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Written by: George Ou 5/8/2008 5:44 PM
According to polls, most of you know by now that over-the-air Analog TV will cease to exist after February 2009. I applied for two coupons for my home and I received them in the mail last week. This week I went out and got my converter box at Circuit City. While the coupon covered $40 of the price, my Zenith DTT900 (pictured below left) cost $60 and the Philips SDV2270/17 antenna (pictured below on the right) cost $20. That meant with taxes, I had to spend $46 to convert my analog TV to a digital TV. However, I went from maybe 3 blurry analog channels to 37 crystal clear digital channels using the $20 antenna and this is great for me since I don't subscribe to any TV service. While some of those channels are duplicate programming shown in different video formats, it's still a lot of free channels coming in using just an indoor antenna and the result was impressive on my old 32-inch CRT TV in my bedroom. The first thing I got after plugging in the Zenith DTT900 was the following welcome screen. The setup process was fairly simple and intuitive but be sure to have the antenna attached in a good location before you scan for channels. I couldn't get all the channels with the indoor antenna such as Fox compared to my outdoor antenna but it was respectable. If you want all the channels available, get yourself a $40 outdoor antenna from somewhere like Radio Shack and go to http://antennaweb.org to figure out which direction to aim it at. The remote control that came with the Zenith DTT900 was fairly easy to customize for powering on and off my TV. You just need to hold the "TV Power" button while hitting the Channel up button until the TV turns on and that programs the remote for the TV. It won't control the volume but the converter box has volume control so you just need to set the TV on some medium volume level and leave it there. Here's one more shot of the TV in action on one of the international channels.
According to polls, most of you know by now that over-the-air Analog TV will cease to exist after February 2009. I applied for two coupons for my home and I received them in the mail last week. This week I went out and got my converter box at Circuit City. While the coupon covered $40 of the price, my Zenith DTT900 (pictured below left) cost $60 and the Philips SDV2270/17 antenna (pictured below on the right) cost $20. That meant with taxes, I had to spend $46 to convert my analog TV to a digital TV.
However, I went from maybe 3 blurry analog channels to 37 crystal clear digital channels using the $20 antenna and this is great for me since I don't subscribe to any TV service. While some of those channels are duplicate programming shown in different video formats, it's still a lot of free channels coming in using just an indoor antenna and the result was impressive on my old 32-inch CRT TV in my bedroom.
The first thing I got after plugging in the Zenith DTT900 was the following welcome screen. The setup process was fairly simple and intuitive but be sure to have the antenna attached in a good location before you scan for channels. I couldn't get all the channels with the indoor antenna such as Fox compared to my outdoor antenna but it was respectable. If you want all the channels available, get yourself a $40 outdoor antenna from somewhere like Radio Shack and go to http://antennaweb.org to figure out which direction to aim it at.
The remote control that came with the Zenith DTT900 was fairly easy to customize for powering on and off my TV. You just need to hold the "TV Power" button while hitting the Channel up button until the TV turns on and that programs the remote for the TV. It won't control the volume but the converter box has volume control so you just need to set the TV on some medium volume level and leave it there.
Here's one more shot of the TV in action on one of the international channels.
3 comments so far...
Re: My new digital TV converter box purchased with the $40 coupon Looks like you set it up just in time to watch a 'chick flick'.You are good to go George!
Re: My new digital TV converter box purchased with the $40 coupon
Looks like you set it up just in time to watch a 'chick flick'.You are good to go George!
The TV's for the wife mostly The TV's for the wife mostly. I'm on the computer most of the time.
The TV's for the wife mostly
The TV's for the wife mostly. I'm on the computer most of the time.
I remember watching TV myself Much like you George, I find most of my time spent on the computer or computers in my case. Hence, I will probably wait until the death of my TV before going to a different TV. Although the exposure to the international channels sound good. I doubt I have that option available to my area and I can always download most of what I watch.
I remember watching TV myself
Much like you George, I find most of my time spent on the computer or computers in my case. Hence, I will probably wait until the death of my TV before going to a different TV. Although the exposure to the international channels sound good. I doubt I have that option available to my area and I can always download most of what I watch.
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