Zinwell ZAT-970A? - Page 14

Good thing they thought to include a manual-set clock, unlike the Dish programmers.

This second response from Zinwell tech support just arrived:

We'll see . . .

Anybody else want to join in the fun - service at zinnetusa.com?

I'd be happy to use the manual clock if it didn't zero out to 00:00 2008-01-01 every time the power was disconnected.  One quirk of using the manual clock is that the DISPLAY key shows the current and next programs' times by GMT, but I can live with that.


And indeed I don't expect that; I just muse that it would have been nice if the stations aimed for the lowest common denominator.
Yes.

Of the three televisions I have with ATSC tuners, none attempt to decode the DST information: two have manual selections for DST to be off or on, and the third is oblivious to it, remaining on standard time always, so for eight months of the year I need to set it to Eastern instead of Central to get it to interpret PSIP time by CDT.


I had tried that for ten seconds when the problem first appeared and there was no change; after reading your recommendation I gave the DTT901 a half-hour without power (no change) and then two hours plus a repeat of the initial configuration (still no change).

Right now I'm holding off to see what happens November 1 (when the boxes may understand "02" differently) and again on November 2 (after 2 AM CDT/1 AM CST, when we'll be on CST here).  If the Zenith is still messed up, I'll give up on its Auto DST setting and just flip it between DST On and DST Off twice a year like the first two televisions I mentioned above.  If the Zinwell is still messed up, that will be a factor in deciding whether I keep it or the Venturer.

I'm using a Zenith DTT901 and my clocks have all been correct. I checked my setup, and I have the Day Light Saving setting set to On. The options for this setting are On, Off and Auto. Just to experiment, I set it to Auto and the clock became one hour slow for every station.

So when Day Light Saving is set to On, the box probably calculates the correct time by taking the universal time, applying the offset based on my Time Zone setting, and then adjusting it further for daylight saving time.

For me this isn't a big deal, since I have so many clocks to set manually twice a year. I'll just have to add the Zenith to my list, to make sure I change the Day Light Saving setting.

I hope this info can be useful to you guys in figuring out what's going on with the Zinwell.

Unfortunately, the Zinwell does not have the on/off/auto options that the Zenith does.

kenavs,

This IS NOT just a Zinwell DST issue. Not only does my Zinwell have problems with some stations and not others, my APEX DT250, DT502, Insignia -APT, Digital Stream 9950, and RCA 800B1 all match the same problem and stations.

Just so I understand, are you saying that EVERY receiver you have, or have heard about in your broadcast area, is having identical DST problems with exactly the same stations?

Odd.  My Digital Stream DTX9950 has the right time on all stations, and it has no manual adjustment for DST.

While I don't own an Insignia NS-DXA1-APT, I do have a Zenith DTT901, which is supposed to be identical.  When its DST mode is set to On or Off, it acts accordingly on all stations, but if it is set to Auto, the DTT901 shows the wrong hour on four of the eight stations that are wrong on the Zinwell ZAT970A, but the right hour on the other four and on all seven stations where it is right on the ZAT970A.

When the APEX DT502 and the -APT are set to DST "OFF," then the clocks are one hour behind. When the DST is set to "AUTO" or "ON," then only the two local stations are within the right hour and all the rest are one hour behind.

I did a reset of the Manual Time Set on the Zinwell and it shows the same time on all stations, although the EPG is +4 hours off for the "Eastern" setting (I'm assuming it's the GMT signal).

The event wakeup channel is still switching when using PSIP time. A daily timer fired this morning and since I happened to be around, I checked on it. It was originally set for 42.1 but had switched to 42.2. (It used to go to 52 but I deleted that channel.) I checked the event timer menu and it was incorrect there too. Dunno what triggered it this time. To my knowledge there were no power blips - the UPS connected to my computer audibly complains when the power drops out.

Yes, it's GMT.  When the ZAT970A is on Manual Time, the EPG (if you can call it that: only Now/Next, only the currently tuned channel, and no display of synopses) shows times by GMT.  That doesn't bother me but it could be a deal-breaker for some users.

My main gripes with it:

1. the instability of channel assignments of timer events
2. the loss of the manual clock whenever power is disconnected (coupled with the need to use the manual clock settings thanks to the combination of misunderstanding most stations’ DST settings and the risk of inaccuracy in stations’ PSIP clocks)
3. the reversion of RF out from RF Through to channel 3 or 4 (usually 3) whenever the unit has been on standby.

That last one is not so bad: RF channels that are not close to 3 and 4 still come through even when 3 or 4 is selected (and RF comes through on all channels when the box is on standby), and after transition the nearest frequency I'll be watching will be on VHF7.

I can live with the other two issues also, because I'm never away from home for more than a couple of hours at a time; but most people are not in that position!

Maybe one of those possible OTA firmware updates that the box is supposed to support will fix some of the issues we've brought up here.

My main reasons for liking the box?  Heck, that would make a boring post, wouldn't it!

More bad news about the Zinwell.

I was just mucking around in the menu trying to find where to turn off the parental controls - having to enter a code to do things is a PITA. I was looking because in the manual it says in several places:


That piqued my curiosity so I went a hunting. Couldn't find where to do it BTW. Anyone know how?

Anyhoo . . . after looking here and there, I checked on my two timers. Both of them had all the wakeup info intact EXCEPT THE CHANNEL which was empty.

What's up with that??

The manual says yada, yada?

