Sears clearance of Sylvania/Funai ATSC receivers

Archived from groups: alt.tv.tech.hdtv (More info?)

In article <2JadnXAFoblqZC7dRVn-iQ@comcast.com>,
"Randy Sweeney" <rsweeney1@comcast.net> wrote:

> I saw NIB Funai (Syvania branded) ATSC receivers at Sears tonight,,, $199
> Anyone used one of these?

Thanks for the heads-up. I went out there and got either the last one
or the next-to-last one at my local Sears. After less than half an hour
of using one, it looks like these are pretty darn good tuners.

* Good receiver section (all the local DTV channels except the puny 800
watt Fox channel show 95% on the signal bar) It'll take me a day or two
before I know if it's really that much better than my Panasonic (which
has problems with the reduced power stations). It is definitely faster
at tuning the marginal stations.

* Receives both HD and analog channels

* Has a freeze button, which freezes one frame in the current
resolution. (This looks real bad with the Sylvania generating 480i to a
TV doing 480p scan conversion.)

* Output resolution switch on back of unit, 480i/480p/1080i


In comparison with my Panasonic unit,

* The Sylvania is a little bigger, but it has no fan.

* The Sylvania only has a coax digital audio out, the Panasonic only has
optical.

* The Sylvania lets you skip channels a lot faster.

* With my 4:3 Sony set to auto scan conversion and minimum overscan, I
could see a line of closed captioning at the top of the WB HD channel
with the Sylvania, but not with the Panasonic. The Sylvania also puts a
vertical gray line at the right edge of the picture. So there are
slight framing differences.

* The Panasonic's remote codes are NOT supported on my One For All
remote. I haven't tried it with the Sylvania yet.

* my Panasonic has a button on the remote to switch the TV video mode
between 4:3-only and 16:9-only, and automatic. The local PBS station
sometimes broadcasts a subchannel in anamorphic, and this is the only
way to view it in widescreen. The resolution switch on the back is the
only way to do this on the Sylvania. This is the feature which may keep
me using the Panasonic for the near future.

* my Panasonic also has a button to switch the display mode between
letterbox, squeeze, and zoom. This is useful for network channels,
which often show 4:3 pictures in a widescreen signal. You have to go
into the setup menu for a minimum of 9 keypresses to do the same on the
Sylvania.

Anyhow, the Sylvania is definitely a good deal at $200.

Archived from groups: alt.tv.tech.hdtv (More info?)

A few more things:

The closed captioning setup is hidden in the same menu as the parental
controls. To turn CC on and off, you not only have to navigate through
menus, but you have to enter a password, too!

The signal strength meter doesn't seem to be useful with HD channels.
I've only ever seen it show 95 or 0 on HD channels. This isn't a good
meter for aiming an antenna.

My Panasonic not only has a useful meter (I think it displays error
rate, with sustained >=75% being the minimum needed for a picture), but
it has an audible meter which makes it really good for aligning an
outdoor antenna. Just turn the volume up way high and open a window.

The Sylvania still seems to have a better receiver than my Panasonic,
and to be more tolerant of data errors.

> Anyhow, the Sylvania is definitely a good deal at $200.

I still think it's a good deal, especially if it's not your first tuner.
It's no worse than average, and the price is likely to be as low as
you're going to get for the next year or so.

Also, it is my understanding that tuners up until now don't have
broadcast flag support. I've heard that tuners in the future might be
made incapable of doing anything better than 480i through the composite
outputs when (and if) the broadcast flag is turned on, thanks to MPAA
paranoia. If most people have either built-in tuners or a converter box
hooked up to an old analog set, there might not be enough people (with
first generation "HD ready" sets with no DVI or firewire input)
complaining to stop this.

It's all a big maybe, but I'm happy to have another pre-broadcast-flag
tuner just in case.