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(More customer reviews)I purchased this ePVision PHD-205LE HDTV Tuner ATSC / QAM (HD) / NTSC (Pass-through Only) Tuner Receiver Box directly from the company which designed it, ePBoard. It arrived four days after I placed the order (California to New Jersey; see the first comment to this review).
I have a home theater in which I sometimes wish to watch television. My AV receiver, a Yamaha RX-Z9 - AV receiver - 7.1 channel, is able to output an HD image (made in 2004, it scales up to 1080i) and my PT-AE4000U LCD XGA 16:9 1600 Lumens HDmi Svid 16.1LBS Hdtv is able to project it.
This tuner is an excellent complement to my system.
It is very well-designed and operates practically intuitively. It is very sensitive and, as long as your antenna is properly installed and aimed, it will receive every HD Over-thr-Air broadcast available to you. The majority of the TV signals available to me have their transmitters located about forty miles or so from my house. To find what is available to you at your location, see the second comment.
It will allow an analog TV broadcast to "pass through" it should such broadcasts be available at your location. In addition it will accept a QAM (clear - not encrypted) cable connection.
The picture quality it produces on HD Over-the-Air broadcasts is nothing short of amazing. And its sound quality, both Dolby 5.1 and "standard," via its TOSlink (optical) audio connection is first-rate. I also tried, just as an experiment, its standard analog audio connection, The sound produced is equally fine though not, of course, "surround."
I do have three VERY small "nits" to pick. First, as some others have commented, its remote control is not the best; it must be aimed precisely and once in a while you must press a button more than once (especially, I have found, when changing channels).
Second, I think that there should be two input connections, one for an antenna and one for cable/satellite; if a user were to wish to use one or the other, he/she must physically disconnect one cable (F-connector) and physically connect the other one. I would also wish that a front-panel switch were incorporated to effect changing the source. (For us this is not a problem as we do not have cable/satellite television, but it might be a concern to some others.)
And finally, I wish that this unit had a coaxial audio connection in addition to the optical one. This is my biggest complaint. Frankly, I detest the TOSlink connection as it does not have a robust positive connection. The coaxial audio connector on this type of cable, which is able to carry the same audio information as the optical one, does indeed produce a good connection, just like any other RCA-type. (Today I have ordered this Cables to Go 40019 Optical to Coaxial Digital Audio Converter which should solve my "problem." I'll report, in an update to this review, my experiences with it.)
But all of these "nits" are VERY minor in a unit as well-designed as this one.
I believe that any purchaser will be very pleased with this unit - as I am.
I'm glad I bought it - I would buy it again! - and I give it my highest recommendation.
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Update: January 14, 2010
Here is a suggestion which may be of interest to some people. DROP your expensive cable/satellite subscription. Buy this unit and buy a Roku XDS Streaming Player 1080p. Then, if you don't already have one, establish a Netflix subscription (streaming-only, the least costly option, will do; so will the one-disc-at-a-time option, which is also very low in cost) as well as an Amazon Prime account (which allows free streaming of movies in addition to the free two-day shipping which has always been a part of Amazon Prime).
You will be able to watch just about any movie you might want to see and you'll still be able to watch network television transmitted over-the-air. Netflix's monthly charge is but a fraction of cable/satellite charges and Amazon's Prime charge is even lower than Netflix's.
You'll also be able, with the Roku unit (buy only the XDS model I recommend as the lesser models omit some useful features), to also view many free public-domain movies and TV shows. Plus you can also listen to thousands of free Internet Radio stations.
What will you miss? Cable channels, of course, and this COULD be a deal-breaker for some people, but you'll ALSO miss those ridiculously high monthly bills (will you really miss paying them?). You'll still be able to see local sports, news, and so forth. Don't forget that with the new digital broadcasting system, many channels now have two or more subchannels with completely different (and often very interesting) programs - all at no charge.
Plus, when you watch HDTV via this ePVision PHD-205LE HDTV Tuner ATSC / QAM (HD) / NTSC (Pass-through Only) Tuner Receiver Box you'll REALLY be seeing the full 1080i broadcast (if your local station actually transmits it - and more and more are doing so) rather than the SO-CALLED "HD" video, the highly compressed video actually supplied by most cable/satellite companies (and the difference in a side-by-side comparison is quite noticeable).
It's something to think about ...
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Update: January 17, 2010
I should mention that even 480i images, which are generally seen on the subchannels (for example, Channel 12.2 or 12.3), look VERY good via this tuner. A nice touch is that you can see the actual type of image (and the type of sound) being supplied by any individual broadcast station.
When this tuner is used with my PT-AE4000U LCD XGA 16:9 1600 Lumens HDmi Svid 16.1LBS Hdtv projector (I recommend that anyone interested read my review of it), the combination makes for absolutely fantastic images, far better than anything I have seen on either LCD and Plasma flat-screen televisions.
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Update: January 24, 2010
I received the Cables to Go 40019 Optical to Coaxial Digital Audio Converter the other day and I immediately inserted it into my system. It works perfectly. The Dolby surround sound is exactly the same whether I use the TOSlink cable alone or I use this converter to supply the sound to my receiver through a coaxial cable. As the only digital audio output from this ePVision PHD-205LE HDTV Tuner ATSC / QAM (HD) / NTSC (Pass-through Only) Tuner Receiver Box (Amazon itself should really sell this!) is an optical one (and, as I mentioned, I do not like TOSlink connections), if you want a coaxial (RCA-type plug) connection to your receiver, as I do, you need an optical to coaxial converter. This very inexpensive one fills the bill perfectly and I highly recommend it.
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Update: February 8, 2010
Last night, at the urging of my son, I watched the Super Bowl for about three minutes just to see what a totally uncompressed 1080i HD live feed looked like. (My son had told me that he had seen an article stating this was the first time this has been done, at least for the Super Bowl, though I do not know if regular television shows or local news broadcasts are compressed in any way: they don't look as though they are.)
(Why only three minutes? I am not a sports fan and I have absolutely no interest in the Super Bowl! After assessing the picture quality, my wife and I "reverted" to a 480p image and watched the DVD of "It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World.")
Obviously, if one were watching this broadcast via a cable or satellite hookup, the video would of necessity be compressed. And even fairly uncritical viewer can easily see this compression. Using this unit with a good antenna I was able to see how uncompressed video appears - while knowing for a fact that it WAS uncompressed.
Let me tell you - it looked VERY good! As a matter of fact, I have NEVER seen a television image look AS good. My home theater screen is 108" in diagonal (16:9 ratio) and the projected picture was quite amazing. (The sound, Dolby Digital, was also amazing.)
This is just another reason to buy this tuner. Even if you have cable in your home theater, if something like the Super Bowl is being broadcast on a local channel and you wish to view it with the best possible picture quality, the only way to do that currently is to obtain your television signal over-the-air with an antenna. As this tuner produces the very best picture (and sound) I have ever seen - period - you could temporarily disconnect your cable and connect an antenna to this tuner. (As this tuner passes unencrypted QAM cable signals, you can always leave it connected to your system; all you'd need to do is to swap...Read more›
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