HDTV ATSC tuner STB ratings

alt.tv.tech.hdtv

I am planning to buy a High Definition ATSC set top box tuner. Can you tell me is these any comparison discussions and ratings? Is there any forum for this topics? Thank you.

Hello Dennis,

Wow. In 1997 I was able to buy a complete TV set for that. A good one, still works fine. I sure hope these set top boxes become less expensive once the FCC cuts off analog TV. But it'll be a while I guess.

Regards, Joerg

Radio Shack had one on closeout for - I forget, something like $80? It was less than $100. Dunno if they still have any.

--
Doug Smith W9WI
Pleasant View (Nashville), TN  EM66
http://www.w9wi.com

Hello Doug,

Thanks for the hint. I'll have to check that out next time I get out of town. The RS in our town has become a phone store. How sad :-(

A few stations out of Sacramento used to advertise their own digital channels a lot. That ad blitz has fizzled somewhat yet none of our neighbors can receive terrestrial DTV. Hmm....

Regards, Joerg

In sci.engr.television.advanced Dennis Mayer wrote: | | | Allen wrote: |> |> I am planning to buy a High Definition ATSC set top box tuner. |> Can you tell me is these any comparison discussions and ratings? |> Is there any forum for this topics? |> Thank you. | | | The Samsung T-451 has both ATSC digital OTA antenna SD & HD | | capability AND QAM Cable tuning capability of the | | unscrambled digital SD & HD Programs...... like | | ABC-HD, CBS-HD, NBC-HD, FOX-HD, PBS-HD, UPN-HD, & WB-HD | | IF carried on that Cable System..... Cost $250.....

This seems to be the one generally recommended where recommendations get specific to a model.

| HD OTA antenna feed from the Tower farms usually require a UHF | | antenna like a Yagi or 4 bay bow tie... A good 4 bay | | bow tie UHF antenna is a Channel Master 3021 at $25.

There is an 8-bay one if you need 3 db more signal and/or less of some signals in other directions.

Back in the 1960's Finco made this style, and had 4-bay, 8-bay, and even a 16-bay.

| RG-6 cable should be used... Not RG-59 cable..

Or RG-11 if the run is extra long. Or it with an amplifier ahead (at the antenna) of the run.

| The UHF Channels run from 14 thru 59... a Good UHF

If the antenna you find does poorly on 52-59 don't sweat it, those channels are going away, probably at the same time analog goes away.

| Antenna can receive VHF-Hi channels 7 thru 13 ok too.

Some directionality (and hence some gain) is lost.

It seems most broadcasters on VHF-Lo are abandoning those channels. Many on VHF-Hi are doing so as well. With cable serving so many viewers, and UHF technology now days doing as well as VHF, if not better, there's much less advantage to staying on VHF now.

But I do note one that is keeping their old VHF-Lo channel and has an interesting callsign to go along with the change to DTV: WDTV.

--
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| Phil Howard KA9WGN       | http://linuxhomepage.com/      http://ham.org/ |
| (first name) at ipal.net | http://phil.ipal.org/   http://ka9wgn.ham.org/ |
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This may not be true now, but your area's network "biggies" used to all transmit from Walnut Grove CA, about 25 miles south of SAC. The terrain is so flat, I think any antenna above the neighbors' rooflines ought to pull in something.

A look at the FCC's database

for SAC and for Stockton shows all the area DTV is on UHF. (Clicking on the individual listing for digital TV will allow you to bring up details, particularly power, tower height and location.) For many, reception should be a slam-dunk. What are people using that's not working?????

My coauthor Paul Horowitz long ago invested in the full panoply of high-def products. He had cable of course, but he also invested in custom antennas and apparatus to directly receive the over-the-air high-def signals the local stations were broadcasting. The land is relatively flat and the distance is about seven miles. I helped him align his high-gain antennas, and can attest it took a considerable effort to get them on target. Thereafter the quality seemed near to cable-signal quality, but I note in practice he mainly uses the cable signal for his viewing. My conclusion: high-def over-the-air is not truly practical, but is practical when delivered over cable networks.

--
 Thanks,
    - Win

Hello Sal,

Yes, I know. I believe that's the tower from which a base jumper just tried his luck and screwed up, big time. He got stuck in a guide wire after opening his parachute.

Sorry, must be a misunderstanding. The link above gives five active DTV stations for the Sacramento area. Signal strength is not the problem. What I meant was that our neighbors do not have equipment to display DTV on a screen anywhere in their house. You can't buy it locally at a decent price unless you are willing to plunk down a few thousand. So, they are watching ye olde NTSC like we do.

As long as you can't stroll into Walmart and buy a set-top converter for

50-100 bux it's not going to fly. Just MHO.

