Artec T3A Pro Digital-to-Analog TV Converter Box Review

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(More customer reviews)The converter scans channels in fast and get good reception on the channels predicted from a [...] lookup. Stations are about 30 miles away but through rolling hills and the antenna mast is in a valley in the deep woods surrounded by 50-100 ft trees. The outdoor antenna is a homemade Grey-Hoverman db4 (4 bow-ties) made with coat hangers, chicken-wire and scrap wood on a 25 foot mast this still pulls in good quality on the stations predicted from a [...]. The receiver does not pick up any of the station that were on the edge of needing extreme measures to pick up. The receiver is very small in size and the remote is a little small but usable. The EPG has one glitch, where one of ten times, a channel is selected in the EPG it will not accept the selection and do nothing. The remedy for this is click the channel below it then hit channel up. This situation is unpleasant if a viewer is attempting to watch two shows at the same time by using the previous channel button (avoid the commercials) to go back in forth. This is not a biggie but it seems it would have been discovered in product testing unless this glitch is limited to this particular receiver. The EPG at times will have the programming list for channels up to 18 hours in advance. Sometimes the EPG will not have a entry for a program starting in 5 minute. This appears to be an issue with the individual stations. The info in the EPG is limited by both the lack of information entered by the station and the setup of the EPG. The converter was worth the money.

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CRAIG 15 INCH HIGH DEFINITION TV 720P CLC501 Review

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(More customer reviews)... I'm lucky (or unlucky) enough that I got this television as a gift, so at least I didn't have to waste my well earned $150 bucks on it. Simply put, this television is terrible!!!
General Issues:
TERRIBLE VIEWING ANGLE- the only way you can see the picture is if you're looking straight on directly at the television at eye level. I have it in my bedroom on a table, and I can't lie down or sit in a chair off to the side of it because the picture goes COMPLETELY black
POOR SOUND- the highest level volume still isn't enough for me to hear the dialogue if I have my window open or my bedroom fan on
Problem with my unit:
I had installed a digital antenna to pick up local stations, but tried to attach it to my cable the other day. My cable wasn't working so I decided to plug the antenna back in for the meantime, and now it doesn't work! The TV won't pick up ANY channels, can't get any help from the company and am completely s.o.l. Now it's basically a glorified 'not so portable' DVD player. It's completely useless- I can't wait until I can buy a new TV.

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Philips MANT940 UHF Digital and Analog Indoor/Outdoor Antenna Review

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(More customer reviews)I have tried five or six compact antennas that can be used indoors, as I live in an apartment. The best performing of those models (a very basic UNpowered Philips model)could get four of the six strong stations in my town, and none of the four or five weaker stations. And, getting those stations required moving the "rabbit ears" back and forth whenever the signal went out.
This model was designed for OUTDOOR use, but I simply placed it on a window sill that faces in the direction of the six major stations in my community. After moving it left and right a few inches, I found a location on the window sill that locked in an absolutely perfect signal on all six of the strong stations and on two weak stations I had never been able to get before.
How good is the resulting picture? It is the sharpest, clearest picture I've ever seen on any TV, far sharper than the picture provided by cable television service. Because each channel offers multiple "sub-channels" (two, three or four programs per channel), the eight stations I am getting are showing a total of about sixteen programs at any given time.
So, for $50, I get a choice of sixteen programs with an ultra-clear digital picture without having to pay one dime to the cable company. People who have never seen a TV program from an "over the air" digital signal are always shocked by the quality of the picture...just amazingly sharp with zero ghosting or noise.
The included cable is short, but it works well, as my TV is just six feet from the window where the antenna is placed. To use the antenna mounted outdoors on a wall, as the directions suggest, would require buying an additional length of cable.
To use just ONE antenna with multiple televisions would require using a splitter and running cables from that splitter to each TV, which might weaken the quality of the signal.
I'm guessing that putting the antenna outdoors, high on an outside wall facing the broadcasting towers might bring in a few more of the weaker stations.

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VisionTek TV Wonder HD 650 USB TV Dual Tuner/Recorder Review

