Setup
Setting up the DEC-180 was a breeze and required no more than me unpacking it and plugging all the cables in. It can be connected to a normal monitor and a keyboard and mouse for detailed setup, or connected directly to a TV, where you can launch Windows Media Center with the push of a button on the included remote. The Media Center software can be fully controlled with the remote, and starts off by taking you through a full-screen configuration wizard to set up the DEC-180 to get along with your television and audio system, and also to configure the electronic program guide so that Media Center can automatically record your favorite TV shows. After completing the wizard you can immediately start watching live TV with the ability to pause and rewind on the fly, or you can wait for the DEC-180 to record a few of your favorite shows to watch at your convenience.
Physically, the DEC-180 can be placed in 2 different configurations – laying down on its rubber feet as shown above, or standing upright using the included stand.
Using the Ion DEC-180
Overall, using the DEC-180 was a complete pleasure. Once I was finished with the completely painless setup process, I sat down to record some TV and watch some of the media that I already have on my home server. It was extremely easy to browse through the onscreen program guide and decide which shows I wanted to record, and the Media Center software automatically found my network shares and added all of my shared media to its library.
If you have never used a digital video recorder (DVR) before, you are in for a treat with the DEC-180. You no longer need to set your schedule according to when your favorite shows are on, and you don’t have to worry about the surprisingly complex act of programming a VCR. You can simply tell the DEC-180 what shows you like and it will record them automatically. It keeps track of the shows you’ve already watched, and if you tell it to, it will only record new airings instead of including re-runs. You are also free to browse the beautiful on-screen program guide and select individual shows to record. I know that many products make lofty claims, but if you watch a lot of TV, the DEC-180 will actually change your life. After using my own media PC for the past couple years to record all my TV shows, watching normal TV is a very frustrating process. If I’m visiting a friend or my parents I constantly find myself wanting to pause a show while I get up, rewind to hear something I missed, or most often, fast forward right through a commercial segment.
Ion claims a capacity of 250 hours of video recording on its 100 GB hard drive, and while this may be possible at the lowest quality settings, at higher settings you’ll only be able to fit about 50 hours of video. This is not as much capacity as I would like, but still impressive for a device this small. One thing that was a slight disappointment to me was the quality of recorded video. While the shows I recorded were quite watchable, I have become accustomed to my own highly tweaked media PC, and the video recorded with the DEC-180 was not quite as crisp and clear as what I’m used to. That said, the video quality was still excellent and after using the DEC-180 for a short time I no longer noticed any shortcomings. Once my optical cable and adaptor arrived in the mail, I was able to enjoy surround sound from the DEC-180 using my 5.1 channel audio setup.
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