Wal-Mart Now Ready With TV Converter Boxes and Promised Low Price for Digital Transition

Post by **Shane** » Mon Feb 11, 2008 7:05 am

One week before U.S. households receive the first of thousands of $40 digital converter box coupons, Wal-Mart is stocked and ready with these small converter box units designed to keep home analog TVs receiving a digital signal. Today 3,400 Wal- Mart stores carry a new Magnavox digital converter box, with a retail price of $49.87.

The Nielsen Company estimates that ...

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akirby · Post by **akirby** » Mon Feb 11, 2008 8:16 am

My wife's great aunt needs one of these. She currently records on a VHS VCR using rabbit ears and a coax feed to the TV on channel 3.

I assume these boxes will have a coax RF output to accomodate older TVs without A/V inputs, and if so she can set the VCR to record on channel 3 or 4 but the VCR won't be able to change the channel on the ATSC tuner.

Will we see new cheaper DVRs for OTA ATSC now that NTSC is dead? Or is there another cheaper solution that I haven't seen? I suppose an older standalone Tivo would work if the ATSC tuner box is remote controlled.

Richard · Post by **Richard** » Mon Feb 11, 2008 10:51 am

I just recently saw about 8 of them lined up at Walmart but it would not show a price...

Maganavox
http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product. ... id=8283870

RCA
http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product. ... id=8343230

Based on the feature set the RCA seems the better deal.

The only way you can use this to record with a VCR is a one shot manual setup. Set the timer on the VCR and set your channel on the box. The only way you could get a VCR to drive one of these is if it is new and has the remote control codes to control it like they do with cable and sat STBs. I would not be holding my breath for that to happen but gee, ya never know...

akirby · Post by **akirby** » Mon Feb 11, 2008 11:05 am

Richard wrote:The only way you could get a VCR to drive one of these is if it is new and has the remote control codes to control it like they do with cable and sat STBs. I would not be holding my breath for that to happen but gee, ya never know...

Exactly - that's why I was thinking it would be a smaller capacity DVR rather than a VCR. Throw in a cheap small hard drive and you could do manual recordings without a program guide.

akirby · Post by **akirby** » Mon Feb 11, 2008 12:43 pm

Just found this from RCA:

The first is DRC8335, a VCR/DVD combo system that will record analog or digital TV signals directly to VCR or DVD (DVD+R/RW and DVD-R/RW). It has built-in twin NTSC/ATSC tuners, a DV-in port (for direct control and recording from most digital camcorders) and the TV Guardian foul language filter. The DRC8335 will be available in April for $249.99.

So it's really a DVD recorder with a VCR tacked on. That would be perfect if it has a coax output.

Richard · Post by **Richard** » Mon Feb 11, 2008 6:50 pm

The venerable VCR just keeps ticking...

jjkilleen · Post by **jjkilleen** » Tue Feb 12, 2008 1:17 pm

I'll bet they last longer than HD DVDs--I bet there'll be 123 enraged posts in response to this!