got my converter box coupon!

[vacuumfreeeke]

Well, a few months ago, I applied for a converter box coupon from the government website. I do not have cable (it's a monopoly here and I do and I do not want to support them by paying 50 dollars a month just for basic). I have Netflix and I get the shows I like (I Love Lucy, Golden Girls, Andy Griffith, Good Times, Flinstones, Brady Bunch... that kind of stuff)... I use the bunny ears to get Mamma's Family on Ion every now and then, but that's about it.

Just wondering if there is anything I need to know about the converter boxes before buying one. Are there any differences between the models? Will I need to buy a separate cable? I assume I just plug that in where my bunny ears are now and throw the bunny ears away. The "coupon" is for 40 dollars and looks like a credit card.

Will I get more channels? Will there be no more snow?

Thanks for any advice you can offer... as you can see, I don't know much about electronics!

 

[dirtybuck]

DAMN!

I forgot about my coupon...I'm still waiting on it. It's been almost 2 months now. How long did it take for yours?

Wal Mart has the boxes there for 49.97. Looked at one last night.

 

[panthera]

If the

Converter boxes work in the US like they do here, you may have to pay attention to a few things.
One very common design uses something like 45 watts even in "standby" modus. Absurd. Is used in converters costing between 50-300€. I just love the snobs who bought the "best" units and ended up with the same ones as the folks who bought their's at Aldi...so make sure you get one with minimal power consumption in use and standby.
Two, most converters here just "loop" the antenna through, they don't add their converted signal to the 75/78 Ohm output. Your's may be different, but if not, don't worry - you can get the converter for the converter for about 12$ at Target or Walmart...just try to use the S-VHS signal instead of Component, the quality will show up then.
Oh, yeah - the default audio output on the four I've set up over the last years was with the Dolby off. If your system can extract the surround sound info from the stereo mixdown, you should check those settings.
Things could be different in the US, but the converters I have seen looked just like ours so am assuming it's basically the same old, same old.
Oh, yeah - before you let the in-duh-vi-duals at the store sell you something you don't need, download and read the manual or check reviews on them. They told my parents that their one year old TV would definitely not work with the converter and they'd have to buy a new TV. Thank goodness my dad thought to ask me about that...damn TV is already set up to receive digital without a converter...and has been over cable for sometime already...gods, I hate such jerk-offs who take advantage of people. You can't be an expert at everything.
Bet you like the picture quality - blew me away the first time I saw it.

 

[goatfarmer]

My coupons took about 3 months to arrive.

 

[48bencix]

AVS forum

Go to this forum to learn about the converter boxes.

I got two Zenith DDT 900 boxes at Circuit City. They go for $60.00 each so I paid $20.00 for each with the two coupons I got. You can get boxes for less. But the Zenith seems to be one of the best. It does have a good tuner. The connections to antenna are coaxial, so if your rabbit ear antenna or other antenna is twin lead, you will need a converter, same with input to TV. There is also a three jack output, video, and left and right stereo, so you can use that if your tv or vcr has those inputs. Yes now you can get stereo with that treasured 1960's tv you have!

I have one box connected to a 1978 9" ge portable and the picture looks great. You can set the picture to as broadcasted, which sometimes will be 9x16, with black bars above and below, or zoom which will fill up your screen.

I have been having fun with it. However the interference that before just made snow on your picture, can now stop the sound and cause the picture to pause or pixtilate. Many of the digital broadcast systems are not up to full power yet, so that may get better, or I may need a better antenna system.

I have satellite for my main tv, but I am using the boxes on secondary sets that I have. I am going to get more coupons from other family members (they are sent two maximum per address) for others sets like in my trailer!!

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/forumdisplay.php?f=25

 

[MrX]

panthera (Fort Collins, CO / Munich)

Panthera,

Unfortunately US Digital TV and European Digital TV are two completely different and incompatible standards so there will be no question of new equipment working on either side of the atlantic any more than the old stuff did.

The European family of digital standards is DVB, and is being adopted in most of the world outside of the US, Canada and Japan.

DVB-T (Terrestrial TV)
DVB-S (Satellite TV)
DVB-C (Cable TV)
DVB-H (Mobile/Handheld TV)

The US system is called ASTC

Japanese - ISDB

China - DMB

While they're all different, they all basically do the same thing in their own incompatible ways!

