Channel Master CM-7000 Digital to Analog Converter - Page 6

So is this what the remote looks like?

Did anyone else notice that the new MAG CCB7707
Looking at the user manual
It looks like it has the same EPG as the Channel Master?

I also think that they are using an older manual and didn't update as it also has the following:

Stereo Effect among SRS TruSurround, SRS TruSurround XT, SRS TruBass, SRS Focus and None
You can switch Internal Speakers on or off.
You can switch Digital Out among PCM, Dolby Digital or Off

I find the audio incorrect as it has only Analog L/R Audio Output no digital

It also says
Main CPU: Enhanced ST20 32-bit VL-RISC CPU 200 MHz

So is this the best-est box ever?

Someone on here said that the boxes are just good for analog TV and die when they do. I have a RCA 19" B&W TV we bought 1970 and it still works. I bet my $125.00 27" analog TV along with my other 7 analog TVs will out last any of your $1,000.00+ flat screen HDTVs you can buy today. Analog might not be around long but the analog TVs will so the box is important.

I purchased a CM-7000 from summitsouce.com on monday and it arrived yesterday, Thursday, so I can give them a thumbs up. I haven’t had enough time to fully live with it but I have some early observations to share.

The box is metal and nicely constructed. It comes with a RF cable worthy of Channel Master with very nice connectors. No push on cheap thin cable here. The remote also has a nice amount of heft with a solid feel to the buttons. The sensitivity of the tuner/decoder is excellent. Comparing it to the Zenith DTT900, I believe it is slightly more sensitive. On troublesome stations it holds onto the signal slightly better than the Zenith, but understand the difference is very slight and probably should not be used as the difference maker in choosing which box to buy. As far as recovery time after losing the signal, the jury is still out… I need more time with them.

The operation of the receiver seems somewhat unintuitive because the right and left arrows do not generally move you forward and back in the menus. You go forward by pressing the OK button and back with the MENU button. Once you adjust to it there is no problem but it seems strange at first

There is no choice of monitor aspect ratio in the menu. It treats your monitor as 4:3. The wide button on the remote changes the aspect ratio from FULL (anamorphic widescreen), ZOOM1 (maybe 14:8 ??? I’m not sure), ZOOM2 (full 4:3) and LETTERBOX.

Users with 16:9 monitors will be happy with the FULL mode. Users with 4:3 monitors might have a problem. Some of my local stations broadcast the VBI (vertical blanking interval that contains CC data) in such a way that is visible when they have a 4:3 picture embedded in the 16:9 picture. In Letterbox mode on a 4:3 monitor this can be visible and annoying to say the least. In two cases, ABC and NBC, I noticed the VBI disappear when the picture went to full widescreen HD. One oddity occurred on NBC’s Today show which showed no VBI lines in there HD signal until they showed a clip from Fox’s American Idol as a 4:3 image embedded in their signal and the only the embedded image portion of the picture showed the VBI lines. On the other hand the local CBS signal never displayed any VBI lines.

I need more time to see if these lines are visible on any channels when delivering a full HD signal in Letterbox mode, but be warned. The Zenith does not exhibit this problem, though whether it’s more a problem with the broadcasters or the box I can’t say.

My use is to feed a dvd recorder with the anamorphic widescreen signal so I’m still a go with the CM-7000, but to a 4:3 monitor user the Zenith is looking like the better choice because of the VBI issue.

What does "pawnz" mean?

Since when did people stop playing mmorpgs? This is typical slang term in any online game. Pawnz= its owns it delivers its good.

Since when did people START playing mmorpgs ?(WTH is it in the first place ?)

Keep the slang down and use standard english, then everybody will understand what you're talking about.

You never heard of an mmorpg? You must have been living under a rock since 1997.... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MMORPG

This forum is not an on-line game nor is it pro-slang..

Vincent - I've been online since a 2400 baud modem was hot stuff - i.e the days of Compuserve. I have never gotten into the Role playing games, usually doing forums like this.

I give up. I must be having a discussion with people that just got online yesterday. I am truly amazed at the lack of common knowledge. Goodbye.

I've never heard of either Pawnz or mmorpgs.

Googling "Pawnz" is not initially very helpful.

Googling "mmorpgs" is helpful in understanding what the poster is talking about:

MMORPG.com - Your Headquarters for Massive Multiplayer Online Role ...
www.mmorpg.com/

Massively multiplayer online role-playing game - ... The majority of popular MMORPGs are based on traditional fantasy themes ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MMORPG

Avio

My CM-7000 arrived today. It works quite well in spite of my antenna. I have been using an old Radio Shack Yagi intended strictly for the FM band. All but a few stations have the signal strength indicator pegged. Probably because the transmitters (Cedar Hill, TX) are so close I can see their navigation lights. Given the solid signal strength I am not inclined to replace the antenna.

