Robert Grant
06-28-2008, 03:10 PM
(Disclaimer note: No predictions can be made of the true quality of any new CECB, since there is no way to predict variables affecting quality control and choice of materials inside sealed components. In other words, I cannot predict what percentage of any product may not work, nor how long any particular product could be expected to last. This goes for all makes and models. This information is mainly to give some idea of a DXer's ability to make use of a product).
I recently had the opportunity to borrow a Digital Stream DTX9950 coupon-eligible converter box (available at numerous Radio Shack stores, at about the same price as the Zenith/Insignia models) and test it's performance.
One will notice when opening the carton that the DTX9950 is compact, Significantly smaller than the Philco and Zenith boxes. It is only sightly taller and wider (and no deeper) than the Sansonic, and, unlike the Sansonic, has it's AC power supply built-in. Curiously, the DTX9950 comes from the factory with a toroid ferrite RFI suppressor already fixed to the AC cord where it enters the back of the unit.
The cabinet is plastic, but has many vent holes on the top. It does not feel as solid as the Zenith/Insignia or Sansonic metal units.
The remote has plenty of buttons, and is designed to be a universal remote for several makes of TV sets. The DTX9950 has better EPG features than any of the CECB's I've tested. It offers detailed program information not merely about the program currently being watched, but on the next several upcoming programs as well. Neither the Philco, Zenith, nor Sansonic CECB's, nor my Sylvania 27" Digital set can match this.
The DTX9950 also has buttons on the box (power, channel up, channel down) for limited control without a remote (I think that on the long term, this will be a serious advantage as people are prone to misplace their clickers - the Zenith/Insignia has these, the Philco and Sansonic don't).
The DTX9950 was tested against the Philco and Sansonic boxes using the same setup as they had been tested with earlier (see previous posts).
I won't provide a data table as I had in the other reviews, in part because truly objective comparisons may be impossible, and because they seemed to provide more confusion than information. First, the DTX9950 has FAR better multipath-tolerance than the old RCA HD boxes and the Sylvania TV set. This is true of every coupon-eligible converter I've tried, and all of them seem to offer similar performance under multipath.
The Digital Stream showed more sensitivity on lowband channel 5 (WLMB-DT) than the Philco (this may be due to the ferrite choke!) and about the equal of the Sansonic. On UHF, it seems the Digital Stream is slightly less sensitive than the Philco or the Sansonic (but, during a tropo opening that brought in WOUB-DT 27 Athens, OH, the Digital Stream was able to decode WOUB and the Philco wasn't - perhaps the Digital stream better tolerated co-channel interference from analog WBGU).
Since the DTX9950 features analog pass-through (the Sansonic and Zenith/Insignia boxes don't!), this feature was tested against the analog pass-through of the Philco TB100HH9 (and against directly feeding the antenna cable to the analog tuner of the Sylvania TV). The really good news is that on VHF (highband or lowband), both the Philco and the Digital Stream have almost no insertion loss. On UHF, the loss through the Digital Stream box was notable by slight, and the Philco had slightly more insertion loss (but still not bad).
Unlike the Philco, the DTX9950 goes into pass-through by simply turning the box off. The remote control has two buttons to do this, the POWER button and the "A/D" button. Though the two buttons send different codes and produce different messages on the screen before shutoff, the END RESULT IS THE SAME, both put the DTX9950 into "sleep", you can use either button to turn the box on (DTV-no pass-through) of off (pass-through, no DTV). One might still prefer the analog-pass through of the Philco TB100HH9, despite that fact is must be on and one needs to access the menu to use it, because only with the Philco can one have analog pass-through and receive DTV signals at one time (DTV output via composite video/L audio/R audio RCA jacks). With the Philco, you can, with one antenna, try to ID that mystery channel 3 station floating under KOTA analog whilst hoping KOTA-DT 2 will be good enough to get an ID (seen with another display via composite video output).
The DTX9950 is similar in tuning operation to the Philco. An actual RF channel can be entered directly (unless it is already the memorized virtual channel of another station), and entry of a channel to memory is optional. Channel scan is slower than the Zenith/Insignia, but it does have the neat "EZ add" feature (called "Update" on the DTX9950).
Oddities of the DTX9950 include a "14:9" display mode that offers a "mild letterbox" picture of widescreen programs on 4:3 sets, without cropping quite so much picture from the sides as 4:3 zoom does. Strangely, any SD DTV channel (usually a subchannel) is presented in a format they call "anamorphic" - a slight zoom of the usual image. It gives you the impact of a 21" picture on a 19" tube, but "crawls" at the bottom and top of the picture are cut off.
One minor disappointment is the picture quality using the built-in RF modulator. ALL CECBs offer a better picture and much better sound using composite/R/L cables than RF output, but this is especially true with the DTX9950, which seems to have less RF carrier output than any of the CECBs I've tested.
