Performance And Ergonomics

It took the H140 twenty seconds to start up, from power button push to on-screen main menu. That's a long wait in "I-want-my-AV-now" time. It has a fairly good 3.6" display - photos and videos look reasonably sharp, but the large icons on the device's own main menu can be fuzzy if brightness it set too high. You can adjust brightness to one of five levels, and we found the third and fourth levels were best in most situations, including use in outdoor shade. The device has no contrast adjustment, which we found problematic, because there were times when a little increase in contrast would have helped make brighter images sharper. When you're looking straight at the H140, contrast is usually at its best, and there are no significant reflections, which helps prevent image washout. But if you rotate the H140 up or down or side to side while looking at the display, you introduce reflections and lose a lot of image contrast.

At only 3.6", the display isn't really large enough to be good for viewing movies in wide screen mode. DVD movies recorded at a 2.35:1 or 2.85:1 aspect ratio play in a strip about 1.25" high; the entire screen is around 2.13" high.

The Mustek H140 PVR playing a movie with a 2.85:1 aspect ratio

Moving around the main user interface menu and submenus was not as easy as it could be. The problem is that you move from one item to another on any menu with the H140's 4-way joystick, but you select an item by pushing another button, the one directly below the joystick in the photo below. The joystick clicks distinctly when you push it down, further creating the illusion that pressing it should select an item on a menu.

Further complicating matters is another joystick-like button on the right side of the H140, near the joystick itself; the one on the side of the unit to the right of the Mode button in the photo above. This button is for volume and recording, and clicks like the joystick when you move it up and down (volume adjustment) or push it in (record). And, adding to the confusion, when you are selecting files, it can be used to move through lists of files or file icons one screen at a time. Finally, you can use the Mode button in place of the joystick to move through the H140's main menu, though it normally acts sort of like an Escape key on a computer. All of this can be quite confusing. Right up to the last time we used the PVR we managed to make a wrong button or joystick choice somewhere in the process of performing a task.