Digital TV Converters

[Greg Just]

Has anyone purchase one of the digital tv converter boxes we will need by next February for our "non" Dish or cable tv's? If so, what did you get and how well does it work - Thanks!

[Jim Becker]

No experience or need here, but you "should" experience better quality picture from the digital broadcasts "now" than you do with the strictly analog tuner setup. At least that's what I've been reading.

[Wes Bischel]

Yep, we made the switch a few weeks ago. As for boxes, we have a Zenith DTT900, and a Digital Stream. I have been impressed with the new digital picture quality, but the reception is not as forgiving as analog.
The Digital Stream has a feature called analog pass through. It allows the current analog stations to be viewed without messing with any settings or wires.

They do have some quirks that will take some time to get comfortable with, but in all they do a fine job.

Wes

[Randal Stevenson]

What about signal? I thought I heard something about it being more directional, and you may lose channels?


It is either a box, or get rid of the tv all together for me (a more productive idea?).

[Matt Meiser]

We recently bought a small SDTV tv that has the digital tuner built in for our camper. I was shocked at how much clearer the digital picture is. As far as signal--for us, Detroit stations which have a lot of noise in analog are crystal clear. When we've been away and used it, I haven't had much trouble finding channels. But you either have a usable signal or you don't. If you don't, you might get an occasional blocky still image, but nothing watchable. We do have an outside antenna and some kind of powered signal amplifier. You do get some new channels with additional content. Say your ABC channel is 13 on analog and 13.1 on digital. They might have other content on 13.2, 13.3, etc. Most of our stations seem to have weather on the .2 channel IIRC. PBS seems to have 3 channels of real content. One thing I don't like is that it seems to take about 2 seconds to change channels which is annoying when you are trying to find something.

[Jim Becker]

Matt, the channel changing delay is consistent with other types of digital sources. There seems to be some kind of sync up that happens as you move through them. I had that when I was still on Comcast and the same is true on DirectTV that I have now.

[Matt Meiser]

I've never thought about it with DirecTV--I never surf--always use the guide.

[Jim Becker]

Yup, with the guide on DTV or cable or FiOS, you don't really notice the delay as much because your eyes are engaged on the guide, itself. But the delay is still there and has been since everything went digital.