I am trying to be fair but I'm a bit upset about the treatment I have received by Motorola. Back in December I bought a HDT-101 used on EBay. The unit worked fine until a few days ago when it locked up showing 0000 in the display.

I called Motorola tech support hoping I could somehow reset the unit. I was told that wasn't possilble and the 0000 on the front indicated a known chip defect and in that case they just replace the unit. The problem is since I'm not the original owner they will do nothing for me. Basically it can't be fixed I'm out of luck.

As someone who bought the HDT-101 used I have no legal right to a warranty. However when there is a known defect in a product, companies have been known to provide some kind of support for the customer. Motorola offered no solution to my problem. I would have even welcomed a low cost solution. I will not buy any Motorola product in the future and I would not recommend the purchase of any of their equipment on the used market since they will not support it.

Motorola makes no money on the re-sale of used equipment. You are not thier customer. :)

Granted, but what they have made is a disposable product with a known defect.

After talking nicely with the people at Motorola they have agreed to refund the money I paid for the HDT-101. They will be sending the shipping labels for me to send it back to them. All I have to do is call them when I send it back and they will start the refund procedure. I was really hoping they would fix/replace but this is more than I expected.

I have a Motorola digital TV tuner hdtv100 then a HDTV 101. I have seen the death of two of them. I am now out of warranty & Motorola said "T S" [tough stuff] & I do not have the $ to buy a third. Thus I am back to analog. I compare their tuners to windows 3.0 on a 286 pc or like the first color TVs in the late 1950s. Now before I buy any thing I will check the reports of it. I have found by typing in goggle most report these Motorola tuners as junk. One said to spend your money on some thing else. I am blessed that I did not buy a HD monitor connect up to the tuner. If I did I would be required to replace this tuner. But since I was watching the composite SD output to an analog TV I will just replace them both. NOTE: they have an rs232 port on the back. Has any one tried to log into it?

The HD100 tuner I have is possibly the biggest piece of A/V junk I have ever owned at any price. The only reason I keep mine around is because my cable company doesn't carry a couple channels in HD that I can get using the OTA tuner. I have never heard of anyone using the rs232 port on the unit - I have seen rumors that there was a firmware upgrade for the HD100 that could be done with the rs232 port, but I have never been able to find the file for download anywhere.

The HD100 tuner I have is possibly the biggest piece of A/V junk I have ever owned at any price. The only reason I keep mine around is because my cable company doesn't carry a couple channels in HD that I can get using the OTA tuner. I have never heard of anyone using the rs232 port on the unit - I have seen rumors that there was a firmware upgrade for the HD100 that could be done with the rs232 port, but I have never been able to find the file for download anywhere.You might plug it into a PC & see what comes up, like for an example a menu or a log in screen like any VT100 that a lot of equipment uses.

I have one of the 101's, and several of the 100's.. as consumer reports would say:
"there are better choices" :(

I've had a HDT100 for a few years now and have been fairly happy with it. It appears to have a decent receiver and video processor/decoder. Of course, this is my only OTA tuner, so I haven't compared it to other OTA tuners. In general, my OTA has better quality than the same channels on my cable service.

I used to get flashing/streaking of the video until I installed a fan in the top of the case blowing down onto a hot spot on the board. It's been fine ever since. My main complaint would be that the menus are poorly structured and a passcode is needed for EVERYTHING.

Could you connect the rs232 port to a pc & see what come up when it is first powered up.