For end users, the experience will be pretty much identical.

There are also some differences in how US TVs and European TVs are hooked up i.e. in Europe for Standard Definition TV, SCART connectors are used in the US they use multiple phono connectors, SVideo connectors etc.

HDTV generally uses HDMI connectors everywhere, keeps things simple!

HDTV in European systems is generally provided using MPEG4 video streams. Some countries have also opted to use MPEG4 with DVB-T on ALL channels this means they get more channels at standard definition or all HD channels. However, older/cheaper decoders often can only see MPEG2 streams, so all you'll get is information about what's on now and next on the menu!

The same applies for Satellite TV (DVB-S) and Cable TV (DVB-C) ! Different boxes may be required on different networks.

 

[sudsmaster]

Here's a list of converter boxes with descriptive specs:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_CECB_units

 

[48bencix]

More chanels

My boxes, and I think most, come with one coax cable and three AV (rca jacks) cables, yellow, red and white for picture right and left stereo sound.

You most likely will get more channels, actually sub chanels.

Ch. 3 (NBC) has their regular channel and a second channel that is all weather.

Ch. 6 (PBS) has two secondary channels, one with other shows and one in Spanish.

Ch. 10 (ABC) has a second weather channel as does Ch. 13 (CBS).

Ch. 29 has Ion and three other channels. I get several other channels.

Remember this converter is not for Hi-Def Tv's that need a tuner. It converts the digital (which may or may not be in Hi-Def) to a signal that non-digital tv's can use. So the most advanced connector is a s-video on some boxes.

Depending on how close you are to a station, you will get a much better picture, with more accurate color.

The Zenith inludes a volume control on the remote, and can be programmed to turn you set on and off, if it has a remote and is on their list. The volume is handy if, for example your set has no remote, now it will!!

Once you get your cards you have 90 days to use them. There may be a better or cheaper selection as time goes by. But don't pass up this free $40 deal. Almost everyone has that extra set somewhere that is not on cable or sattelite.

Martin

 

[MrX]

Digital TV will make a BIG difference to colour though. NTSC is a very old standard and has really serious issues with reproducing colours, particularly skin tones. It has a tendency to make everyone look rather orange.

PAL analogue tv in Europe is a younger standard and has always had much more true to life colour reproduction.

Digital TV will fix that problem in the US and Canada as it's no longer relying on 1950s technology!

 

[panthera]

Well,

Actually, my portable digital converter works quite nicely in both the US and Europe, so I daresay there must be some similarities. Bouncing back and forth between the two areas, I will often spend a bit more for equipment which can handle both; did not for this little gadget and was pleasantly surprised when it worked just fine in the US. AverTV sells them on both sides of the Atlantic.
Never The Same Color will not be missed by the Americans - it was a disaster from day one.
It is a pity the Scart system never caught on in the US, but, of course, S-VHS and discrete components for those who "think" they can see the difference will balance out the cheaper range while the various HDMI standards will continue to drive everyone nuts.
For better or for worse, the era of discrete, low-level programming is pretty much over. Even these simple converters are usually built with the same components and a relatively high-level programming interface (Linux in the four I have) is used to handle tasks which even a few years ago would have been embedded in the firmware.
The main difference I could find in looking online today is that the US units use "F" coax connections and don't have Scart output.
A simple case in point: I recently bought a memory card camcorder for my dad's birthday here in Germany. It came with the default values of PAL and German (well, what the Chinese think passes for German) menus. Took all of three pushes of a button to change it to NTSC; US-English, store).
The scary part is that the picture quality immediately went to hell, as mrx said, skin tones became rather orange and the sky turned a shade of blue which an expressionist alone could love.
I think I'll let him do his work in PAL and burn to DVD. My parent's system can handle both thank goodness (they like German and British DVDs).

 

[sudsmaster]

I got my coupons a couple weeks ago. Today I used one to get the Digitalstream unit from Radio Shack. It wound up costing about $25 with tax.

It's supposed to be energy star compliant. So far, so good. It works well enough, has all the bells and whistles. One thing I wish it had was an SVHS output, but it would appear that few of these converters have such a feature. As is I notice an improved picture moving from RF coax input to the TV to the composite video input.

I will probably use the second coupon to get another same unit.

 

[dirtybuck]

I Got Mine Today!

But it make me kinda mad that I have to buy them before July 21! I wish I could wait a bit longer, but if I must, I must.

