Electronics & Other Products

My mother has received the two $40 coupons to buy digital TV converter boxes. Can anyone recommend brands and models? Give extra consideration to an easy-to-use system with a remote that's easy to read and use.

A few of the boxes on the list that came with the coupons are indicated to be "capable of passing through an analog signal to the TV set." Is this a feature that's needed for the following situation:

Old 10 ft. diameter analog satellite dish and rooftop antenna —> coax —> satellite receiver —> coax —> VCR/DVD —> coax —> TV set

Where in the chain should one install the digital converter box?

Please don't advise her to switch to DirecTV and/or buy a new TV. Those arguments were lost long ago.

Thanks.

She doesn't need it.

The converter is only required for analog TVs receiving over-the-air (OTA) signals via conventional antennas.

Her TV is an analog TV. She receives most of her channels by her OTA UHF/VHF rooftop antenna. The old analog satellite dish is only used to watch a couple of channels.

For the record, a comparison of Coupon-Eligible Converter Boxes:

[en.wikipedia.org]

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Sorry, BLR. I missed that in your OP.

Thanks for the quick responses. This board is a great resource for many kinds of questions. Google searches seem to get less useful as time passes. I suppose that's because of manipulation of their ranking system.

The majority of recommendations I have seen say to wait a couple of months before asking for coupons because a second wave of converters are coming out later in the year that are going to be better and cheaper.


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If the Satellite box sends the over the air signals onto the TV when its off, then their may be some benefit to the analog bypass if you would put it just before the TV.

However these Digital converters even without the analog bypass will receive the digital channels and output on either channel 3 or 4 with an analog signal. That is their job. So it would be Outside TV antenna> Digital Box > then to the outside antenna connector on the satellite box. So with the satellite box off and the digital converter on you would be able to receive the digital signal on channel 3 or 4.

The benefit of the Analog bypass is this. Feb 17, 2009 all analog FULL POWER over the air television stations must transmit only their digital signal, no more analog. At this point in time all these stations are also broadcasting on their digital channel. There are some LOW POWER (xxxx-LP) stations and a few translator stations that are allowed to continue to broadcast in analog after the cutoff date. Many of these stations will be going Digital anyway. The analog bypass feature would allow you to continue to receive the the analog broadcasts with the digital converter in-line, because the analog bypass feature will allow the signal to internally be switched to bypass the box's conversion circuitry.

Jim

I've read some of the stuff about the low power analog stations, but don't think that's relevant in this case. What I'm interested in is being able to continue using the old style analog satellite and the VCR/DVD without having to use splitters or switches between them and the digital TV converter.

BLR: I guess you would, but perhaps there is something in how you use your setup and my understanding that is a issue. I'm using a DirecTV HD DVR and a HD TV now. But in the past I had a regular Analog TV. The off the air stations were from an Antenna. I had a older RCA Satellite receiver. The satellite dish connected to the Satellite receiver. The outside regular over the air antenna connected to a jack on the Satellite called IN FROM ANT. (seperate from the Satellite DISH IN jack). There is an third output jack labeled OUT TO TV. From this I ran a cable through my VCR then to the Analog TV. There is no Channel 3 here in Los Angeles so the CH3/CH4 switch was set to CH3.

Now if the satellite receiver was OFF, then I could watch the local off the air stations and record them on my VCR. If I wanted to watch the Satellite say the Discovery Channel, I would turn on my satellite receiver, set it to the Discovery Channel and tune the TV to channel 3 and then watch the program. If I wanted to tape the Discovery channel, I would set the VCR to channel 3 and then set the time to record. Is this similar to how you use your setup?

Per what I said the above will work if you would connect the Outside over the Air Antenna>Digital Converter>then to the Satellite Outside Antenna Jack then >VCR> then to the TV. Lets stay with CH 3 on both the satellite receiver and the digital converter as the output frequency. You would turn the TV to channel 3. If the satellite receiver is on you would watch what the satellite receiver is tuned to, on channel 3 of you TV. You could tape the show by setting your VCR to channel 3. If you would turn off the satellite receiver and turn on the Digital converter, tune the digital converter to you Local Digital CBS network station. The converter box outputs on channel 3, this passes through the turned off satellite receiver and then can be watched on your TV (set to CH 3) or taped on your VCR (also set to CH3) .... Does this make sense?

Perhaps you were thinking that the Digital Converter box should be after the satellite receiver and before the VCR and TV. Without the Analog bypass feature, the digital converter box would not pass the channel 3 output of satellite receiver on to the VCR and TV when the digital converter was off.

If your thought was to say tape the CBS Over the Air Network station from 6:00- 7:00PM, then the ABC network station over the air from 8:00-10:00 PM, this would not work. Remember the tuner inside your VCR cannot deal with a new digital signal any more than you TV can. The VCR tuner is useless after the transition. If this is your thought process, then you would have to find a Digital converter box with some sort of program timer. This would change the channel from CBS 6:00-7:00PM to ABC 8:00-10:00PM in the example above.

Again my point about the -LP or translator stations remaining Analog is why some vendors add the Analog bypass feature to their Digital converter boxes. Again this would allow you to watch these stations on your TV without having to pull the Digital Converter box out of the path between your antenna and TV. Those vendors who do not have this feature assume that all you will watch is the Digital channels with their converter box once you install it. For the majority of viewers, most channels they want to watch have the Digital counterparts on the air right now.


Jim