Better stock up on DTV converter boxes. THEY ARE JUNK!
 

Well,

I'm the first to have the first DTV converter box failure, or atleast the first to report a failure on AK. I have the zenith converter box which is sold at circuit city, which is the same as the insignia box sold at best buy. While watching TV this evening with the box, the screen all of a sudden went into intermittent blue horizontal bars and then the unit shut off. I attempted to turn it back on and nothing. The red LED which is on when the unit is switched off even went out so its dead as a door nail now. No reset button on the unit. Wont respond to anything, remote or at the unit. Perhaps something in the power supply failed. Ive yet to investigate. Too late to get into that now. All I can say is that this is pretty poor. Ive only had the box about 1.5 months and it broke already. Im curious if more will fail as time passes in the near future.
This digital transition is a joke. More BS to deal with. Cheap crap converter box is an insult to the Zenith name. I think the quality fell out before the name went on with this thing. Whats next.

And I'll bet the warranty was only 30 days? About the only thing I'd know to do would be to check the caps in the power supply. I've fixed a few modern "throw away" TV's, DVD player's, etc. that had bad caps in the power supply. These caps that I'm finding to be bad are usually the cheapest "off the wall" thing they can find to cram in there. I don't know how the P/S circuit is in your unit; but, many of the switching power supplies in modern cheap junk don't have any sort of over-voltage protection. It's not uncommon for the B+ to run 10 times higher than normal and fry the rest of the unit.

From what I've seen of the inside of those DTV boxes, the power supply appears to be the only area that could be serviced easily. The rest of it looks to be all surface mounted parts that I would not attempt to unsolder!

I've got two Digitalstream boxes from ratshack but they are for future use since I have cable. I do intend to buy more boxes later. After reading this, I'd probably do just as well to buy the Funai made Maggotboxes from Wal Mart.

Could it be your box was meant for sale at Walmart?

And thus, like its 90's TV's, Zenith DTV boxes also don't last very long...

Seriously though, 1.5 months is not very long. There should be some kind of warrenty, and if there's not, the box is shit and another brand would be a better buy.

I just had another thought. The Maggotboxes have a master power switch on the side of the unit. Leaving the master power switch off on those boxes, when not in use, may lenghten it's life.

My cousin has had his Maggotbox Wal-Mart special DTV box for a little over a month and it's not given him any problems.

I actually have kind of a failure to report as well.

I bought my WinTV HVR 1600 TV card mainly to check out all these DTV channels and see what DTV was like. DTV is okay, but the HVR 1600 is turning out to be a piece of shit. It works fine in analog... all well and good, but I didn't buy it for analog. I have several analog TV's so I'm covered as far as analog goes.

Depending on what drivers I use, DTV channels either stutter, or I can't record DTV video. The card is a finicky bastard when scanning for DTV channels... to the point where I have to manually input them. After a LONG talk with hauppauge's tech support, they finally said my card is most likely defective and that I should return it. I'll exchange it for a new one tomorrow, or I'll damn well try to.

I have yet to see any of either the RCA or Magnavox converter boxes returned at my Wal-Mart.

Bill R

Perhaps it would be an idea to replace the caps with something decent as a preemptive measure before they fail if you intend to keep these boxes long term.

Power supply faults in set top boxes are common. I've fixed 20+ of them and scrapped countless more (dead set top boxes are the cheapest source of certain power supply ICs).

If you really wanna keep them running, make an outboard regulated power supply instead of the cheap switching power supplies. 8 out of ten times the PS is what makes the machine crap in this case.

Jordan, very true those supplies are crappy and noisy too.

I haven't had the zeniths break down yet, but I haven't used em much either. One is still in its original box.

I hope they don't all die a premature death...thats a hell of a lot of trash. Not to mention all of the analog sets that'll be tossed after the conversion.

