Samsung SIR-T165 HDTV Terrestrial Receiver
Powerful STB, but has too many bugs that need fixing
This STB is one of the very few on the market today with a Firewire connection, which allows recording HD content on a DVHS deck. This is the main reason I bought it.<br />The picture quality via component is great (my projector doesn't have a DVI input, so I couldn't try that).<br />However, there are a number of problems that Samsung needs to address to make this box more usable. At the $499 price point, this is really expected.<br />1. grey bars<br />On a widescreen (16:9) TV, when showing regular 4:3 content, such as NTSC broadcasts or SD DTV, there are grey bars on the left and right sides. On a projector setup, these bars are very distractive. They should be black, not grey ! This is probably a feature to save CRTs TV from burning in, but it should be possible to turn it off. Unfortunately, in current firmware, it is not.<br />2. frequent lockups<br />Sometimes, on digital channels where the signal isn't strong or has incorrect PSIP data, the STB will crash, and reboot.<BR>I'm a software engineer and I think there is no excuse for this behavior - it's OK for an error to be displayed, but not for the box to crash.<br />3. long boot time<br />It takes about 10s for the box to come up. This wouldn't be a problem if it didn't crash (see problem 2)...<br />4. no discrete remote codes for the scaler inputs<br />This box is also a scaler with 3 inputs - DVD, AV1 and AV2. Unfortunately the only way to switch between the tuner and those inputs is a toggle button on the remote. For example if you are watching a broadcast and want to go to AV2, you need to press that toggle button 3 times - first to go to DVD, then AV1, then finally AV2.<BR>This makes it impossible program macros.<br />5. Firewire recording should be much easier<BR>You need to enter the program channel, start time, and end date. And there are only a few timers that can be set (10 I think).<BR>This is despite the fact that there is an on-screen program guide. Even for the channels that do broadcast the program information, it's not possible to initiate the recording from the menu, as it is from, say a satellite PVR receiver like Dish network's.<br />6. Firewire audio stream cannot be selected when playing a D-Theater tape through Firewire<br />When displaying an incoming video stream from a firewire device, such as a JVC 30k DVHS deck, it's not possible to select which audio track to display.<BR>For example, I played a tape of \\"Cast away\\" last week. The firewire stream contains the video and 2 audio tracks (DD2.0 and DD5.1). The Samsung however only passes the DD2.0 stream through its optical audio output connection . It's not possible to select the DD5.1 stream. For that you are forced to use the DVHS VCR's audio optical output. Quite annoying since the Samsung has better video than the JVC deck. But the JVC selects the better audio.<BR>And if you use DVI, you must use the Samsung for display. But then you get the 2.0 audio. You shouldn't have to choose between the best audio or video !<br />7. lack of any digital audio inputs<br />If Samsung seriously expects anybody to use the scaler for DVD, they should have provided a digital audio input (coax and/or optical) pass-through. As it is, all 3 scaler video inputs only have stereo analog inputs. So once again you get stuck with 2 channel audio when you use the Samsung. <br />Perhaps some of you will view these problems as details. And if it were only one or two of them, maybe one could live with them.<BR>But in my view, they significantly detract from the ability to use this box. So I'm rating it only one star out of five.<br />The first 6 problems, above could be solved by a firmware update, but Samsung does not appear to care about them.<BR>So I'm not holding my breath, and I'm rating this box only one star. I will be upgrading to something better once it exists ...