Here are a few other discussion threads I found in this forum on the Sir T150 that cover a lot of information (and recent history) about it:
Samsung SIR-T150 problems
Samsung SIR-T150 STB Upgrade?
Samsung T150 Update Problems
Samsung SIR-T150 getting choppy audio
Problem Updating Samsung SIR-T150 to 1.63
Samsung SIRT-150 black vs. gray bars
Note that some of the problems discussed early on in these threads were fixed by the downloadable software upgrades discussed later on.
I upgraded my own unit to the 1.63 version and have been very pleased with the tuner ever since.
You can determine the version of your tuner by going to "Menu", making sure "Help" is 'on' and pressing the "Display" button on the remote. The upgrade has been available by email from a Samsung rep (Steve Panosian
[email protected] ) mentioned in the threads above. For the moment I also have posted both the 1.6 and 1.63 versions on my meager web page,
http://members.telocity.com/~rmears with some updated instructions. The update ran fine from my Windows-ME machine even though earlier instructions said you needed Windows 95 or DOS.
The 1.63 upgrade fixed the choppy audio problem for me, and it changed the previously very annoying behavior of the screen mode/stretch
(I use a 4:3 HD TV monitor) as follows:
- I set screen mode to ZOOM while viewing a widescreen channel - this "unsquishes" the picture. You lose the left & right edges of a widescreen picture, but people look normal instead of super thin. Shows are usually framed for the center area anyway. Any HD stations showing standard TV pictures pillar-boxed in the middle will show properly restored to full 4:3 screen, losing the black pillar bars on the sides.
- Change channels to a 4:3 SD program channel, the screen mode automatically switches to FULL, so the 4:3 picture matches the 4:3 display correctly.
- Changing back to a widescreen channel, the screen mode remembers to go back to ZOOM (as set in the first step above). So you never see either squished widescreen pictures or standard pictures pillar-boxed on HD/wide channels. The OLD behavior before the upgrade from version 1.6 to 1.63 was that it would ALWAYS switch back to FULL mode with every channel change, always returning to a squished and/or pillar-boxed picture for all HD channels --only the SD channels would look correct.
In other words, after the upgrade it separately remembers
your preferred display method for each of the widescreen and standard 4:3 channel signals being broadcast.
The upgrade gives similar improved behavior for 16:9 displays, switching between FULL to display a widescreen show properly on your widescreen TV, and for a standard 4:3 program, your preference of Pillar-boxed, FULL (stretched wide), or Zoomed (enlarged to fill the screen but clipping the top & bottom of the picture some).
Still, if the station is pillar-boxing a widescreen signal, that's what you get on your widescreen tv unless your tv provides some sort of picture zoom.
The tuner does allow one other odd mode: pillar-boxing a widescreen program, which seems pointless, but maybe it's useful somehow.)