 

[sudsmaster]

Was able to check the power consumption of the Radioshack Digital Stream converter.

When off, it uses zero watts (just a little red LED glowing). When on, it uses 2 to 3 watts. It has a user-selectable time-off mode: on always, 2 hour, 4 hour, 8 hour. Of course you can just use the remote control to turn it off along with the TV (it's a universal type remote).

Overall, I'd recommend this converter. The remote is well designed, although it would be nicer if the keypad was lighted. But the layout is simple and distinct enough to navigate by touch.

It also doesn't "pass through" the analog TV signal, but in a year or so, that will be a non issue. In the meantime, one can just use a splitter to give the TV access to the analog signal, and run the converter into the audio/video inputs on the TV (if it has them).

The Digital Stream also supports digital closed captioning, which can give this capability to older TV's that lacked it.

I looked at the Magnavox unit at Walmart and thought it looked inferior to the Radio Shack unit, and not worth the $10 less that it cost.

 

[panthera]

Thanks, Rich

I've had eight requests from family and friends in the 'States that I help set up converters this summer, so that is a good tip.
Since they change products often, would you mind posting the exact number on that one?
Thanks again.

 

[sudsmaster]

Keven,

It's a Digitalstream DTX9900 DTV Tuner Box.

 

[panthera]

Thanks Rich!

It always helps to know before you go - I will be mainly going S-VHS to S-VHS, but in some cases another converter will have to be hooked in, a few TVs from the 1950'S-1970's to do.

 

[sudsmaster]

Keven,

You're welcome. I guess I need to trek down to RS and get the second Digitalstream unit before the stampede occurs ;-).

The coupon-eligible converters with SVHS output seem to be few and far between. I can tell an difference, however, between RF and composite input, and mostly that's good enough. I have one TV set up with a VHS capable converter (it's really a DVD recorder with ATSC tuner), and that picture does appear a bit sharper than the set with the composite input. But that may also be differences in the TV's. However there is no zoom feature on the DVD recorder so one must settle for whatever picture size one gets, and for most 720p programming it's a significantly shrunken view. The DVD recorder does have a hidden benefit, though. DVD's recorded from broadcasts retain their CC content. I can view this on playback on the DVD recorder. Although so far it doesn't seem to show up when played back through other DVD players, not even through a flat panel TV's CC option.

 

[polkanut]

I applied for a coupon for my wife's uncle in late January, and finally received it this past Monday (5/12). What really steams me though is that the expiration date is 7/30/08. Why did it take so long to get it, and such a short period of time to use it? I guess I shouldn't be surprised when dealing with a bureaucracy, should I.

 

[sudsmaster]

Yeah, I also wondered about the relatively short time (60 days) that the coupons are valid. I cannot understand the reasoning behind that, other than to try to spur consumers to make their purchases. I didn't actually need that spurring as I'm a big fan of digital TV broadcasts right now. I use it a lot to view and record PBS and other programming that is unavailable from regular analog broadcasts. And every major network has a genuine HD broadcast channel in my area, which is probably almost as good as what the cable and satellite companies offer at present.

I do get some drop-out or unavailable signal times on the most distant stations (San Jose) during bad weather. And there is an occasional dropout on even the strongest stations, which I attribute to the occasional aircraft flying between Sutro Tower and my place.

 

[vacuumfreeeke]

got my converter box

To answer someone's previous question... my coupon took about 3 months to arrive.

I've been checking the Wal-mart close to me for the boxes and they haven't had any for the last month. I finally drove 45 minutes to the next Wal-mart (the silly coupon expires next month!).... They had a mountain of them.

I got it home, and with it hooked up, I get NO channels. I get at least 4 channels with the rabbit ears alone. Does this mean that no one is broadcasting in digital yet, and that my device will work in February? Or, does it mean that I live too far out and I'm screwed when everything turns digital?

Thanks

 

[retro-man]

Well if the channels you were getting previously were coming in pretty clear good chance you will get them when switch over comes. If they were snowy then I think you will need to go up a notch and put up an antenna. It will require a good signal to receive digital picture. It either works or doesn't. Not like before. You will have an excellent picture or none. Some of the stations around hear have switched over but some have not. The ones that have not do not work on the box cause there is no digital signal being sent out from the station yet. Hope this helps.
Jon