The parental lock is off by default, and is considered on when a channel is locked?

To set or change a password.

Select Parental Control in set up menu.
New Password is used for revising password; you can press ENTER first then input the new password by using the numeric buttons directly.
After you enter 4 digital numbers, the highlight will automatically skip to Confirm Password and ask you to input the
new password again, If the password is correct, the message “Change password successfully" will be displayed.

To lock a channel.
To parental lock a channel, open the menu and select "channel" then "TV channel list".
Then press "edit" #1 on the remote. If any locks are on, you will be asked for a password. Factory default password is 0000.
Highlight the channel you want to lock and press #2 on the remote and then answer yes to the question or no to cancel.
A lock mark will show on the channel list. Highlight a channel and press #2 again to remove the lock mark.

Don't quote me on this,
Beeper

But Beeper, there are no parental locks on! So why am I still having to enter that pesky password? I want to get rid of it!

Where are you in the menu when it asks for a password?

When you edit the channel list it may ask for a password. I don't find an actual parental control on/off selection in set up.

In set up/parental control make sure the "U.S. TV ratings" are set to "allow all".

Yes, the channel list, Tools menu and also to get into Parental Controls. Seems I ran across it elsewhere too. Annoying . . .

For those of you in the Los Angeles area that want to buy the ZAT 970A - they are available at La Curacao stores (10). Some of the Albertsons store have Zinwell, but some are the 857 model.

Be careful when you purchase at La Curacao, they will try to charge you state tax on the full $49.99. They should only charge you tax on the $9.99 when you use the $40.00 coupon.

Good luck.
.....Al

The 857 is supposed to have the MicroTune Silicon Tuner. The silicon tuners are supposed to have better capabilities than the typical can tuners. Does anyone know if the 857 has all the same features as the ZAT-970A?

I've been trying to find where I could buy one of these units here on the East Coast (PA, MD, VA, WV). Do they have an On-Line store?

The 857 doesn't have program timers which is the main selling point of the 970A as far as I'm concerned. There are other boxes on the market with much better picture quality and program guides than the Zinwell series, but if you're still interested, you could check their web site (www.zinnetusa.com) to find out all of the differences between the two boxes.

The same thing happened to me about a month ago:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...9#post14717599

Ah . . . hard to remember everything that's been reported in a long thread. I sent a link to this thread to Zinwell support so hope that they are taking careful note. They said engineering was looking into it.

Concerning sales tax charges, at least in PA - I have been getting charged tax on the full retail price of the box ($50), because the way I see the plastic card working, it is NOT a 'coupon', it is more like a 'gift card' worth $40 and no more.

Actually, I think it's also a little unlike a gift card, I believe you can use it only once on one box - say for example you found one for $30, could you still use the remaining $10 on another box? I think the way it is stated on the gov't site, you can't. One card, one eligible box.

So I am charged the price of about $50 plus 6% sales tax ($53) and to pay for the product I use the $40 gov't card plus $13 extra cash (credit, etc). That's the way any gift card would work - you might buy one for whatever price but there's no sales tax until you use it to buy a product.

I wouldn't know if the CA sales tax works differently, but in PA at least it seems you are stuck paying the tax. I don't know that a clerk would have any other option to undo the tax.

PA is a non-TAX the $40 card. If you were TAXed, you need to go back and get the money you were overcharged.

There's a separate sales tax thread with links to several of the regulations in different states.
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1037787

They can either undo the tax, or spend a couple days in jail for violating PA law. Tell them that.

The $40 of U.S. government money is NOT taxable in Pennsylvania.

Well thanky rec630 and electrictroy, I followed that discussion which led to the specific PA Link and it is clear that one should NOT be charged on the $40 coupon value.

I still have my receipts, I'll print out this regulation, and may indeed choose to do battle with Acme, and certainly be prepared for future purchases (on behalf of friends and relatives with their coupons).

Too bad the retail stores never read or chose to read this regulation, seems millions of people are getting overcharged.

And if they give you a hard time, tell them you want to speak directly to Wile E.

Dear all, I am interested in DST problem and found here. My country doesn't apply Daylight saving time and I am confused about this culture and finding some answer in wiki. A question is if the "DS_status: DS_day_of_month: DS_hour" is "ON:02:02" and current time without daylight saving in Estern is 10/03/2008 12:26AM, it seems this time should still plus one hour (01:26AM) to achieve daylight saving! But however, if the region set to Pacific to find the current time in Pacific, what will this happen if the PSIP DST is also "ON:02:02" ? ( The current time in Pacific is 10/2/2008 9:26PM). Should this time plus one hour or not ?? Is anything I missed in this question ?? thx ~

My VCR switched to daylight savings last night (from 2 a.m. to 1 a.m.). Fortunately it was intelligent enough to continue taping my favorite shows. I wonder how the Zinwell or the DTVenemy would have handed that same situation?

To answer kama's question: "Spring forward; fall back" is how you remember what to do. The actual switch from Daylight to Standard Time (or vice-versa) happens at 2 a.m. Sunday. I think Daylight Time is stupid. The power suppliers do not report any reduction in power usage when the switch happens, and far more money is wasted in the disruption caused by the changeover (people arriving late to work, or sleeping on their jobs due to not enough hours last night).

This year DST ends on November 2.

Next spring DST will start again on March 8.

You can thank the bozos in congress for altering the time switch that had been in place ever since I can remember. Older electronics are probably set to switch on the previous DST time schedule.