Zenith (LG) DTT900 CECB - Page 12

I know. The categories some stores are putting these under is not helping... I think a while back Wal-Mart had one under "DVD players and accessories".

For those channels they "lost", are they supposed to move to VHF in Feb2009?
If so, reception should greatly improve.

When the high power NTSC stations go away, reception of DTV will significantly
improve due to fewer sources of adjacent channel, co-channel and
intermodulation noise....

I use www.tvfool.com whenever I analyze someone's situation.
But I have not (yet) seen or conducted some sort of accuracy verification.

I also use RADIO MOBILE, a FREE propagation prediction program download:
http://www.cplus.org/rmw/english1.html
http://hdtv.forsandiego.com/messages...html#POST28428

R-M automatically downloads SRTM-3 (medium rez) topo database, although
I've manually downloaded the hi-rez SRTM-1 topo database for my area.
And SRTM-1 is barely adequate to resolve local terrain variations....
I normally calculate F(50,50) and/or F(50,90) statistics and then estimate
how much Fade Margin is remaining (typically need 15-20+ dB).

I've developed a set of Excel spread sheets which takes the tvfool results
(and/or Path Loss from Radio-Mobile) and incorporates numerous gain/loss
factors not incorporated into either antennaweb or tvfool (a critical oversight).

This includes Land Use Clutter Loss, Tree Loss, Attic/Indoor Loss, sensitivity
reduction due to Antenna VSWR (ala Oded Bendov), Antenna Gain, Balun loss,
Preamp Gain/Noise Figure, Cable/Splitter loss and receiver Noise Figure.
[Some of these can't help but be guestimates....]

I posted a copy of these spread sheets, attempting to "calibrate" the tvfool
F(99,99) results against the more commonly used F(50,50) and F(50,90)
statistical criteria. [50% of "locations", 90% of the "time"]:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...&#post10961518
Equations are fully described with references to various supporting documents.

Because tvfool calculates "RX(dBm)" using F(99,99) statistics, the levels represent
the signal level during one of the worst fading events during the year (decade?).
This results in calculated RX(dBm) being considerably lower than not only the
best receiver sensitivity...but also well below the thermal noise floor.
Hence it isn't very useful wrt overload calculations....so I calculated a conversion factor.

Saw about 15 Insignia boxes on the shelf at Best Buy (Dearborn, MI) this afternoon...

I noticed my local circuit city has the Zenith DTT900 in stock now (central Virginia).

AVIO, reading the Amazon or Ebay ads is like looking at the Sunday funnies, anyway.
Regards

Whodart

They are only using the Zenith name because of those over the age of 50. They KNOW the Zenith name. Younger people know LG. Zenith is only marketing. As for Insignia? I have no idea.

I called 4 Radio Shack dealers and they were shipped Digital Stream DTX 9900 instead of the Zenith DTT900. This Digital Stream model does not have S video like the two other DS models. Does anyone know about the reception abilities of the model? The statement that all Radio Shack stores will have Zenith is not accurate. I did find one RS store in my area that was shipped the Zenith boxes.

onslowtn - check the following thread in a few hours / days.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=996043

As mentioned above (earlier today), many of the Circuit City locations now have the Zenith DTT900 in stock. Locally, two CC stores have it in stock. Tempted to test it next to the Insignia I own, but from every indication, the Insignia is a direct clone of the Zenith.

Check availability here http://www.circuitcity.com/ccd/Searc...&go.x=9&go.y=7

Steve

Insignia is BB's "house brand", made by LG - so it's not surprising that the Zenith and Insignia are one and the same.

All made by LG, so I would expect very good quality.

Digital Stream also made RS's Accurian ATSC tuner, so there's no surprise there either.

The Digital Stream/Accurian had a 4th gen. chip, and was an excellent receiver. So it should also be very good.

I'd rather have S-video than RF pass through.

Yeah The quality goes in, before the name goes on! There was a video showing a man hand soldering a wire to a solder lug to a tube socket.

They bragged on the quality of their individual hand wired components. This was before the days of printed circuitboards.

I had a friend, who worked for Buroughs Business Machines Company in Detroit, Michigan. He made mechanical adding machines. He was laid off in the late 1960's, when the companied closed. He said that the company was too late to adopt the "paradigm shift" to printed circuit boards.

Zenith DTT900 $49.97 at hhgregg (In store only)

http://www.hhgregg.com/ProductDetail...roductID=20363

http://dtv.broadcastnewsroom.com/art....jsp?id=308137

To add to the above - A reviewer on CC's website noted the following:

"Just note that to watch analog stations you will need to use some form of a switch to change back to the tv tuner because the digital tuner does not pass the antenna signal through it when you turn it off ."

How does the DTT900 or the Insignia tuner compare to previous STB's in terms of fringe area reception say 70+miles out? Would this be a good DX tuner?

I just picked one up today and was eager to answer your question.

My initial reaction is positive, although I do have a unique situation, so YMMV.

I live at 1440 feet in central virginia, my local stations are from charlottesville, ~20 miles away. Distant stations for me are from Richmond, at ~75 miles, and with my elevation they all come in analog. My DX stations when conditions are right come from Hampton Roads/Virginia Beach, although most of the digital stations share frequencies with charlottesville stations.

