Zenith Digital Tv Tuner Converter Box: Fcc Junk By Alexsandralyn on - Updated Oct 15, 2011
As many of you may already be aware, as of February, 17, 2009, televisions are going to stop broadcasting in analog when they make the switch to 100% digital broadcasts, and those of us who use rabbit ear or rooftop antennas can't pick up digital broadcasts. To make the 2009 analog to digital transition less expensive for people, the government is offering $40 TV converter box coupons, up to 2 per household, but you have to apply for them. You can call 1-888-DTV-2009 for details, or you can visit https://www.dtv2009.gov/ for more details and apply for the $40 coupons from there. A complete list of coupon eligible converter boxes can be found at https://www.ntiadtv.gov/cecb_list.cfm
I selected the Zenith DTT900 Digital TV Tuner Converter Box because Zenith is a familiar brand name in television products, and my bedroom TV happens to be a Zenith. And because every digital converter box model cost $59.99 before the coupon and sales tax at every home electronics retail store that I had thought to visit. And because I was very tired of shopping by the time I found the Zenith model and very clueless as to what makes one digital converter box any better than another.
Unfortunately, the different sales reps I talked to at the various stores couldn't tell me why their digital converter box product was any better than the other guy's either. But kudos to Radio Shack who had an honest sales rep who told me that their current in-stock model was not capable of analog pass-through, and who knew that would mean the loss of the Canadian stations that we can receive locally. Radio Shack lost the product sale but took a giant leap in local store reputation in my eyes.
The Zenith DTT900 Digital TV Tuner Converter Box is smaller than my DVD player, about 6" x 8.5" x 1.5" and it weighs about 1.65 pounds. Connecting the unit to the TV and antenna is easy with the quick set-up guide, and the unit comes with all of the needed wires, a AAA battery, and a supplied multi-brand remote control. Unfortunately, the supplied AAA Shenkang battery for the remote control was already dead. Fortunately, I had a AAA Duracell in the cupboard that was best used by 2004, and that was still a working battery.
I'm normally able to pick up ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS and FOX with my $10 RCA rabbit ear antenna. The quality of analog reception varies depending on the weather and how well I've tuned my antenna, but I've never gotten what I would consider a good reception. I just don't watch that much television at home beyond the news to really care about the little bit of static interference or light ghost images.
But the Zenith DTT900 Digital TV Tuner Converter Box makes my cheapo rabbit ear reception look fantastic by comparison. After the fifth try, the automatic tuner was finally able to pick up three digital stations: my local NBC and CBS affiliates, and an unknown affiliate station that I've never heard of. The analog-to-digital conversion of the antenna reception was so poor that all I could see was shifting colors and there was no sound. After a few minutes, I lost the converted digital reception altogether due to "bad signal". Well, heck, I've NEVER had a great signal from a rabbit ear TV antenna, but it's always been good enough that I can watch some TV.
I unplugged the Zenith TV Tuner Converter Box and plugged my RCA rabbit ears back into my TV. What a waste of money.
I went to Walmart today and bought a Philips amplified UHF/VHF/FM/HDTV rabbit ear antenna (MANT510), thinking that maybe I wasn't receiving a digital signal to convert into analog, or that I needed a more powerful TV antenna than what I currently have. Nope. The Zenith Digital Converter Box is still a useless piece of junk, but the analog reception from an amplified antenna was very good.
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Zenith DTT900 Digital TV Tuner Converter Box Purchased at: Circuit City Price: 59.99
I could probably still take it back to the store if I could find the receipt around here. But it was only $21 for me out of pocket, and several people I work with are just waiting for their own coupons to come in. I think I will let them try this Zenith out to see if it's even going to be worth buying a converter box given what their current antenna set-up is.
That's too bad. Where we live nothing works but satellite, so we have to pay the monthly to have TV. Seems like it's not really worth the money anymore because the programming on regular TV is junk, save one or two shows. All we watch around here is discovery and the family channel.
Good warning to people debating on buying one of these.
I don't know which is worse- no digital or a wasteland of digital junk. I get over 600 channels on fiber, but basically we only watch Discovery, A&E, Travel Channel, Spike, and Food Network. As for ABC, CBS and the rest, we don't bother since our programming here in Sacramento is awful.
My mom looked all over for one of the converter boxes - everywhere seemed to be out - except Radio Shack! They only had one option available so that is what she got. We have not tried it yet because she has cable on one TV, but not on another. Guess we'll see what happens in Feb!
I think that you will have to stick to the analog until the stations make the switch to digital, and then all will be well. I have a friend who is currently plugging and unplugging her box because she gets different channels on each one.
I've heard that many of these boxes aren't worth the money and that you have to rig them up with your rabbit ears and other extra equipment to get them to work. What a pain!