Well, I suppose I could've continued waiting for Sony to fix the HD-100 problems. Like most other people, I think there's a good chance that when they do, it'll be a great box. I just wasn't willing to wait and see.
Yesterday, I officially gave up and returned the box to the dealer. No questions asked on their part, but they're also not the usual box shop, they're the local high end dealer/custom installer, and they've made a fair hunk from me in the past, so I guess they're nice that way.
They replaced it for the Panasonic TU-HDS20. The very LACK of complaints about that box here told me I could probably expect good things - and by and large it's been good so far:
The good:
a) The Panasonic supports every likely display mode, even 720p, and allows you to lock the output display to any one of them, or switch automatically among the native modes. There's also a "hybrid" mode I'm not using which shows all 720/1080 material at 1080i and anything else at 480i.
b) All of my OTA reception problems have essentially vanished with this receiver (so far, anyway). KING 5.3 and KCTS 9.2/9.3 come in flawlessly, unlike the HD-100's frequent loss of signal. Also I'm not 100% certain, but it appears that the KCTS 9.1 audio/video sync drift I saw with the HD100 may not be occurring at all with the Panasonic.
The slightly wonky:
a) As other people have noted, the guide is dog slow.
b) You can't remove OTA channels from the guide (completely) for those that the APG guide has downloaded programming info for from the satellites, even if the OTA reception of that channel is bad or nonexistent. This leaves a few snowy channels in the lineup that I don't want to see. You can work around this by removing them from the "Favorite" channels lineup and defaulting to using the favorites list, so it's not that big a deal.
c) Tolerance of slightly low DirecTV signal strength is not as good as either of my other two receivers: The Panasonic shows relatively frequent if minor breakup on the 119 satellite (which of course includes the hi-def channels) where my other two receivers (Sony B55 and RCA Ultimate TV) do not ever show the same breakups, at the same signal strength. Looks like I'll have to go out and tweak the dish a bit for a compromise position between Sat A and Sat B.
d) The fan's still audible but nowhere near as bad as the Sony.
e) Why on earth did they use RCA connectors for the RGBHV output instead of, say, a VGA connector? (I'm assuming BNC's would be too much to ask for.) Probably because they expect lots more people to use the outputs as YPrPb instead, and they figure those of us who need RGBHV will be willing to go deal with finding a funky cable.
f) Setting up favorite channel lists was far more flexible (not to mention quick) in the Sony.
Even though my list of minuses looks longer than the plusses, it's actually a much better unit. My nits are minor, and I bet Panasonic could fix some of them if they were motivated enough, although I'm not getting my hopes up.
All in all, this box seems to basically Just Work where the Sony was a pretty major exercise in frustration.
------------------
Andy
Yesterday, I officially gave up and returned the box to the dealer. No questions asked on their part, but they're also not the usual box shop, they're the local high end dealer/custom installer, and they've made a fair hunk from me in the past, so I guess they're nice that way.
They replaced it for the Panasonic TU-HDS20. The very LACK of complaints about that box here told me I could probably expect good things - and by and large it's been good so far:
The good:
a) The Panasonic supports every likely display mode, even 720p, and allows you to lock the output display to any one of them, or switch automatically among the native modes. There's also a "hybrid" mode I'm not using which shows all 720/1080 material at 1080i and anything else at 480i.
b) All of my OTA reception problems have essentially vanished with this receiver (so far, anyway). KING 5.3 and KCTS 9.2/9.3 come in flawlessly, unlike the HD-100's frequent loss of signal. Also I'm not 100% certain, but it appears that the KCTS 9.1 audio/video sync drift I saw with the HD100 may not be occurring at all with the Panasonic.
The slightly wonky:
a) As other people have noted, the guide is dog slow.
b) You can't remove OTA channels from the guide (completely) for those that the APG guide has downloaded programming info for from the satellites, even if the OTA reception of that channel is bad or nonexistent. This leaves a few snowy channels in the lineup that I don't want to see. You can work around this by removing them from the "Favorite" channels lineup and defaulting to using the favorites list, so it's not that big a deal.
c) Tolerance of slightly low DirecTV signal strength is not as good as either of my other two receivers: The Panasonic shows relatively frequent if minor breakup on the 119 satellite (which of course includes the hi-def channels) where my other two receivers (Sony B55 and RCA Ultimate TV) do not ever show the same breakups, at the same signal strength. Looks like I'll have to go out and tweak the dish a bit for a compromise position between Sat A and Sat B.
d) The fan's still audible but nowhere near as bad as the Sony.
e) Why on earth did they use RCA connectors for the RGBHV output instead of, say, a VGA connector? (I'm assuming BNC's would be too much to ask for.) Probably because they expect lots more people to use the outputs as YPrPb instead, and they figure those of us who need RGBHV will be willing to go deal with finding a funky cable.
f) Setting up favorite channel lists was far more flexible (not to mention quick) in the Sony.
Even though my list of minuses looks longer than the plusses, it's actually a much better unit. My nits are minor, and I bet Panasonic could fix some of them if they were motivated enough, although I'm not getting my hopes up.
All in all, this box seems to basically Just Work where the Sony was a pretty major exercise in frustration.
------------------
Andy
