Mustek PVR-H140 mini review

digitalsafari

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EDIT - The unit has been returned for a refund - avoid!

I just got the 40GB Mustek PVR-H140 and it's good value for the money, but an Archos is more polished.

I paid GBP 169 plus VAT from Microdirect about GBP 205 delivered.

Size wise it's slightly wider than a iPod (3G) by about 2CM, but it's double the depth so is not pocket sized, and is a little heavier.

My use for it, is dumping lots of TV from a Sky+ for watching when away on business.

For this it works a treat with picture quality on a par with in-flight systems in SP mode (HQ is very good, LP is VCDish).

Sound quality is nowwhere my iPod, but is good enough, again think in-flight system quality.

Recordings made via it's AV input only have mono audio. I knew about this prior to purchasing and because I will use it the most on noisy aircraft (even with noise canceling headphones) not such a big deal.

Prerecorded files playback in stereo.

It only plays ASF video, MP3 and WMA audio formats, all other formats have to be transcoded by the bundled WinXP software, this also requires you to download Windows Media Encoder 7.1 from MS.
The conversion process for video is not that fast as the application was only using 64percent CPU on a P4 3GHz HT with 1GB RAM, but it worked.

There is no resume function, so if you turn off the player mid way into a movie, when you turn it back on it's at the beginning, however you can tell it to play from a specified time via a little menu option.
The fast forward is only 4 x.

Screen quality is good enough and very bright with a reasonable viewing angle.

Not tested battery life yet.
 
Resume function found - How to bookmark a video clip !

Press pause, before hitting mode/stop

You go back to the video player screen and the thumbnail is unchanged, hit mode/stop again.

No when you go back into Video Player, the thumbnail has now updated and shows your bookmark, select it and hit play/ok and it plays from the bookmark.

The bookmark survives power on/off.

it only stores one bookmark, if you navigate to another directory it loses it.
 
Have you had lipsync proplems when playing back video?
I have and so has a least one other on another forum. I is very noticeable after only around 5 minutes. If you press pause and then play it comes back in sync for another 5 minutes.

Strange that Mustek tell you to download Media Encoder 7.1 as I believe this is not compatible with XP. I am using Media Encoder 9 and while this works with one of my PC's I have so far been unable to get my new Dell Dimension to encode any files.

I have seen several reports on this PVR you must be very lucky not to have had any of the issues others have? :)

Jeff
 
Jefft said:
Have you had lipsync proplems when playing back video?
I have and so has a least one other on another forum. I is very noticeable after only around 5 minutes. If you press pause and then play it comes back in sync for another 5 minutes.

Hi Jeff,

Today was the first time I have had to seriously watch something, and yes it has the horrendous sync bug which affects both PAL and NTSC recordings.

Also when it starts to lose sync the framerate drops.

Bugger!
 
digitalsafari said:
the bundled WinXP software, this also requires you to download Windows Media Encoder 7.1 from MS.

How did you manage to install WM Encoder 7.1 on to XP? I presume you did and didn't have a problem as you have tried the encoder.

When I tried it said not compatible with XP, which is what I expected.

Jeff
 
digitalsafari said:
I just downloaded from MS and it installed okay.

Running XP SP2.

Strange I downloaded it the same and got an error message on install 'not compatible with XP'

You are indeed 'very lucky'. Are you sure it is V7.1?

Jeff
 
Just uninstalled WM9 redownloaded WM7.1 and to my surprise it installed?? Weird!

I now have a partial success with a very quick trial but 1 Divx file is proving awkward. I will have to investigate further.

Jeff
 
Jeff,

Also found some nasty distortion on its audio recordings.

I am getting the feeling the Mustek is a bit crap, at least until they update the firmware.
 
Finally given up on this very flawed product and asked Microdirect for an RMA number. Suggest you do the same Jonathan.

Connection problem solved by updating the USB drivers in Windows XP (as suggested by Mustek tech support) strangely the PC that would connect and the one that wouldn’t were both using the same previous version of the driver??

Never did get the supplied file conversion software working correctly. I thought I had sorted the problem by uninstalling Windows Media Encoder 9.0 installing WME 7.1 and then reinstalling WME 9.0. This appeared to work but after encoding for around 10 hours for a 2 hour film it just reverted to the start screen without any message ‘error’ or otherwise and no ASF file to be found.

The final straw was the discovery that after playing video for around 5 minutes the sound goes out of sync with the picture. This can be reset for another 5 minutes by hitting pause then play. Very convenient, only 18 times per film.

The Video in/out socket is faulty (intermittent connection).

Wasted hours on this when all I really wanted was to take it out of the box and use it. Not an unreasonable expectation.

Jeff
 
Jeff,

I sent my back to Microdirect 2 weeks ago, no sign of refund and they don't answer emails or phone calls.

You had any luck with your refund ?
 
Jonathan

I requested an RMA by email attaching their RMA request form. Having not heard after a week I sent an email through their web form saying I had not received my RMA. Another week later I received an email saying I had not told them what was wrong with it. I replied reattaching the RMA form. A few days later I received an RMA and sent it back. A week later received an email from them saying that they were about to refund when they received another RMA request?? They do not appear to be able to tie up 2 identical RMA requests as a duplication and as it was them that asked for the information a second time somewhat puzzling. I emailed back pointing out it was a duplication and not another request???
My advice is wait another week as chasing them up only seems to confuse them. They are just slow.

Jeff
 
Finally got my refund.

Any luck on yours Jonathan?

Jeff
 
Mustek customer services rang me a few days ago apologising for the delay in getting back to be and appeared to be disappointed that I had sent mine back.

Jeff
 
Anyways said:
Hi, I did buy a mustek pvr-h140 for around 320$ on eBay.

I am still confused on some stuff, you said you need to convert the video files to asf using weird encoder but on the ebay listing, it said that there is a converter included in the mustek (http://cgi.ebay.ca/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=73839&item=5761285073&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW)

did they upgrade the pvr-h140 since you bought it?

There is encoder software supplied but it takes 10-14 hours to encode around 1hr 30 mins of video. It did not work at all on my PC.

Also on playback the sound is out of sync after around 5 minutes.

This player is garbage.

Jeff
 
I had a problem with vibration affecting my recordings (like one guy on another thread!), so I am about to sell it, unless someone can tell me if its possible to record video straight to the SD card. If I can do that, I can record to the card, then copy the recording to the disk when the bike's not moving.

Does anyone know if this is possible?

Cheers.
 
Forgot to mentions - I got it as a refurb unit from MicroDirect - that was, until the power connector broke off in the unit. I applied for an RMA number from MicroDirect and was told that because it's a connector, then it must be 'user error'. Then they directed me to the small print that says they regard ALL connector problems as 'user error'!

I told them that not all connector problems are always down to the user, but they are now ignoring my emails, so I had to resort to a home repair. Sounds like they are just a cr*p firm!

DO NOT BUY ANYTHING FROM MICRODIRECT, is my advice!
 

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