I've tried 2 samsung HDTV boxes, and some DVD recorders, (the samsung DVD recorder had the best tuner). I've posted all my previous tuner findings here on a local reception thread: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=386678

I would rate this on par with the Samsung DVD recorder (DVD-AR650) as far as the channels I'm receiving. I'm receiving everything I did on the Samsung DVD recorder, which was slightly better than the Samsung 260 box.

My antenna (CM 4228) is fixed, and is now pointing directly to charlotteville, and about 15 degrees away from Richmond. My reception issue has always been multi-path interference from hilly and mountainous terrain. I also have a 4 way splitter in place at the moment. One way I guage the tuner is from a 100W station in Richmond that comes in even with the splitter, it does not come in with the splitter on the Samsung 260 box.

I'll have to check my reception over different times of the day to find out for sure how well this tuner does its job. A regular pattern with multi-path for me is better at night and early morning, and bad during the middle of the day.

I really like the auditory beep (beeps faster with a better signal), when you push the signal button on the remote.

You can scan for channels without deleting by using the EZ add function, pressing AutoScan will delete the menu of saved channels.

I just got the Zenith DTV Box from Circuit City and have played with it for about an hour. These comments are my first thoughts on the box. I'll post additional comments as I do more tests.

Look & Feel: Every thing on the box feels solid most of the case is made of metal; the front is made of plastic, but is necessary for the Red/Blue power light to be seen. The remote is made of plastic, but still feels solid in my hand.

The box measures 8.5" x 1.8" x 6.4" and weighs about 1.65 pounds. It's small enough to fin onto almost every TV. A clever cut pattern on the top of the case provides plenty of ventilation and there are holes on the bottom too. After running about 2 hours, the box does not feel warm at all.

Set-Up: I decided to connect the box to an antenna pointing in the wrong direction for LA stations. The antenna is used to pick up stations in San Diego & Mexico, roughly 100 miles away. Even with the ghosting caused by pointing in the wrong direction, the box pulled all the same channels that my HDTV does with an antenna pointing in the correct direction. (NOTE: Due to all the rain, it's currently impossible for me to receive any TV stations, analog or digital, from San Diego. It may be 1 week before I can try my DX HDTV test to San Diego.)

The set-up proved to be VERY easy and quick. While I didn't time the channel scan, I think it took less than 1 minute to do. The are a total of 6 steps to get going: (1) Welcome message, (2) Select Menu Language, (3) Select TV Aspect ratio, (4) Search For Channels, (5) Select your time zone, and (6) Thank You.

Finding the correct setting for my Sony TV Power on/off was easy. Hold down the TV Power Button and keep pressing channel up until the TV turned on or off. It took a total of 7 up presses to find the correct setting. At that point, I just took my finger off the TV Power Setting.

Operation: Once you "play" with the unit, you'll find operation to be easy. Selecting channels can be done by up/down buttons, direct number entry (like 5-1), press any digit and select from list, press guide and select from list, press FAV and select from list (of favorites), or press RECALL and select from list. The arrow buttons and the center button allow you to select the channel you want.

The ZOOM button selects the picture aspect ratio; Letter Box, Cropped, Squeezed, and Set by program.

The SIGNAL Button shows a bar graph and beeps to indicate the level; slow beeps for weak signal to rapid beeps for good signal to solid beep for top notch signal. The graph is broken into 3 parts; Red, Green, and Blue. It appears that if the bar is in the Green or better yet, Blue section, you'll have no problem. However, if the bar is in the Red Section, you may have a problem.

The SLEEP Button allows you to select from: 1 hour, 2 hours, 3 hours, 4 hours, and OFF (never go to sleep). If you don't touch any button on the remote, the unit will auto power off after the set time.

The MENU Button brings up a menu with 3 main options: Setup, Option, and Lock. The arrows, center button, and Exit allow you to move through the menu selections.

I do like the option to select EZ Add, to look for new channels without deleting the current list.

Image & Audio Quality:

The image looks like I'm playing a DVD into the TV. It is sharp and the colors are clean. Sadly, my Sony 13" TV's speaker can't fully reproduce the quality, but what I can hear sounds very good.

Over All Feelings: I've VERY pleased with what I've seen so far. The Zenith converter has so far performed very well and has all the features I'd want. OK, there's no RF pass through, no analog tuner (not that I care for it), and no S-Video output, but it does the basic functions I'd want from a converter box.

The ONLY function I could not find on the unit was Factory Reset. While not exactly a big deal, I would have liked to see some way to reset the unit to factory setting. You never know if you'll need to start over from the beginning. Maybe there's a secret button press to do this, but I don't know it yet.

There are a few more tests I want to perform and I'll report on them later.


Sincerely,

Bob Diaz

"Welcome message"? Does every LG product show their logo when turned on?

The welcome message is only on set up, not every time you power up.

It does take about 4-5 seconds for an image to display when you power up.

Great find Avio, has 7 day EPG
Here is link to Coship's official page with specs - http://www.coship.com/CoshipEn/Defau...CatalogID=6864