Samsung DTB-H260F
Posted: Sun Jun 03, 2007 3:19 pm
If you're looking for a replacement for the Digital Stream HD3150 series (no longer being manufactured), DON'T try this unit.
My problem is to locate an ATSC (8VSB) receiver that will receive on Cable channels. We have nine such DTV signals on the cable but the Samsung's Auto Program goes right by them.
Since the manual is very unclear on what this tuner will do, I had to purchased one find out whether it works on our cable system. I hope this posting will help others deal with this lack of adequate specifications.
Yes, it does work on Antenna and Cable, but when in Antenna mode it only looks for ATSC (as one would expect) and when in Cable mode it only looks for QAM.
The unit did find QAM channels, but was not able to receive the unencrypted music-only channels. (Most HDTV TVs with cable-capabile ATSC tuners receive these channels fine.) When tuned to one of those sub-channels, the music appears for a fraction of a second, followed by a second or two of silence, and this pattern repeats. Since there are no uncrypted ATSC channels on the cable, I was not able to evaluate the QAM receiver for TV reception.
This unit may be okay for off-air use, but I was not able to evaluate that mode of operation.
One more point: You MUST connect this tuner to an HD monitor to access the menu -- another detail missing in the unit's specifications. It has a composite and s-video 480i down-converted output, but these cannot display the menu. So people wishing to use this box with a regular TV to access SDTV subchannels from DTV broadcasts will not be able to access the menu options to set the unit up. So the composite outputs are pretty useless unless you have an HDTV monitor and want to record a DTV program on an old VCR or something.
Conclusion: For my purposes, this is going back to the store. Too bad. The unit has a nice, small footprint and very reasonable price. And I'm still looking for a replacement for the HD3150!
My problem is to locate an ATSC (8VSB) receiver that will receive on Cable channels. We have nine such DTV signals on the cable but the Samsung's Auto Program goes right by them.
Since the manual is very unclear on what this tuner will do, I had to purchased one find out whether it works on our cable system. I hope this posting will help others deal with this lack of adequate specifications.
Yes, it does work on Antenna and Cable, but when in Antenna mode it only looks for ATSC (as one would expect) and when in Cable mode it only looks for QAM.
The unit did find QAM channels, but was not able to receive the unencrypted music-only channels. (Most HDTV TVs with cable-capabile ATSC tuners receive these channels fine.) When tuned to one of those sub-channels, the music appears for a fraction of a second, followed by a second or two of silence, and this pattern repeats. Since there are no uncrypted ATSC channels on the cable, I was not able to evaluate the QAM receiver for TV reception.
This unit may be okay for off-air use, but I was not able to evaluate that mode of operation.
One more point: You MUST connect this tuner to an HD monitor to access the menu -- another detail missing in the unit's specifications. It has a composite and s-video 480i down-converted output, but these cannot display the menu. So people wishing to use this box with a regular TV to access SDTV subchannels from DTV broadcasts will not be able to access the menu options to set the unit up. So the composite outputs are pretty useless unless you have an HDTV monitor and want to record a DTV program on an old VCR or something.
Conclusion: For my purposes, this is going back to the store. Too bad. The unit has a nice, small footprint and very reasonable price. And I'm still looking for a replacement for the HD3150!