Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)I bought a VHS/TV set in 1997, which has composite RCA inputs (yellow video and red/white audio). Having experienced digital television stations by connecting a "rabbit ears" antenna to my parents' new "HD-ready tuner-built-in" tv, I became "hooked." I'd been looking for a digital TV tuner for a little while now, with some personal guidelines, since I have an older tv:
1) I was not looking for the newest up to date features (HDMI output, digital audio, surround sound, etc); just a way that I can watch the programs that I've come to watch using an RCA (yellow video and white/red audio) output. New TV sets are required to have DTV tuners in the TV set, so I'm not concerned about using this on a newer TV when I decide to purchase one. We've got other TVs I can donate this to, anyway.
2) The Samsung tuner (DTBH260F) does not offer on screen menus with the method that I would have been hooking up the receiver to the TV. On-screen identification of channels, customization, and other features would not be easily available using the Samsung product-aside from switching cables whenever I wanted to do so.
The TUN-5000 offers on screen menus with any signal output. The menus contain:
- automatic and manual scan
- add/remove channels
- favorite channels
- picture modes (normal, vivid, movie, game, sport), customizable picture modes are brightness, contrast, saturation, tint, sharpness
- picture aspect ratio (automatic, 4:3 full, 4:3 zoom, 16:9 full, 16:9 zoom)
- audio control (volume, treble, bass, balance), left/right channel, mono, stereo, and english/spanish/french secondary audio programming options)
- an electronic program guide (present "what's on tv now", daily "what's on today". depends on if the station broadcasts that info...)
- parental controls
- closed captions
- on screen display settings (transparency, hold on-screen time)
- signal strength indicators (strength and quality)
When changing channels, it will tell you on screen the channel number, digital channel number, the call letters, and will usually tell whether the signal is high definition (HD) or standard definition (SD) that it is tuned to; for example: "5-1 CALL-HD" or "5-2 CALL-SD".
After a while of having this product, the quirks with this product I've found are that
1) a single channel that I've deleted from the channels I receive (weather channel from a distant city) occasionally reappears.
2) sometimes it will tune to a digital subchannel on its own.
A last complaint is the manual, at least in the one I received, the controller is different than the one pictured in the manual (with buttons in very different places). It's writing seems to be from a non-native English speaking source, but, even still, it is fairly easy to understand.
This does ship with it's own indoor antenna, not amplified though, and I've found that it picks up more channels at a stronger signal strength than an indoor amplified antenna did.
Overall, this is a great product and tuner.
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Product Description:
The TUN-5000 receives HDTV & SDTV terrestrial broadcasts & displays them on the legacy TVs or HDTV. It tunes & decodes all 18 approved ATSC digital television formats and can display them in 480i, 480p, 720p & 1080i selectable outputs to match television s optimum viewing capability.
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