I noticed another VBI data related anomaly. On one program on the local PBS station not only was there VBI data at the top of the 4:3 image but there was a stripe running down most of the left side. The stripe wasn't solid but was blinking just like the VBI data. Strangely the bottom 30 scan lines or so matched the rest of the image. I guess stations still don't quite have a handle on this image conversion thing.

One of the reasons I purchased this unit is because of the discussion here about the missing SPDIF output components and speculation that the data stream might be present. Instead of trying to figure out reasonable values for all of those parts I tried instead to attach an optical output. (Sharp GP1FM514TZ0F) I get a nice glow from the transmitter but my receiver has nothing. I pulled out an ancient logic probe and it verifies that there is a pulsed signal on RA7.

It is times like these that I wish I had an oscilloscope. :-)

What is this about? Someone who is on-topic with this thread?

I've come to the conclusion that so many of these threads are off topic that all the first boxes leave nothing to discuss. Be wary if you're an early adopter. It is not a good sign!

I'm sorry. It was my first post to AVS and I will try to do worse in the future. :-)

Well I got a chance to try it out tonight. I threw in my "Avia Guide to Home Theater" dvd and tried a couple of test patterns as well as just looking at the menus. There was definitely some dot Crawl. Also the S-video looked "sharper" or "clearer". I didn't play around with it much, but it was enough of a difference for me to continue down the path of a CECB with S-Video.
Thanks for suggesting the test!

Don't be so hard on yourself. Just remember next time, common knowledge is that the spelling is pwnz, not pawnz.

i been thinking of using my second coupon on this box. Do you think this digital stream in the picture can be related to the TV and not the Box itself. I'm sure age of the tv plays a part in the analog TVs ability to handle these boxes like in the Early video games days. I guess my choice is between this and digital streams.

If "digital stream" means the VBI, the age of the TV has nothing to do with it. On a plus note, the channel with the most noticable VBI lines when broadcasting 4:3 images embedded in the 16:9 field, did not display them when broadcasting a full 16:9 HD program last night and viewing this on a 4:3 TV in LETTERBOX mode. If this is always the case, then the only time these lines will appear will be when we would want to use ZOOM2 to fill the 4:3 screen fully anyway.

(I'm in the NY DMA and the channel is WPIX-11, RF-33, if anyone local cares to look at it.)

Another positive point about the box is the EPG guide, which is very, very nice. It displays around 10-11 hours of programs vertically on the left side of the screen with program info on the right that changes as you scroll through the list. The right or left arrow changes the channel in the background and populates the guide for the newly selected channel. It's reasonably fast too, with a slight delay for retrieving the program info as you move through the list.

A negative point is that the box didn't recover a couple of times when it received a "scrambled program" which is what it displays when that happens. It doesn't happen everytime, but be warned. This also happened once with my Zenith DTT900 with it displaying "No Signal". Both needed a manual intervention to change the channels and come back to pick up the original channel again. This is likely to cause me some problems until Feb. 18, 2009 when all the channels move to their final frequency assignments at full power. I intend to let it sit on a strong channel for many hours to be certain this doesn't hang up in these circumstances. I'll get back to this thread if it's a more troublesome problem than I currently think it is.

As to your question of this or the Digital Stream box, you can at least try one of those from a local RS dealer and return it easily if you don't use your coupon until you're sure your happy with it. I admit I was seduced by the S-video connector of the CM-7000, but having to buy it online makes return/exchange a pain in the ass.

Digital VBI type data is carried in non-visible data fields, whereas
Analog VBI is carried in Line 21 and hence is visible without overscan.

A converter box converts Digital VBI and outputs Analog VBI in Line 21.
Normal overscan should hide this on your conventional TV, just as it does
when not viewing via the converter box.

The VBI you guys are seeing is generated at the STATION when they embed
a 4:3 analog signal into a digital transmission....erroneously inserting
a SECOND VBI....BELOW the proper VBI line number.

We see this from time to time on our HDTVs, which is not performing the
Digital-to-Analog conversions found in the converter boxes.
[Unlike many HDTVs, mine has overscan. Can you imagine how
annoying it would be to watch analog channels without overscan!!!]

So it's NOT the fault of the CM-7000.
It's simply displaying the VALID pixels as they are received....

