Samsung DTB-H260F ATSC tuner - Page 7

The unit has to scan all the channels in the guide in order to bring up the program info. I think the only STB that performed well in this area was the Humax. I have the RS Accurian and it takes at least 30 secs to bring up the guide. While you wait you see nothing but a "Please Wait" message. If no guide data is being sent by the station it takes even longer. You should hear me when I hit the damn thing by mistake. A 5 sec response for the program guide sounds great to me. Hopefully you'll hear from other owners.

That's unfortunate it's out of stock already. The component out seems to have gone south on my unit. It was working fine until tonight, then the picture went green. HDMI out still works ok.

Same for me.

Tallahassee
Approx: 6 miles from my apartment (32310)
Out of stock

My mom will probably be getting it for me for Christmas, so it looks like I will have to let Circuit City notify me about stock availability.

http://www.saveateagle.com/usbhdtv-g...-V52&ovtac=CMP

Which is better, the Samsung or the AUTUMN WAVE HDTV TUNER which has the 5th generation LG chip?

What chip does the Samsung use? Is it their own design?

IB

Seeing that the OTA HDTV tuner you've linked is a USB OTA HDTV tuner, other than 5th-generation chip, I don't think I can compare it between a USB OTA HDTV tuner and OTA HDTV STB...

However, if you wanted to talk about 5th-generation chips, I'd like to suggest you start a new thread since this thread is mainly about Samsung DTB-H260F ATSC Tuner.

Dont know what happened to Gemini. I surmise the ATI has a faster processor and more integration. I was disappointed seeing I met Samsungs design team on that chip and was told by them it would be out this fall.

ATI seems to have some great engineering people there. I would not doubt that it does better than the Zenith chip.

I almost pushed the button, I'm sure a reset. Did not want to kill the box though. They are out of stock in LA right now and calling Samsung Customer Service would not be good.

When you press the "guide" button on the Accurian's remote, after you've waited about 5-10 seconds, press the "exit" button and the guide will come up with the info sooner than if you just wait for it to do it on it's own (which DOES seem like forever - I know - I've got one ). The trick is waiting just long enough, because if it's too soon, the info will not be there yet.

(Sorry to get off track there - just trying to help.)

No you don't have a defective unit. I have the same issue with the freezing (crashing) of the guide until it gets all the information it needs. Apparently it is normal.

Thanks for the tip. I'm envious of a 5 sec response for the program guide though. The H260F is interesting. Nice to have a good option if the Accurian dies.

Just discovered this thread today. I am having a westinghouse 37 HDTV delivered on friday and was looking into some HD OTA recievers. This samsung seams to be the best of the bunch. Can anyone tell me how an OTA reciever works with your cable signal? Do you still pay for your cable and use it in place of your normal cablebox or can you get cable channels now withought having to pay for cable at all? Thanks in advance for any help you can give.

It doesn't. You need a QAM receiver. The H260 is both OTA and QAM.

You need to have minimal cable service so that it is piped into your house. Often times (but not always) there are unencrypted channels that the QAM receiver can decode. Usually your local broadcast HD channels are included. It will not decode encrypted channels.

Ed

Here's a quick question regarding the h260f QAM ability... what is the RF range that it is able to tune?

In my experience, the QAM tuners built into the OTA receivers can tune up to about 800 MHz - OTA channel 69. My local cable system put many of the unencrypted QAM streams at 800-850 MHz, above the range of my tuner, making it impossible to get to them.

So can the h260f tune above Channel 69/800 MHz?

They both have 5th gen LG Tuner

This samsung does not have the LG chip, rather it has an ATI chip.

Obviously, it's an ATI chip, I was told the TUNER was LG. Thanks.

The thing everyone gets excited about is the 5gen LG decoder chip. The actual RF tuner probably hasn't changed in 40-50 years. The tuner just selects the RF frequency, the decoder chip is what overcomes weak signal strength and multipath and decodes the digital signal. I didn't mean imply that you didn't read the prior posts.

