While the other guys are giving you First Looks at revisions of products you already know, Satelliteguys.us is hard at work giving you First look’s at revolutionary products you can get on the Market or through beta programs here. First the FyreTV IPTV boxes and now with digital converter coupons in hand we are giving you a first look at two different Digital TV conversion boxes that you can pick up at your local Wal-Mart / Best Buy Right now!
Our first box can be found at your local Wal-Mart Super center. The Magnavox TB100MW9 can be had for about 49.99, or 9.99 plus tax with your coupon from the Government. Upon opening the box we see that the contents of the box is the unit itself, the remote, two double A batteries, and one short 75 ohm cable. The unit it’s self has one digital TV in, a TV out and 1 RCA connection out.
Installation was really simple as you hook up the AV cables to an open video port on your TV to the RCA connection on the box. It would have been nice if these were included in the box as they are required to get this thing going and are very cheap cables. Optional Setup would be to hook up the 75 ohm cable to your TV instead of the AV cables from the TV out on the back of the box.
One nice feature to this box is that it has an external power switch to manually reset the unit, if it was ever to freeze up.
Setup was easy and should be a breeze for any user, but the graphical interface could use a little polishing but was easy to the eyes and looked like it was coded in the 90’s. Scanning for OTA channels was a breeze and only took one min to complete from start to finish and found only 27 OTA channels out of 30 I was able to receive. The tuner box on this guy missed WYCC-DT (20). Other bugs found were the receiver often did not display the proper signal being received. At times it would show no signal while displaying a picture.
Remote responsiveness was nonexistent at times as it would not respond to my remote commands.
Other Disappointments were the lack of OTA guide and OTA guide population. The box says it includes an onscreen TV guide, but the only Guide to be found was the banner on top that displays the current channel and what’s on. You could not scroll forward to find out what’s coming on. Over all I am very disappointed in this product from Magnavox. It looks like it was rushed out on the market and care was not given to the product as it could have used one more final polishing. Over all I would give this one 2 stars out of 5 as it’s just good enough for the kids room.
Our next box is the Insignia NS-DXA1, and can be found at Best Buy as it’s there ATSC Store brand converter. I had to go ask a sales associate where there digital tuners were as the ATSC add on box for HDTV ready sets was placed next to the DirecTV boxes and was priced at 174 dollars. This product was placed next to the TV’s in the back of the front of the store and was in a location that was hard to find as the emphasis was to sell TV’s. The pricing on the unit is 59.99 or 19.99 after your coupon.
Upon opening the box, you notice that all the cables required for installation are there, and the surprising thing is that the remote only takes one Triple a battery. The remote felt good in the hand and was easy to use. Hookup was the same as our first box and was installed within seconds. .
Upon turning the unit on, you can notice the quality was much better than the Wal-Mart version and reminded me of a legacy DirecTV receiver. The Menu’s even showed a picture of a C-Band dish as if the software was written by a satellite company.
Finding channels was just as quick as our first review and the unit found all 30 channels I am able to receive in the Chicago market minus WBBM. At the time of this writing WBBM is on VHF Low and is Un-receivable in many locations including mine. WBBM is scheduled to change to VHF-High channel 12 at 3.3KW in 2009. All included features are there, but the one downfall of the program guide was it does not populate guide data from other channels. You have to physically tune to the channel to get data. As promised it does have a TV guide but without populating guide data from other channels, this feature is useless.
This box displayed the digital signal received accurately and was reliable when tuning into channels. The box even accurately found WCIU-DT 26-6 which is out of order from its sub counterparts 26-1 (WCIUHD) 26-2 (METV) 26-3 (METOO). Now if we can get DirecTV to add these to their channel mappings we would be all good!
While the box did its job and performed well, I feel that the price point should be where its Wal-Mart counterpart is at. This box does well and is suitable for any TV that isn’t Digital TV ready! Over all it gets 4 Stars out of 5.
Our first box can be found at your local Wal-Mart Super center. The Magnavox TB100MW9 can be had for about 49.99, or 9.99 plus tax with your coupon from the Government. Upon opening the box we see that the contents of the box is the unit itself, the remote, two double A batteries, and one short 75 ohm cable. The unit it’s self has one digital TV in, a TV out and 1 RCA connection out.
Installation was really simple as you hook up the AV cables to an open video port on your TV to the RCA connection on the box. It would have been nice if these were included in the box as they are required to get this thing going and are very cheap cables. Optional Setup would be to hook up the 75 ohm cable to your TV instead of the AV cables from the TV out on the back of the box.
One nice feature to this box is that it has an external power switch to manually reset the unit, if it was ever to freeze up.
Setup was easy and should be a breeze for any user, but the graphical interface could use a little polishing but was easy to the eyes and looked like it was coded in the 90’s. Scanning for OTA channels was a breeze and only took one min to complete from start to finish and found only 27 OTA channels out of 30 I was able to receive. The tuner box on this guy missed WYCC-DT (20). Other bugs found were the receiver often did not display the proper signal being received. At times it would show no signal while displaying a picture.
Remote responsiveness was nonexistent at times as it would not respond to my remote commands.
Other Disappointments were the lack of OTA guide and OTA guide population. The box says it includes an onscreen TV guide, but the only Guide to be found was the banner on top that displays the current channel and what’s on. You could not scroll forward to find out what’s coming on. Over all I am very disappointed in this product from Magnavox. It looks like it was rushed out on the market and care was not given to the product as it could have used one more final polishing. Over all I would give this one 2 stars out of 5 as it’s just good enough for the kids room.
Our next box is the Insignia NS-DXA1, and can be found at Best Buy as it’s there ATSC Store brand converter. I had to go ask a sales associate where there digital tuners were as the ATSC add on box for HDTV ready sets was placed next to the DirecTV boxes and was priced at 174 dollars. This product was placed next to the TV’s in the back of the front of the store and was in a location that was hard to find as the emphasis was to sell TV’s. The pricing on the unit is 59.99 or 19.99 after your coupon.
Upon opening the box, you notice that all the cables required for installation are there, and the surprising thing is that the remote only takes one Triple a battery. The remote felt good in the hand and was easy to use. Hookup was the same as our first box and was installed within seconds. .
Upon turning the unit on, you can notice the quality was much better than the Wal-Mart version and reminded me of a legacy DirecTV receiver. The Menu’s even showed a picture of a C-Band dish as if the software was written by a satellite company.
Finding channels was just as quick as our first review and the unit found all 30 channels I am able to receive in the Chicago market minus WBBM. At the time of this writing WBBM is on VHF Low and is Un-receivable in many locations including mine. WBBM is scheduled to change to VHF-High channel 12 at 3.3KW in 2009. All included features are there, but the one downfall of the program guide was it does not populate guide data from other channels. You have to physically tune to the channel to get data. As promised it does have a TV guide but without populating guide data from other channels, this feature is useless.
This box displayed the digital signal received accurately and was reliable when tuning into channels. The box even accurately found WCIU-DT 26-6 which is out of order from its sub counterparts 26-1 (WCIUHD) 26-2 (METV) 26-3 (METOO). Now if we can get DirecTV to add these to their channel mappings we would be all good!
While the box did its job and performed well, I feel that the price point should be where its Wal-Mart counterpart is at. This box does well and is suitable for any TV that isn’t Digital TV ready! Over all it gets 4 Stars out of 5.
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