In our area in the hills DTV may face another challenge. Multi-path reflection is so bad that you have ghosting not just on the same line but you can find reflections several line down. Sometimes the amplitude of the reflection is higher than the direct path, meaning you get a "ghost" before the signal. That's ok for a half hour of Andy Griffith or for the local news but I am not sure how a compressed digital signal will fare. But again, nobody in the neighborhood has it so I don't know.

Regards, Joerg

What about South Bay San Jose, Fremont areas? What is the best HDTV STB? With Comcast basic services? What is the best choice STB to buy? Samsung or LG? Where to buy?

I'm in the SF Bay area. I have been receiving OTA digital since about

2002. I'm in an area where signals are just good enough with a decent antenna and I really like it when it is working.

The big issue is that the local stations seem to be having an amazing amount of difficulty getting their act together. The local ABC had constant problems with their cash cows like "Desperate Houswives". Lots of problems like wrong aspect ratio, no sound, sound way out of sync with video, etc.

Almost all the stations share the same antenna site and I think even the same antenna. They have continuous problems. There is maintenance on that antenna over and over. All this week they have been broadcasting at reduced power during the day. At one point, the whole thing was down for a month or so while they replaced the whole feed or something like that.

It boggles my mind how we can have this many ongoing problems with a new technology that is all evolutionary. No wonder NASA keeps having problems. Seems we can't get anything new working in a reasonable amount of time. Another sad commentary on US technology.

I live in San Jose near Campbell. Almost all the stations broadcast their signal from Sutro tower in SF. I need a good fringe-area antenna. I think this is because the signal path is right along the hill line. I think things would be much better in Fremont.

See my other post about the problems the stations are haveing, though.

Sorry, no idea what the current products are. In 2002 I bought a medium sized widescreen tv with built-in standard, DTV and Directv receivers for about $2000. I haven't seen anything like it since. Last I looked, it seemed prices of a complete system were going up rather than down.

Hello Win,

This stuff is expensive. So AoE must generate a lot of royalties ;-) (SCNR, I think these royalties would be well deserved)

Was the data stream kind of fickle even if the SNR seemed ok? Do you suspect that multipath nulling caused you to have such a hard time aligning the antennas? I wonder why Paul needed high gain anyway, seven miles is nothing even at UHF.

If yes, then I wonder how often the data stream will completely collapse when that Fedex air freighter lumbers by. This happens a lot out here since we have a local hub. The analog image "waves" a wee bit but remains intelligible most of the time. The freighters fly directly into the path towards where the tower for most of our stations is. Since they are landing into that tower's direction and touch down about 30 miles from us it means they can remain in the signal path for several minutes.

Regards, Joerg

Hello,

But who wants to see those shows? Pathetic content is what turns me off even more than the cost of the new equipment. We just don't need another sports or soap opera channel. Or more of "but wait, there is more".

A month?? Now that is sad. Either they can't figure it out or the matter is really low on the priority food chain. Or maybe, just maybe there aren't enough funds to go around. Ad revenue per media channel is what counts.

Regards, Joerg

People can transition in stages.

I bought a Samsung SIR-T151 DTV tuner last year at a local HI-Fi/TV/appliance store in San Diego last year for $250. Works good.

Wal-Mart has a DTV tuner for under $200. I saw it in the last two months. It can be set to output regular (NTSC) TV if it's in a home with no HD-capable display. This and others like it are the set-top boxes which will be required to receive OTA TV after analog shut-off (if people don't have an integrated ATSC set.

Just heard a guy in the pinball newsgroup say they don't even carry FUSES anymore. Pathetic.

Hello Sal,

I asked about that when I was at a Walmart. The guy behind the counter said they didn't have any. This made me curious. "So, are there a lot of people asking for that?" ... "Nope.".

I wonder whether that shut-off will really fly. I could almost bet that no politician would want to make their constituents fuming mad before an election. And there always seems to be an election coming up ;-)

Fact is, most regular folks have all but forgotten about DTV around here. Whenever I bring up the subject the usual answer is "What's that?". Then again they did that 'pull-the-plug' in some large German cities. But DTV to Analog converters where much cheaper than $200 over there.

Regards, Joerg

This was in a Wal-Mart in Chula Vista, CA. I heard they had them, so I asked when I shopped. I said "Digital TV tuner" and the clerk easily led me to a display model and a stack of boxed units. Do Wal-Marts stock these things selectively by store and/or by region? I don't know -- you'd have to ask them.

integrated

I suspect that the size of the constituency that relies on OTA is pretty small. You can read this NG and see estimates that range from 5% to 20% of the viewing populace using OTA for their local stations. That's a large range from which to pick a "real number" for discussion.

I believe you mentioned people in the hills have ghosting on their current analog locals. If this is the case even with good, big antennas, it doesn't bode well for DTV reception. Although LG has demonstrated a chipset that handles multipath well, I have not seen an announcement that their technology will be deployed.

[I have been mostly "off-line" for most of two months, so if somebody knows about those 5th generation chips, please jump in. TKS.]