I just bought an Insignia, haven't even opened it yet but this isn't encouraging...:no:

:sigh:I have 2 Insignias, I hope they don't crap out too!

i got two zeniths, one still in box. i haven't had a chance to use either as i don't yet get any channels in my corner of the world... but now i gotta worry about this?! S%$T!!!!:mad:

3 Insignias here, and they all seem to be working fine. Lots of use too.

We will see how long they last.
-
Matt Davala

If you have cable, of course, you don't need the over-air STB (set top box) at all. I'd suggest that those of you who are having trouble with your converters forget about them and get basic cable, which of course will be required to carry local channels as DTV after February 19 next year. Basic cable service in most areas shouldn't cost you an arm and a leg; in fact, Time Warner's basic package (digital basic tier) is $5 a month, excluding the one-time installation charge and $3.79 monthly for the digital basic converter, plus 0.20 for the digital remote. In total your monthly charge will be $8.99. If you have a TV with an ATSC or QAM tuner, all you need is the cable service, which will save you $3.99.

Lady Ayeka: I don't know where in Oregon you are located or what types of reception challenges your area presents, but you should be able to get cable or satellite service even if you have poor or no over-air reception. The problem with satellite, however, is that, while all satellite providers provide digital channels, many do not offer HD television as part of their basic service packages; that is, HD service is available through most if not all satellite providers, but the service is optional and will show as an additional charge on your bill. I don't know what cable providers (if any) are in your area, but if one of them is Time Warner you are in luck as they provide free HD service.

2 Zeniths here and they are used everyday, sometimes a lot. The "TV" in my bedroom is a Commodore 1702 monitor so the Zenith DTV box is the only tuner so I only get ATSC there. (Crossing fingers) So far, so good. I guess like anything else, there are a few lemons out there. I'd take it back and exchange it.

I will be picking up 4 convertor boxes, probably Insignia's since BB is closest, in the next couple of days for myself and for my 95 year-old grandmother's house. We both have satellite (Direct TV), but it cuts out during heavy rains. I can always tell when it's getting ready to rain hard, because the signal cuts out about 1-2 minutes beforehand.

On a sidenote, I am still unable to find a battery powered TV set that can pickup over the air digital broadcasts for use during hurricanes and other bad weather when the power goes out for long periods of time. Best buy no longer carries the Insignia model they had last year. I just hope this need is met in time for next year's "Hunker down, we're all gonna die!. There's a storm off the coast of Africa!" :rolleyes:storm season.

I've been using a Magnavox for almost 3 months. I leave it on almost 24/7 because I videotape TV shows for other family members. The only issue seems to be less-than-stellar performance with weak signals. The top of the case also gets mighty hot. Other than that, it's been rock-solid. :dunno:
Tom

Is it the power supply that gets mighty hot? Or the tuner/RF modulator?

If the PS, then there's several reasons now to use an outboard power supply.

1) it runs cooler.
2) it runs less noisy (RF interference on Ch3 on older sets)
3) it runs less noisy (spikes hard on internal components)
4) it could run on battery!
5) it's a reason to get out the soldering gun and play.

Especially bullet 4, I'd like to modify one to run on NiCad pack or car battery for use with a battery-powered TV during outages.

Except of course if the outage is caused by a storm, in which case the digital signal will probably block and drop anyway, so it would be moot.

How about a battery powered radio that receives weather channels? My car radio picks up weather channels.

TV coverage of bad weather verges on the ridiculous, anyway. "Hi, this is Brandi Boogaloo standing outside the Boogie-Woogie Arms Motel in Tampa Bay. Look -- it's really really windy and some trees are bending over! Back to you at Hurricane Central, Chaz!!"

Phil Nelson

P.S. No problems using a Zenith box here.

Having TV coverage, espcially the radar images. is almost a necessity here in the central US with the tornados, severe thunderstorms, etc. This is much better than the radio can do.

This is the main reason that I think getting rid of analog NTSC is completly stupid. Analog NTSC will provide usuable (not perfect by any means) information in bad weather for a long while after digital has completly crapped out.

As a case in point, my digital reception was glitching yesterday and the only issue was that it was a little windy. As I am only 30 miles or so from the transmitters, I do not think power is the issue(I believe the issue is the transmitting antenna moving in the wind).

Have your unit repaired under warranty.
 

My Zenith DTT900 has a 90 day warranty from the "Date of Purchase". The parts warranty period is one year.

We'll see how this all turns out.

They'll probably boost power a good amount if people aren't getting usable signal.

#4 is a very good idea! I will have to open up one of mine when I get it to see how easy (or hard) it would be to add a DC jack and a switch to choose between internal and external p/s's.

