some issues i've had when using it were the remote having very weak signal (my logitech remote seems to work with it just fine, i'm not sure whether to blame the remote or the unit) and that the USB port can occasionally fail (often leads to me having to reboot the unit just to get it working at all). other than that, it's a fine box. i haven't had that many issues I've had with it besides for the aforementioned two.
Funny you should mention bad weather going on in your neck of the woods. My train pulled in to San Antonio around midnight and was supposed to be a 2 hour stop. Thanks to thunderstorms, a tornado warning, and high winds knocking some containers off of a freight train.
I can tell those first two recordings are from AntennaTV. I've watched it for two years now and they almost ALWAYS play those kinds of commercials. Love their programming, absolutely hate their commercials
It must be nice to have so many OTA options. Locally, with a good or bad antenna, I get maybe five total stations & substations (mostly useless), and those disappear into a frenzy of green-ish macroblocks whenever a plane flies over or Zeus burps.
Maybe is you having dealt with too many old tech so much that new tech is like voodoo to you now. Don't worry, the opposite can happen, I'm 42 and I wouldn't change my audio and video streams for old tapes. LDs give me a lot of nostalgia but I've avoided them like the plague for too long I wouldn't go there now even if I'd found them cheap. Don't get me started on vinyl!
I have a similar box and it's quite easy to use, the only problem is that you should get at least a 320 GB HDD, that video format takes a lot of space, but it records everything, CC and alternate audio.
Aw, my PKCell
I didn't expect that there would be ATSC set top boxes with the exact same user interface as a lot of the cheap DVB-T set top boxes that are sold here in Australia. I would have expected there to be at least *some* difference given the completely different digital TV standard they're receiving.
Bennie... That's NOT for MAX Record!!! That's for how long you can pause and/or rewind LIVE television.
The best solution I have to this problem is EyeTV, a Mac, and a WinTV 950q USB tuner stick. When you record off air tv, it’s in a mpeg-2 transport stream compressed at the tv studio. The DVR doesn’t do anything to the picture or audio
You do get what you pay for. You can buy any number of USB OTA tuners. You can get them with up to four tuners (so you can record all your channels at the same time). Then you just need a box to to function as your interface. You can DIY a $40 box with a Raspberry Pi and then prebuilt version Kodi copied onto an SD card and you're off and running. An old PC or laptop will also work since the USB tuners usually have some basic software. Kodi for Windows if you need something more elaborate. If you want something that is literally plug-in-play, buy an Nvidia Shield and plug in your USB tuner. Use Android TV's Live Channels and you have a set-top box/DVR that also does everything else including gaming.
You can use a universal remote instead of the on included I use a 4 Device GE model . But I now use my tablo $139 with 1tb hard drive . On my firesticks supports 6 devices wirelessly but internet is required
9:45 - in their defense, the majority of Americans now say stuff like “suppose to” without the d.
You are giving these things too much credit, What most of them do is just transfer the incoming broadcast digital stream straight to harddrive/memory stick without doing anything to it at all, It's also why they can't record anything other than digital broadcasts as there's nothing in there to compress it, "MTS" - the TS is going to be "Transfer Stream"
I wish I would have seen this first. I've waited 2.5 hrs so far for it to boot. My bad I guess.
Antenna TV Quest and Grit all the channels in West and South Central Michigan those goes by 4: 6
TiVo edge OTA is pretty good but also 299.00 at Channel Master FYI
I have that same one... Only with the viewtv logo and name plastered in place thereof...
I have a box just like this though mine is made by a company called I view I'm only able to pick up 5 channels in my area though. All Christian stations no less. But I myself am a Christian so its no big deal to me.
Well .... I was considering buying one, but I guess not. I may be getting a Roku and I was hoping I could record it. I'm glad I watched.
The last, the EAS Minnihaa (yes I spell it like it sound) county is where my mom's family lives. And yes no one needed to know that.
Looks like the unit I have. Also drive me nuts that digital TV is all or nothing.
Save big money at menards, though you may pay for it in sanity later if you get this pirce of equipment.
I don't go cheap when it comes to m'nards
is it compatible Clear QAM cable?
You could get a hauppauge tv tuner pci card and use something like mythtv.
3:20 OH MY PKCELL
I think the only way left to record cable to computer output without video capture is via CableCard
I love Menard's, better variety and price. I have a similar converter, a homeworx, that works fine but programs similar. The power supply crapped out twice, the remote is hard to read but it does pick the channels up fine. I think the whole idea of hdmi is that it can only output to a viewing device. It is simple but very limited.
One more comment is it does tune cable channels directly in the Quan the bad part is all your scrambled stations are there too and it's hard to find the ones that are not scrambled
Thanks for this.What does the $ sign mean? Paid subscription I guess since I have basic 15 buck monthly cable. ANY MORE HOW TOS ON THIS WOULD BE VERY HELPFUL.
I usually get mine from eBay. They are just generic boxes with the same firmware and different brand names. I don't tend to have much difficulty with the remote, though. It could just be your box. The timeshift file size limit just limits individual file sizes. Once the limit is reached, the box with start recording to a new file. This is because FAT32 is limited to 4GB files. The program will be played back as a seamless playlist. You will have to merge the parts together on a computer by concatenating them in a terminal. If you don't want to mess with that, format the USB drive in NTFS and set the timeshift file size limit to unlimited. That saves a lot of headaches. The instruction may say FAT32 only, but just ignore that. You can at least use 64GB USB drives, but you might be able to use larger ones. Check out the "Antenna Man" channel on UA-cam for great info on using antennas. The thing about ATSC is that you're just going to have to use an outdoor antenna if you want a decent signal. Attic antennas might work for you too, but outdoor is your best bet.
Those aforementioned DVRs that can record unencrypted content, could you elaborate on makes/models?
3:22 *DankPods would like to know your location*
I actually have aluratek box that has the exact same types of menus and things but it's for my old Tube TV that I've had in forever. It's got a definite learning curve but it's way better when it comes to remote signal. Although the fact that it records in MTS, and lazily ads a "2" at the end when I go over a certain record time on a single recording, meaning that I have to physically go in there and change the file format twice when it divides recordings, is a huge pain in the ass. May I recommend handbrake when converting MTS to MP4 recordings, its open source and way easier to manage than whatever these guys do.
However, I did get a lot of good recordings from it, even an EAS alert!!! That happened during an episode of Saturday Night Live, meaning that I cannot upload it onto youtube without NBC kicking it to death. Good thing Archive.org exists.
And btw, all my antenna rabbits in my friend group agree that a good outdoor antenna is a must...sorry Ben...and sorry me cause I may have to install one when I move out
Time shift is just for skipping back or pausing
I hope you saved 11% on it.
Having bought one of these from Menards, it's not great. The Remote feels awful too. These GPX boxes are a rebranded chinese device that can easily use other firmwares.
Supposedly, you can mod the power supply portion to make it run off of USB power (internally it's a 5v power supply) to make it run cooler and faster.
Also, an annoying aspect is that it has a "radio" option in the manual tuning, but it does nothing. That said, I share the same complaints with it not being great.
The radio option is probably more useful in TV systems and countries where radio services are transmitted on DTT muxes (read: in DVB-T mode). A search of "TDT Colombia" brings back a 90+ minute video showing this firmware in action in Colombia (a DVB-T2 country).
Patreon a super duper Antania!!!