What the maker puts in writing
- “This Box does NOT support ATSC 3.0”
- “This Box does NOT work with TIVO, and Other Cable Company like Comcast, DirectTV, DISH Network, and Time Warner Cable, etc.”
- “Record and Pause Live TV… (Requires USB 2.0 or USB 3.0 external hard drive up to 2TB connect to this unit; USB flash drive is not recommended)”
- “Latest Firmware Version: V1.7 (This will be updated if new Firmware version is released)”
- “Front Display to show Channel number and sub-channel, and show Clock in standby mode”
- “2026 Latest Batch from Mediasonic Store. The new improvements included LARGE Remote Control, 5 ft HDMI Cable, Front Display Panel, Support hard drive up to 2TB, reception sensitivity, and 12 hr. AM / PM feature”
- “Clear QAM function… The channel must be UN-Encrypted signal”
Four things nobody else on this shelf tells you
“This Box does NOT support ATSC 3.0.” The most consequential fact in this category, stated by one maker out of ten. ATSC 1.0 has been the United States standard since 1998; ATSC 3.0 (“NextGen TV”) is the successor, carrying 4K and HDR with better reception, and broadcasters are moving to it station by station. As a channel transitions, a 1.0-only box stops receiving it. Only the ADTH at $159.99 handles both. Eight listings here say nothing.
“Does NOT work with TIVO, and Other Cable Company like Comcast, DirectTV, DISH Network, and Time Warner Cable.” Named, not implied. ZJBOX makes the same point generically — “cannot replace other types of audio-visual equipment (e.g., cable TV set-top boxes)” — and nobody else raises it.
“USB flash drive is not recommended.” Technically correct and unique here. Recording television is a continuous write, and a flash drive’s sustained rate can fall to a few megabytes per second — below what a high-definition broadcast needs — producing dropped frames. Its write endurance is finite too, and a rolling live-TV buffer rewrites the same cells constantly. A hard drive is built for it. Five other boxes here invite flash drive use without the caveat, and ZJBOX explicitly offers one up to 32 GB.
“Latest Firmware Version: V1.7.” An actual version number, checkable against the unit in front of you. iView says “(New Firmware)” in a title; ZJBOX says updates are “infrequent” and the device “offline”; the ADTH has Wi-Fi to deliver them. Nobody else publishes a number.
And the front display is the best on this shelf
Front Display to show Channel number and sub-channel, and show Clock in standby mode.
United States digital television numbers channels as a major and a minor — 7.1, 7.2, 7.3 — because one transmission carries several program streams. The main network sits on 7.1; 7.2 and 7.3 typically carry secondary or classic-film networks.
So a panel showing only “7” tells you which transmitter you are on, not which program. This one shows both.
allaboutadapters has a “large LED digit panel” for the channel number without mentioning sub-channels. Eight boxes here publish no front display at all — which means turning the television on to find out where the box is pointed.
The 2 TB limit, which is the odd one out
Four boxes on this shelf claim 4 TB: all three iView models and allaboutadapters. This one caps at 2 TB.
That is worth reading alongside the one listing that names its filesystem. ZJBOX publishes “external hard drives with a FAT32 file system capacity of up to 4TB” — and FAT32 cannot hold a file larger than 4 GB, which is roughly forty-five minutes to an hour and a half of high definition.
So the 4 TB claims may be larger on paper and no more useful in practice. A 2 TB limit stated honestly, with the hard-drive requirement spelled out, is the more informative number.
Clear QAM, with the qualifier attached
Clear QAM function can be used with cable provider to watch unscrambled cable channels. The channel must be UN-Encrypted signal.
Six of the ten boxes here have a Clear QAM tuner, and five describe it without that second sentence. American operators now encrypt nearly everything, so what remains in the clear is typically just the local must-carry channels — which an antenna would give you anyway.
The use where it genuinely earns its place is the one allaboutadapters names: “private QAM channels generated by modulators”, the in-house channels hotels, hospitals and schools distribute over their own coaxial.
Dolby Digital and a channel 3/4 hard switch
Support 1080P Video Output via HDMI, and Dolby Digital Audio. Support Channel 3 / 4 hard switch for old TV.
Dolby Digital is what a good many over-the-air channels carry, and passing it through means an AV receiver can decode the real surround mix.
Channel 3/4 is an RF modulator: the box generates an analog television signal on VHF channel 3 or 4, so a set with nothing but an antenna input can use it. And the word hard is the important one — a physical switch rather than a menu option, because you cannot read an on-screen menu until the television is already on the right channel. Two iView models publish “Channel 3/4” without saying which kind of switch.
A metal case runs cooler and screens the tuner from interference better than plastic. allaboutadapters also publishes one.
What is not published
No composite output. HDMI and channel 3/4 only — so a television with yellow, red and white sockets but no HDMI needs the RF route. ZJBOX supplies a composite cable; allaboutadapters publishes four simultaneous outputs including component YPbPr.
No warranty term, where ZJBOX publishes one year.
No antenna, which every box on this shelf requires and only the Tablo supplies.
354 g and 110 × 168 × 36 mm are published — the slimmest cabinet here.
Prices quoted in this text were read on October 4, 2026. The live price is at the top of the page.