Perhaps the encoder at the station can be configured to suppress
the SECOND VBI signal if they only knew the correct equipment settings.
Maybe you can talk to the station engineer....

The only way to get rid of it at your location is to adjust the
vertical position control(s) on a conventional CRT TV.
But then you may not see all of the ESPN score boxes....

but in all this is a good box? not a cheap costing box. any video of it in action

Thanks for the explanation. I have read many of your posts here and have a lot of respect for your knowledge. One thing I do not understand though is why this is the only box (so far at least) I have heard having this problem? The only explanation I could thing of is that the other boxes default to a "slightly zoomed" image as default? Cutting part of the picture out (and thus the offending lines). But this is simply a guess and based on no personal experience

If your explanation is true and it is not the fault of the CM-7000 box, shouldn't we see more boxes show this issue? Again, I am not trying to doubt you, just trying to gain understanding!

Thanks!

I saw the same thing on my RCA DTA 800B.

I rarely see the "second VBI" defect....but when it occurs it's embedded
into the digital PROGRAM and goes away at the end of that program.
So it's upstream from my local stations....

I would think some stations are probably better at this than others.....
And I would hope that most stations don't have this defect....

Do you use an antenna rotor with your HD TV antenna?

The Channel Master CM-7000 exclusively offers the "Scan Add" feature. This important feature allows you to scan for channels at one compass setting and store them, then rotate to a new compass setting scan for channels and add them to your already existing list. Never again will you have re-scan for channels simply to change the channel. The Channel Master CM-7000 is the digital to analog converter box that keeps the consumers needs at the center of its design. Channel Master an industry leader in off-air HD television reception products.

So does this mean it works the rotor to automatically turn the antenna to the right position depending on which direction that station was set for.

I believe you have nailed it. Holl-ands seemed to miss an important point that I’ll try to clear up with an example.

Our 4:3 TV is tuned to a 16:9 HD broadcast and because we want to see the full picture we put the box in LETTERBOX mode. During the show no VBI lines appear, but when the station goes to a 4:3 embedded commercial the lines do appear. I hope that makes it clear that adjusting the overscan on our TV is not going to remove those lines which are far removed from the borders of the TV.

In the NY DMA I have now seen this effect on NBC, Fox, ABC, My9 and CW. The only station not showing the lines with 4:3 embedded broadcasts is CBS. I believe all of these stations are O&O, so one would think they know what they’re doing, though maybe CBS has wiser engineers?

Again, it’s probably not a major issue unless you love the commercials and soon most of those will be HD too. If we’re watching a 4:3 show we’ll be displaying it in full pan&scan mode (ZOOM2 on the CM-7000) and the normal overscan of our TV will keep the VBI lines out of view.

It appears the other manufacturers have taken the VBI lines into account and do not display them and that’s to their credit.

If you are watching a letterboxed ("postage stamped?") 4:3 program,
wouldn't you "zoom" so that it fits the entire screen???
[PS: If you are seeing VBI data at the top of a "postage stamp" image,
it's coming from the station and the converter box can't "fix" it.]

Of course, if you are watching an "HD" program, it probably isn't worth
zooming in and out for every commercial.....

FYI: "Letterbox" vs "Postage Stamp" is illustrated here:
http://www.nfm.com/DTV.ASPX

FWIW: The EIA/CEA-909 Smart Antenna I/F spec mentions several applications.
One of them is connection to an external rotator, which is commanded
to go to desired direction as you change channels.

Maybe we'll see Smart Antenna Rotators in the near future......

Yes. That is precisely what I have been saying... a few times.


No. The Zenith and apparently all the other boxes take this into account and do not display the VBI lines with a "postage stamp" image.

Hi,

Read through most of this thread sorry if I missed the following questions; hoping someone who has this CM-9000 can help me out. I have a recording DVD player that only takes a composite video input (also built in cable tuner). My TV has a free S-Video input. I use component for the “upconvert” DVD into the TV and when I A/B it with the S-Video they are very close in quality. However my TV has very good 3D comb filter. Does the Channel Master CM-7000 allow simultaneous output to both video outputs? Watch TV and record a picture at the same time? I know it only has one set stereo output but I’ve never had any problem using a splitter on that in a previous configuration on cable STB. Anyone given this set up a try. Interesting at the $80 price though using $40 coupon(s) might be better off buying two $60 units. Dual digital tuners versus a better picture via S-Video and less clutter?
thanks

Yes, both video outputs work simulaneously. I am using y-splitters on the audio output so I can simulatneously feed my dvd/hdd recorder the s-video signal and a av-switch that feeds the TV the composite signal to monitor/watch the CM-7000 output.