Like Will Rogers, I haven't met a CECB I didn't like. The Digital Stream DTX9950's availablity and features seem to make it worth consideraton.
I recently had the opportunity to borrow a Digital Stream DTX9950 coupon-eligible converter box (available at numerous Radio Shack stores, at about the same price as the Zenith/Insignia models) and test it's performance.
One will notice when opening the carton that the DTX9950 is compact, Significantly smaller than the Philco and Zenith boxes. It is only sightly taller and wider (and no deeper) than the Sansonic, and, unlike the Sansonic, has it's AC power supply built-in. Curiously, the DTX9950 comes from the factory with a toroid ferrite RFI suppressor already fixed to the AC cord where it enters the back of the unit.
The cabinet is plastic, but has many vent holes on the top. It does not feel as solid as the Zenith/Insignia or Sansonic metal units.
The remote has plenty of buttons, and is designed to be a universal remote for several makes of TV sets. The DTX9950 has better EPG features than any of the CECB's I've tested. It offers detailed program information not merely about the program currently being watched, but on the next several upcoming programs as well. Neither the Philco, Zenith, nor Sansonic CECB's, nor my Sylvania 27" Digital set can match this.
The DTX9950 also has buttons on the box (power, channel up, channel down) for limited control without a remote (I think that on the long term, this will be a serious advantage as people are prone to misplace their clickers - the Zenith/Insignia has these, the Philco and Sansonic don't).
The DTX9950 was tested against the Philco and Sansonic boxes using the same setup as they had been tested with earlier (see previous posts).
I won't provide a data table as I had in the other reviews, in part because truly objective comparisons may be impossible, and because they seemed to provide more confusion than information. First, the DTX9950 has FAR better multipath-tolerance than the old RCA HD boxes and the Sylvania TV set. This is true of every coupon-eligible converter I've tried, and all of them seem to offer similar performance under multipath.
The Digital Stream showed more sensitivity on lowband channel 5 (WLMB-DT) than the Philco (this may be due to the ferrite choke!) and about the equal of the Sansonic. On UHF, it seems the Digital Stream is slightly less sensitive than the Philco or the Sansonic (but, during a tropo opening that brought in WOUB-DT 27 Athens, OH, the Digital Stream was able to decode WOUB and the Philco wasn't - perhaps the Digital stream better tolerated co-channel interference from analog WBGU).
Since the DTX9950 features analog pass-through (the Sansonic and Zenith/Insignia boxes don't!), this feature was tested against the analog pass-through of the Philco TB100HH9 (and against directly feeding the antenna cable to the analog tuner of the Sylvania TV). The really good news is that on VHF (highband or lowband), both the Philco and the Digital Stream have almost no insertion loss. On UHF, the loss through the Digital Stream box was notable by slight, and the Philco had slightly more insertion loss (but still not bad).
Unlike the Philco, the DTX9950 goes into pass-through by simply turning the box off. The remote control has two buttons to do this, the POWER button and the "A/D" button. Though the two buttons send different codes and produce different messages on the screen before shutoff, the END RESULT IS THE SAME, both put the DTX9950 into "sleep", you can use either button to turn the box on (DTV-no pass-through) of off (pass-through, no DTV). One might still prefer the analog-pass through of the Philco TB100HH9, despite that fact is must be on and one needs to access the menu to use it, because only with the Philco can one have analog pass-through and receive DTV signals at one time (DTV output via composite video/L audio/R audio RCA jacks). With the Philco, you can, with one antenna, try to ID that mystery channel 3 station floating under KOTA analog whilst hoping KOTA-DT 2 will be good enough to get an ID (seen with another display via composite video output).
The DTX9950 is similar in tuning operation to the Philco. An actual RF channel can be entered directly (unless it is already the memorized virtual channel of another station), and entry of a channel to memory is optional. Channel scan is slower than the Zenith/Insignia, but it does have the neat "EZ add" feature (called "Update" on the DTX9950).
Oddities of the DTX9950 include a "14:9" display mode that offers a "mild letterbox" picture of widescreen programs on 4:3 sets, without cropping quite so much picture from the sides as 4:3 zoom does. Strangely, any SD DTV channel (usually a subchannel) is presented in a format they call "anamorphic" - a slight zoom of the usual image. It gives you the impact of a 21" picture on a 19" tube, but "crawls" at the bottom and top of the picture are cut off.
One minor disappointment is the picture quality using the built-in RF modulator. ALL CECBs offer a better picture and much better sound using composite/R/L cables than RF output, but this is especially true with the DTX9950, which seems to have less RF carrier output than any of the CECBs I've tested.
Like Will Rogers, I haven't met a CECB I didn't like. The Digital Stream DTX9950's availablity and features seem to make it worth consideraton.