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(More customer reviews)I was able to get this tuner during a 24 sale the weekend after Thanksgiving at a VERY good price (over 50% off) and I have been very happy that I did. To be honest, this model was on my short list to start with but the price made it a no brainer. I've been using this tuner daily since the first week of December when I first installed it and have had very few issues with it.
For the record, I have used this on two different software installs: Windows Vista Ultimate 32-bit and the Windows 7 32-bit Beta.
Pros:
Easy integration with Media Center both under Vista and Windows 7. In fact, it's been better under the Windows 7 Beta Media Center than under Vista!
Easy hardware set up. Plug it into your computer, install drivers, and plug in a TV and radio antenna and you're set. No needs to worry about the hardware aspect (minus turning the antenna in some cases).
Onboard MPEG-2 decoding that takes some of the pressure off of your CPU and other components.
Not very steep hardware requirements for your PC.
Can be used with other Media PC DVR software suites.
Great HD picture!
Cons:
The included Catalyst Media software is very buggy.
Cannot get the included remote to work.
As alluded to under cons the Catalyst Media software is more than a little buggy, both under Vista and Windows 7. It will work, most of the time. However, if you're like me "most of the time" just won't cut it if you're counting on it to record shows when you're away from your PC. Further, the Catalyst software does not seem to be able to display on a 16:10 ration display such as my LG LCD 22 incher. The upside is that if you play the recorded content back in another application such as Windows Media Player the aspect ratios are correct. It's just very distracting, to me at least, when watching live TV.
After two days of trying to get used to Catalyst I decided to seek out alternatives and settled on two. The first was Beyond TV and then Windows Media Center (Vista). Beyond TV works much better than the included software, produces a better picture quality, and has the correct aspect ratios. Windows Media Center under Vista has just a tad under the quality of Beyond TV. To me it was worth it to rely on Media Center after the trial period of Beyond TV was over as I wasn't ready to pay $40 more than I paid for the tuner for a software package.
My only complaint using under Media Center with Vista was the lack of the digital sub channels that many station simulcast. This is a problem with Vista and not the tuner so I do not ding the tuner for it.
The tuner really started to shine though under Windows 7 Beta, of all things! Media Center under 7 is more feature complete than it is under Vista and displays all the digital sub-channels and records in better quality (max quality under settings) than under any of the previously used software packages. In fact, even though the Catalyst software is installed under Windows 7 I have only used it once in the last month and rely totally on Media Center for my TV recording.
Now on to some of the issues some may have with this tuner.
I do not have cable so I rely on over-the-air broadcasts for my TV viewing. At first I was using my old trusty rabbit ear antenna figuring that I live less than 8 miles from the three main broadcast antennas for my television market. This was a mixed bag of results. The three main stations came in fine but I had "issues" picking up others such as the local PBS station. A quick run to the store to pick up an amplified antenna (RCA ANT1450B Multi-Directional Digital Flat Amplified Home Theater Antenna (Black)) and I was in business on all my local stations.
One other issues is my inability to get the included remote control to work. The poor documentation that comes with the tuner offers no help in this regard and I've given up. I don't really listen to FM radio so other than testing it to make sure it works once I've not used that feature.
Overall, this is an excellent choice for someone looking to setup HDTV recording on their computer in either a home media center setup or on their desktop machine for casual watching.


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Philips MANT-410 Amplified Indoor Antenna Review

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(More customer reviews)So far, so good. First the background:
I live in downtown Dallas, on the 6th floor of an 11 story apartment building with concrete/brick walls, and only two windows in my apartment. I have a Plasma HDTV, and my cable is horrible, with very bad reception, caused by thousands of feet of cable, snaked throughout my building. As far as stations in my area, FOX and ABC are in the downtown area (ABC is about 5 blocks away from me, FOX about 15 blocks), and NBC is a little further, while CBS is the furthest at around 30 miles away. I purchased the antenna in hopes of receiving over-the-air HD signals from these major stations.
I was not expecting much from this $25 antenna, especially since it would be placed inside my building, and the majority of folks on-line seem to think that indoor antennas are a waste of money. But, upon plugging it in, and having my TV search for the channels, I was AMAZED at the quality of reception that this thing brings in. The picture quality is amazing, and oddly enough, the best station that I get is CBS, which is transmitting from the furthest distance. Not only do I get the 4 MAJOR networks (CBS, ABC, FOX, and NBC) but I also get UPN, WB, PBS, and an abundance of Spanish language and religious programming, all in either HD, or high quality Digital Transmission.
Watching sports and quality shows on television is the reason that you get an HD television. This antenna works very well for me. However, be forewarned: this antenna will not work for everyone who buys it. I recommend purchasing from a retailer that will allow for an exchange or return without penalty (i.e. restocking fees, or shipping charges). Also, I have yet to use my antenna during bad weather, so I have yet to see if the signals will fail during storms, or hold up. I am not expecting every station to come through during a storm, but hoping for the best.
So, that being said, here is why I find this product Good, but misleading. The product comes with a "Built-in selector switch makes it easy to change between antenna reception and alternate video sources" which I took to mean that I could switch between the antenna reception and my regular cable source, with no problems. This is not possible, as if you plug the cable source in, it cancels all antenna reception. I am not sure if this is supposed to happen or not. If not, then I have a defective antenna. If it is supposed to happen, then I am not sure what the purpose of the switch is. Maybe it's to switch between a VCR and antenna, so that you don't have to run your antenna through your VCR, but the switch does not work with my cable.
There are other ways to get around having two separate video sources (antenna and cable) that you need to get to your TV. If your television has picture in picture, with dual tuner, then you can plug your cable into one, and your antenna into the other. Or, you can run your cable through your VCR, plug the VCR into an AV jack on your television, and change channels via your VCR.
Anyway, the MANT410 is capable of great reception, and it works beautifully for me. Good luck.

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HDMI 3-In 1-Out HDMI Auto Switch with 55cm Pigtail Support 3D Review

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(More customer reviews)I purchased this product because it was the only solution I found that didn't require me buying another HDMI cable. I was expecting that I would need to manually switch between cable and dvd player which was fine. However, when I received the switcher a few days later, I plugged it in to the TV and attached the cable and dvd player cables to the unit (which is very small)I found that the unit switched itself, sensing where the signal was coming from. Amazing considering the price.
Dollar for dollar, this thing cannot be beat. This is one of those rare purchases that far exceeded my expectations. In my opinion, you can't go wrong with this.

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DIRECTV - Satellite antenna - dish - outdoor - 5-LNB - ku-band, ka-band Review

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(More customer reviews)The middle picture is the AT9 also called the "Side-Car" model which performs exactly like the newer Slimline model. There's no difference between the two other than one is a little more prettier than the other an the reflector on the Slimline model is slightly bigger which may or may not yield a better signal strength.

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