Did the box get hot when it was still working? The poorly ventilated enclosures so common on modern electronics often cause SMD components to unsolder themselves from the boards. I've had similar problems with multiple wireless routers in the past few years.

From what little I've been able to see, it's possibly some of the digital circuitry that causes the heat! One time I'd left the converter on a blank subchannel overnight, and when I went to pick up the remote in the morning (I park the remote on top of the box) the box was barely more than room temperature.
Tom

Doug, can you see what the failure mode was and if an external supply can be rigged up for them. I really depend on the converter boxes to get a good quality TV signal and would like to keep them going...hopefully its not a case like on some DVD players I've heard of where there is no overvoltage protection and a power supply failure burns out chips on the board.

You could cut a hole in the top of the case and install a small computer fan to help with cooling.

I got some DTV coupons I haven't used yet so I think I'll get a second insignia and measure the voltages from the power supply in a normal condition...that way I may be able to hook up an external supply and know what voltages I'll need.

This Radio Shack model, although currently sold out on the web, is still available in the stores.

http://www.radioshack.com/product/in...ductId=2855063

http://rsk.imageg.net/graphics/produ...rshalt1_dt.jpg

OK,

I went ahead and powered up the box last night to see what was going on. Now it works. What I am going to do is keep it on for the maximum allowable time of 4 hours and see if it shuts down. I opened it up anyway to see what it is all about. I am quite surprized how many radial electrolytics are in these things. There are just a few SMD caps. There are well over 20 radials, even on the RF board. The power supply is a separate panel with a SIP connector to the RF board. Acutally, easily repairable from a mechanical point of view. I am going to wait for it to fail and then immediately check the caps in the PS for leakage.

Git-er-done!

000

Its got a selectable shut off mode, either 1, 2, 3, or 4 hours. Im pretty sure you cannot leave in on indefinitly which is kind of strange. The unit was on for about 2 hours or so and then it just went into this intermittent blue horizontal bar display for a few seconds and simply shut off. There is a LED that glows blue when the unit is on, and red when off (standby). The led went completely out and the unit would not power up in any attempt. I did try powering it up about 30 minutes after it failed and it turned on and then shut off about 5 seconds later and again, no responce when attempted again. Im going to assume there is a marginal leaky cap somewhere in this unit. Im going to pin it down though, assuming it fails. Who knows, perhaps I have a poor solder joint and its affected by expansion of the pc board. These units do get quite warm.

You could try picking up and dropping the unit a short distance, say six inches, to temporarily reseat any loose chips. Back in high school, that was the cure for any apple III that happened to be malfunctioning.

The Zenith DTT900 can be set so that the “Auto Off” feature is disabled in the Setup menu. See page 9 of the manual.

You could also try some freeze spray to locate thermal defects.

I have the insignia ns-dxa1 box and so far so good. Took a look in the manual and it has a 90 day warranty so you may want to check that out.
Fun wow, Now we are going to have to fix the new junk to keep our old junk running.:scratch2:
Ed

I bought four of the Insignia'a yesterday, 2 for me, and two to setup for my grandmother. I haven't messed with them yet, though I did take one out to look at it. It only requires 7 watts, so it could be run off of an inverter and jumper pack along with my battery TV that has composite inputs. Should be good for a couple of hours at least since I have a rather large jumper pack.

Still, that's quite a mess of wires and setup time just to watch the weather during a bad storm. I do have a 20kw genny, so it would only be needed if it failed or ran out of diesel.

I received my Winegard RC-DT09 from SolidSignal (a month late, but finally). I have to say I like it maybe best of all. And also, the power supply is outboard already! Just a small 9VDC wall transformer with a typical power-supply jack on the back of the converter box. Real easy to make a 9V NiMH cell pack or maybe just stack a few 9V duracells in parallel for that emergency tornado-warning use. No mods to the box or P/S whatsoever, just buy a new jack from Rat Shack and go.

User menus are comparable to the Insignias or Magnavoxes, reception sensitivity looks the same too. Plastic case is a little cheap, but like a lot of the others in that respect. Physically smallest in size (width anyway). Tiny remote, but gets the job done.

I like it.