[markthefixer]

Ok, I finally got my coupons a few days ago, and after Jury Duty yesterday I picked up a digital stream converter from Radio Shack...

Since I already have some repaired Panasonic dvd recoders - dmr-ez27, this will be a review of the digital stream box instead of an entire DTV critique.

First the box does not pass antenna signals through to the output connector, even with power off and the rf modulator off, the modulator can be turned on and off by menu. The channel selection on the box is smoother and faster than the dvd recorder, and channel lockup is faster too (surfing anybody??). Setup was a breeze and most of the factory defaults are spot on. The remote training worked great (hold down a button and press another to sequence through the recognized tv list until the tv shuts off) and gives on/off and volume for the tv set, as well as internal 20 step volume control of the box output (to rf OR the rca plugs).

It was fun to see the channel search going, as it displayed an ongoing list of the traditional tv channel 2-69(?) and what the num-num designation of the multicast signals it found on that channel. It ignored analog channels, as it should.

The convienence features of channel selection work nicely on the remote (or inside the box?). prev favorite etc... 2 will default to 2.1 etc...

The aspect ratio stuff was left at factory default, and was great. The "worst" I have gotten was the single top and bottom letterboxing, as contrasted with the dvd recorder and the chaotic letterboxing IT does...

The detractions: minor...

The remote is very light and has 4 dimples or feet on the botton and if the buttons on the edge like volume up/down or channel up/down are pressed the remote sitting on a flat surface, the remote tilts up using the feet as a furclum and can scoot away like a watermelon seed. 30 seconds with a box cutter solved THAT by removing the "feet"...

There is a stray magnetic field present even when the box is "turned off" that was noticible as a red color blob on the blue screen the tv displays when there isn't a usable signal coming in. So the converter shouldn't be set right on top of a modern set without a lot of space between the top of the tube and the top of the set. I'm looking for a sheet of mu-metal for mine...

The remote forgets the tv type when the batteries are removed... no 30 second grace period that I could find
edit: wrong, there is a capacitor that holds a charge, but the battery terminals are hot and I must have accidentially shorted them, later I wanted to change the set type and start over from scratch and I had to short out the two lower battery contacts to clear/reset the remote.

All in all this box is much easier to use, more fun and less aggravating than using the panasonic dvd recorder as an atsc digital tuner front end, and I may just change over to more of these converters for viewing as opposed to recording OTA. Just feed it into your vcr to record and there's no worry about any digital copy protection (on the dvd recorder, IF certain copy protect bits are set in a particular program, then the dvd recorder will record them ONLY if DVD-RAM media is used) and the vhs playback is great with the strong clean signal the box provides... no HINT of any analog copy protection like macrovision or whatever coming OUT of the converter..... (so far)

Of course, for unattended recording the converter is stuck on one channel, until somebody comes up with a solution to change the channel.