popbumper Posted October 2, 2004 Share Posted October 2, 2004 All: The next logical step "vision wise" is to add an HD tuner to my home theater setup. Given that, I know of at least a few manufacturers that offer these, Samsung and Magnavox to name two. Can anyone here recommend a tuner that they have, and why they like it? I appreciate the feedback, thanks! Popbumper Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Griffinator Posted October 2, 2004 Share Posted October 2, 2004 If you're looking for a DirecTV HD tuner, give it up. Not gonna happen. DirecTV has pulled all their manufacturing back in house, which means you will be stuck with whatever they give you for an HD tuner... Over-air tuners, OTOH, are a completely different animal.... Avoid Magnavox like the plague. They have been Phillips' junk line ever since the takeover. Sad, really. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
popbumper Posted October 2, 2004 Author Share Posted October 2, 2004 Oops! Let me clarify then - I have Dish Network as my satellite provider. HOWEVER, I only wish to buy an HDTV tuner and hook up an antenna so that I can pull in LOCAL channels that provide some programming in HD. I really DON'T want to go the "pay an additional charge per month" route through a service provider. Hope that clarifies - if anyone has a better suggestion, please let me know! Popbumper Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JJkizak Posted October 3, 2004 Share Posted October 3, 2004 I first purchased a Samsung T165 over the air HD tuner and it instantly smoked. I got a replacement and found out the following: A. When used with my Sony KV34-HS310 HDTV the 16.x 9 HD signals all come in a bit on the dark side and there is no provision on the tuner for adjustment of same. you have to constantly go back and forth between the tv set and the tuner to adjust the brightness and contrast. B. There is no adjustment for color saturation on the tuner. Some stations will loose color saturation when switching from analog to digital. More adjustment required. C. When viewing analog 4 x 3 stations the aspect is incorrectly displayed on the tv---its a bit longer in the horizontal plane and makes circles look oval and people look fat. D. The tuner runs very hot and cannot be placed in a confined enviornment without an external fan. I already had an MY-HD 120 computer video card with DVI daughter card which had none of these problems plus I could record perfectly to the computer hardrive to my hearts content. I then traded away the Samsung tuner to my guru buddy and purchased a MDR-200 HD tuner and it was fine except it was pretty slow on changing digital channels. I still use the computer to record and also to record to D-VHS. The link is www.digitalconnection.com. JJK Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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