05-09-2008, 03:47 PM
Here's the original post: http://forums.macresource.com/read/1/489778
... here's my quick take:
Pros:
1) Picture is beautiful, really nice! Funny thing is, when I was in the store, I saw a "real" HDTV set ... happened to be an LCD ... and I was not impressed. Up close, I saw lots of pixelation in the LCD which was not coming from the signal.
2) Tuner seems to be FAR better than my LG LST-3510A. Without any change to the antenna placement on my end, this tuner picked up pretty much all available stations in my area, and seems pretty good at locking onto "problem" stations (I have bad multipath in my area). I am noticing intermittent signal dropouts though, so I may still want to reposition my antenna.
3) Easy setup, nicely laid out remote. The onscreen menus seem to me to be a straight knockoff of the LG -- wonder if that's really a coincidence.
Cons:
1) Lack of S-video output. For me, this is a problem, because I want to input to my AlchemyTV card, and I'm already using the composite video in ports for something else. So this means I'll have to split the composite video out on the Zenith tuner and have one output to the TV, one to the Alchemy card.
2) The sound. Distinctly tinny, and for reasons I don't understand, volume is way too low. I read on the Radio Shack threads that you can get around this by setting it to Mono rather than Stereo, but who wants Mono?
I may use my second coupon to get either the Channel Master (which has S-video output) or the Digital Stream, to compare with...
But overall, for $20 or so after the coupon, I can't complain. Nice box!
... here's my quick take:
Pros:
1) Picture is beautiful, really nice! Funny thing is, when I was in the store, I saw a "real" HDTV set ... happened to be an LCD ... and I was not impressed. Up close, I saw lots of pixelation in the LCD which was not coming from the signal.
2) Tuner seems to be FAR better than my LG LST-3510A. Without any change to the antenna placement on my end, this tuner picked up pretty much all available stations in my area, and seems pretty good at locking onto "problem" stations (I have bad multipath in my area). I am noticing intermittent signal dropouts though, so I may still want to reposition my antenna.
3) Easy setup, nicely laid out remote. The onscreen menus seem to me to be a straight knockoff of the LG -- wonder if that's really a coincidence.
Cons:
1) Lack of S-video output. For me, this is a problem, because I want to input to my AlchemyTV card, and I'm already using the composite video in ports for something else. So this means I'll have to split the composite video out on the Zenith tuner and have one output to the TV, one to the Alchemy card.
2) The sound. Distinctly tinny, and for reasons I don't understand, volume is way too low. I read on the Radio Shack threads that you can get around this by setting it to Mono rather than Stereo, but who wants Mono?
I may use my second coupon to get either the Channel Master (which has S-video output) or the Digital Stream, to compare with...
But overall, for $20 or so after the coupon, I can't complain. Nice box!