DTV Converter box mini review

[Glocksman]

Since I'm a cheap SOB who really doesn't want to replace a perfectly functional 21 year old Sony trinitron and is really unhappy with my cable provider, I used my 2 government converter box coupons to buy an Insignia (Best Buy's store brand and a rebadged LG/Zenith DTT901) box and a Tivax STB-T8.

The good news is that for the most part, the two boxes perform almost identical in terms of reception.
The bad news is that even here in Evansville, I still have multipath signal issues that result in the occasional audio/video 'glitch' on the screen even when using a motorized indoor UHF antenna*.

God only knows what it'd be like in a large city with skyscrapers everywhere.

Winner: tie

Both boxes have aspect ratio control that lets you 'zoom' a 16:9 broadcast in to fill a 4:3 screen.
The Insignia/LG box zoomed it in perfectly and didn't crop any from the top and bottom of the picture.
The Tivax cropped about an inch off of the top and bottom.

Winner: Insignia/LG

When compared to a TiVo or cable box, the on screen guides aren't anything to get excited over on either unit.
The Tivax offers a 12 hour guide for each channel while the Insignia/LG only offers a 'what's next' guide.

However, the Tivax's OSD is a horrid blue on blue combination that uses smaller fonts and isn't very easy to read while the Insignia/LG's OSD uses larger fonts that are white on a black border/dark grey background that's easier to read.

Also, the Insignia/LG's setup menu lets you manually tune in digital stations without 'scanning' for channel changes.
If you only have one or two stations switching digital channels after the transition, this feature can save some time as you don't have to 'rescan' the entire spectrum.

Winner: Insignia/LG

Miscellaneous: both feature analog pass through (some low power stations will stay analog after the switch), the Tivax has a 'smart antenna' jack, and neither one has an S-Video output.
AFAIK, only Channel Master makes a coupon eligible converter box with an S-Video connector.


Both boxes offered DVD quality picture and excellent sound.
My recommendation would be the Insignia/LG/Zenith model because of the aspect ratio cropping issue.

Price:
The Tivax was $13.99 shipped from Meritline.com after the $40 coupon.
The Insignia was $24.99 with sales tax from Best Buy after the $40 coupon.

Vendor note: while Meritline shipped fast and sent me a tracking number, I can't forgive the fact that they simply slapped a shipping label on the retail box instead of packing the unit in a shippable carton.

The box arrived with the bottom corners smashed in and a gash ripped out of the side.
Luckily, the unit suffered no damage and worked when powered up.

Buy elsewhere.


*The Radio Shack UFO antenna.
With the rabbit ears up and folded backwards, it kind of looks like the Galaxy class Enterprise-D.

[Broomstick]

I confess that we bought the less expensive model at Best Buy with our coupons. But then, we ARE strapped for cash these days. The less expensive model also had a smaller footprint, which I usually view as a positive.

Word on the street is that all the boxes perform in a quite similar manner. Word on the street is also that there are problems not so much with the converters as with the signals being blocked or insufficient for reception.

[NomAnor15]

We've definitely had the "insufficient signal" problem. We bought the converter two days ago (I believe it was the Tivax), and we get about one channel that we didn't before, and 2/5 of the channels we did get before. With an analog signal, Fox and ABC were kind of spotty, but perfectly watchable, whereas WB, NBC and PBS were usually crystal clear. Now we only get CBS and ABC, and very occasionally PBS.

[Crayz9000]

God Forbid you live in the mountains. I thought analog TV was bad in mountain areas, what with null areas and reflected, ghosted images. At the very minimum it was usually possible to get 1 channel that had somewhat clear audio, if not 1 channel that worked most of the time. But digital? Noooo. If I can even get my TV to pick up a signal now, I'm lucky to get a few random patches of color on the screen and a few garbled words here and there of something that resembles Klingon.

Never thought I'd actually like analog this much.

[Broomstick]

Back in the late 1960's when my family lived in West Virginia we had to have cable - the TV signals just wouldn't make it over the mountains.

The thing is, with analog you don't get an abrupt cut-off. The signal diminishes in quality gradually, and even with static and some ghosting your brain can process enough of what's going on to get something out of it. With digital you either get a clear signal, a very brief window of pixelation, or nothing at all.

So yeah, in some respects digital is inferior - most notably for transmission/reception in less than ideal conditions. There's a bunch of people for whom converter boxes just won't be enough, they'll have to buy their TV from cable or satellite.

[phongn]

Signal power should go up in February once NTSC broadcasts go the way of the dodo.

[Broomstick]

It's not just the raw power - digital signals are much more easily blocked by mountains and tall buildings (something that may be of interest to people in Chicago, given the abundance of skyscrapers there). I'm sorry, technomages, but in this case analog IS superior in some respects than digital. It won't given you the same clarity of picture, but clarity is useless if you aren't getting a clean signal in this case. Analog transmissions are more likely to have interference, but it takes more of it to render them completely useless. More and more people are reporting being able to get fewer broadcast channels with the converter boxes than with their old analog systems, even with new and/or repositioned antennas.

[phongn]

Well, yes, and there's also the issue that the digital signal is more difficult to receive and many OTA antennas are optimized more for VHF (while most DTV stations are UHF right now, with only some transitioning back down once analog shutoff is completed). A $40 STB just isn't going to have the hardware in it to deal with a lot of the challenges (signal strength, multipath reflection, etc.) Also, the FCC wants ATSC so they can free up VHF bandwidth for other uses.

[Glocksman]

True.
From what I've read, the LG boxes have very good tuners, and yet I have multipath reception issues causing 'glitches' even with signals that are 90+ on the strength meter.

Fine positioning (the antenna has 12 directional presets with no 'fine tuning') my 'UFO' antenna minimizes the problem, but it's still there on Fox 7 and I can't even tune in the local PBS station most of the time.
Fox 7 digital is really a UHF channel, but the local PBS station is a 'for real' high VHF (12 now and 9 after the transition) channel and I can barely receive it.

They (PBS channel 9) say it's because their digital signal is low powered under FCC order because at full strength it'd interfere with an analog station in Missouri and after analog goes dark, they'll up the power and switch to a new antenna.

We'll see.

Shit, if the cable company would simply broadcast their basic channel package in 'clear QAM', I'd buy a new TV and forget all about CECB boxes and reception issues.

As it is, both of the local cable providers require you to fucking rent a QAM converter box if you want anything more than rebroadcasts of the local OTA channels.

I'm stubborn enough to refuse to rent a cable box simply because the bastards want to force me to pay $5-$15 extra (a combo cable box/DVR is $15) a month for the same service I get in analog without renting a box.

Fuck that and fuck them.

[Broomstick]

Well, we got our box hooked up to our analog TV and tested it this morning. Works fine, but then, it should in our area what with strong station output and us being away from the Loop skyscraper forest. We still have satellite TV for now, but anticipate having to cut that off due to finances. At least we'll still be able to get news and weather.