I read back in the SAMSUNG T 100 days that the sensitivity of the front end transistor was important also. But maybe now that is a moot point.

-DonB2

As I noted earlier in this thread, the Samsung works pretty well, but it does not receive weak signals or signals suffering from multipath as well as a receiver equipped with the 5th gen LG.

The Samsung is reasonably good, but not quite up to the LG. I compared it with two different receiver that use the LG -- a DirecTV H20 and Fusion USB receiver.

It will be great when (if?) somebody makes a stand-alone STB that uses the 5th gen LG.

You can buy it from circuit city on line.

... with built in DVR ...

That's on my 2006-2007 Christmas wish list ...

LG has new tuners coming out. Although it's not really STB but more like a recorder. I'm assuming they are using the same chips/circuitry as the Fusion. Here's a picture of the units... http://www.hdtvexpert.com/pages_b/LGline2007.html

Have any of you early 'H260 users on this thread successfully controlled it with ReplayTV IR-blaster codes?

I'm new to posting on this forum, but I've read that some members have successfully IR-controlled other Samsung tuners (T351, T451) and integrated them into their ReplayTV channel guide.

I've manually recorded OTA 16X9 via S-video on my ReplayTV and the quality is surprisingly good, but my current tuner isn't compatible with the ReplayTV IR-blaster codes, so I'm thinking about a adding a dedicated 'H260 if it's possible to get the IR codes to work.

Any advice would be appreciated.

5th Generation vs 5th Generation I get confused

When I read on this post about the 5th Generation Chip are we talking LG or ATI?

Is the ATI Xilleon 260 considered to be a 5th Generation chip? Or is the designation of 5th generation used in context with the LG chip set only.

-Donb2

Zenith showed the first "5th" Generation chip at NAB a couple of years ago. Ever since then, chips that work better with multipath are loosely grouped into Generation 5 chips. No one knows what group the ATI chip is in.

What we in the industry expect is that the newer generation of chips, whatever you want to call them, will successfully decode more of the ensembles listed in the ATSC A/74 Receiver Guidelines. These were multipath profiles that were generated in Washington, DC and NYC and recorded and they are distributed to manufacturers to test their receivers. There does not seem to be a consensus yet as to what profiles and how many of them need to be decoded to qualify the receiver as a higher generation, current technology one.

Some say 21 profiles, some say 30, Ive heard 34 and 37 out of the 50 that were generated and are part of A/74.

Chuckkey,

Thanks that explains it. Getting past the multipath issues will make me very happy.

-DonB2

Probably off topic for this thread, but Samsung was a major contributor to this symposium. Both the slide show and the audio are very informative.

http://www.iptv.org/dtv/2006/media_p...5&id=7&Track=T

Per your Cropped JPEG, the square chip next to the Alps "tin-can" tuner is labeled Sillicon Image and hence must be the HDMI interface chip---
This should have been obvious due to it's location next to the HDMI connector.

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The Samsung DTB-H260F OTA STB uses the ALPS TDQU3-001A, which is a General Purpose VHF/UHF RF Tuner Module:
http://www3.alps.co.jp/index-e.html
(Look under RF DEVICES/DIGITAL TERRESTRIAL TUNERS.)

The spec sheet for the TDQ series tuner specifies a "typical" Noise Figure of 7 dB (est. -84 dBm sensitivity),
which is equal to or better than many other tuners, but not quite as good as the Alps TEQ series tuner ("typical" N.F. is 5.5 dB VHF and 6 dB UHF).

I'm going to speculate that the RF performance is probably the same for the companion TDH series tuner,
which adds an ATI NXT2004 ATSC/QAM DECODER chip. FYI: The TDH2 is used in my Sylvania 6900DTE OTA STB and also the PrimeTV PHD101 OTA STB.

====================================================
As posted above, the huge chip is the ATI Xilleon 240H (p/n 215H48AG21HG), which includes an ATSC/NTSC/QAM DEMODUATOR:
http://ati.amd.com/products/brochure...AGlance_20.pdf
http://ati.amd.com/products/xilleon240sh/index.html

ATI claimed that the Theater ATSC Decoder chips meet the ATSC A/74 Performance Guidelines.
The later Xilleon 240/260 chips incorporated the Theater ATSC Decoder functionality into the display driver chip.
Hence it appears that the Samsung HTB-H260F is a so-called "fifth gen" receiver.

ATI Press Release claimed ATSC A74 Performance Guidelines "compliance" (some? most? all?) for their Theater 310 and 313 ATSC Decoder chips.
http://www.eetimes.com/showArticle.j...cleID=55300593
ATI provided A74 Field Ensemble test results in Jun05 Comments re SHVERA ILLR (ET Docket 05-102) for four ATSC Receivers:
http://gullfoss2.fcc.gov/prod/ecfs/r...ent=6517693762
The best results were claimed for the latest ATI (presumably Xilleon?) chip with error free results for 34 out of 50.
The next best chip (preceeding Theater chip?) had very similiar results (32 out of 50).

The other two unnamed ATSC Receivers (one of which was called "3rd Gen") had error free results for only 9 or 10 out of 50.

===============================================
Here is the link to the CRC tests, where the Samsung "Gemini" prototype, tested in Aug05 (a few months later than the above ATI test report),
had error free results for 38 out of 50 Field Ensembles--but probably different test equipment:
http://www.crc.ca/en/html/crc/home/r...broadcast/rtnt

The Samsung prototype tested by CRC reportedly used an off-the-shelf Alps tuner and the so-called "Gemini" ATSC Decoder chip.
Based on what is in the DTB-H260F, I'm going to speculate that "Gemini" was an early version of the ATI Xilleon chip.

===================================================
When tested, the Samsung prototype had much better performance than the nearly two-years earlier LG/Zenith "fifth gen" prototype:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...ld#post6339487
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...rc#post6041081

Unfortunately, the CRC test on the LG/Zenith "fifth gen" Receiver (with the LGDT3303 ATSC Decoder chip)
was conducted on an early prototype in Sep03 and we have not seen any recent tests on the (more or less) final product.

I would be curious to know how many of the A/74 test ensembles would fail on the PRODUCTION LG/Zenith "fifth gen" Receivers (e.g. PC Cards and HDTVs).

Your very up to date and I agree with needing to know what the new Thompson and LG (Zenith) chips are capable of. Trying to get that information from the chip guys is real difficult. There were two "prototype" receivers produced in June this year but there are no reports as to performance. At least a report that shows what ensembles were passed and how many.

The NTIA website (coupon box program) has a lot of filings from concerned people, not only from the standpoint of mulitpath, but also interference. Many of the optimum interference values have not been determined. These tuners (Alps) all seem to use single conversion. The word is that the "Grand Alliance" prototype receiver way back used dual conversion, which is not cost effective for consumer TV. There is some thought of manufacturers going that direction as well, of course at a higher cost.

See Charlie Rhodes response to the NPRM from NTIA here: http://www.ntia.doc.gov/otiahome/dtv...omment0047.pdf

Just seems like a lot of unknowns. A/74 has a lot of holes in it.

I think multi-conversion tuners are coming at a lower cost than the current batch of single-conversion tuners. Microtune sells such a tuner for less than $3 today. Please have a look at their MT2131.

I tried to post a URL to the product datasheet, but the forum would not let me post it since I'm new here.

Reg

P.S. Thanks for all the info on the Samsung DTB-H260F!! I think I will hold off, as my Hughes HIRD-E86 now receives both NTSC and ATSC. It's not perfect, but having NTSC support makes up for some of it's failures. Hopefully better ATSC receivers are yet to come!

Ill check out the Microtune, did not hear about that.
Chuck