Geesh, Stampeder, seems like I can sell you ANYTHING! I have a bridge in New York for sale...cheap! LMAO!

Geesh, Stampeder, seems like I can sell you ANYTHING! I have a bridge in New York for sale...cheap! LMAO!Checking my wallet... :D

I have to tip my hat to Crispy as well for pointing out the quality of the LG units.

The Samsung SIR T 165 I bought at Best Buy near Buffalo last year works perfectly. It picks up all Buffalo and Toronto stations with an indoor antenna.
I am in a St. Catharines high rise.

I use the T165 DVI connection to my Sony TV and its firewire output to a JVC HM DH4000U digital video recorder. The T165 allows for programmed recording.

There are occasional freaky things. Maybe someone can tell me why the SIR T165 shuts off when I tune cBuffalo channel 29-3.
No big loss because there's nothing on that channel anyway.

There is an issue with this (SIRT165) receiver needing a firmware upgrade - otherwise it will shut off with certain compression/signal formats
There is an extensive thread on avsforum on this
I thought that the signal change that required you to have updated firmwafre was already in place, and that you would be missing more than one channel

So this might not be the solution

Frustratingly Samsung wont ship the update CD to Canada - you can do it with a serial cable and their CD

I have a Samsung SIR-T151 and in the past week or two, whenever I tune in CFTO-HD, it causes WUTV-DT to reset itself (I typically hide 29-2 and 29-3 but tuning 40-1 causes them to reappear in the channel list). After running more tests, it appears that any remapped channel (39 to 4, 14 to 29, etc...) that I tune into after watching 40-1 gets reset. This does not affect 43-1 because it doesn't remap. In other words, if I hide 43-2 or 43-3, tuning 40-1 doesn't force them back. In the interim, I've disabled 40-1 on my Samsung.

I tested this with my ATI HDTV Wonder and CFTO remaps itself to 9-1. This does not happen on my Samsung SIR-T151. Considering every other station works fine, it must be something CFTO is sending in the PSIP stream. Anyone in this forum experiencing a similar issue?

For what it's worth, my SIR-T151 has the latest firmware meant to ignore the broadcast flag.

Is there a factory reset sequence for the SIR-T151? I've looked through the manual but I can't find any mention of one.

Fox 29 dt is making changes to 29-3 and this will effect the program out of 29-2 or 29-3.Currently they are showing a baseball game on 29-3 with noise for sound.Cfto-dt shows 40-1 on both my samsung and sanyo hdtv tuners.

The sub channels can be used to transmit signals not intendented for the public.Your tuner should not see it but may do strange things when its there.29-3 has been used for this.

KWtoxman, yes I still have the file Samsung sent me for the T351. I am not allowed to add an attachment to this reply. So, send me a private message and I'll get it to you with another address. It has seemed to stop the audio drop outs when in dolby digital mode.

Just an update. My SIR-T351 works great. I have used it a fair amount now. And no audio drop out issues, or anything else. I am very happy with it.

kw...........

ATSC Tuner Showdown: Bell ExpressVu 6100 vs. LG LST4200A

Bell ExpressVu 6100

The BEV 6100 is first and foremost a Digital Broadcast Satellite receiver for watching Bell ExpressVu satellite programming. However, it also features integrated ATSC and NTSC tuners which allow savvy BEV subscribers to attach an antenna for local broadcast stations, or a CATV feed from a cable television provider. Having said that, its important to remember that Bell's priority is to provide satellite services for which you will pay them on a monthly basis. This reality factors into their marketing and design of a hybrid product.

To begin with, the user must press a keystroke combination of MENU - 6 - 1 - 5 to get to the interface for local broadcast television reception. Guess what? If you had connected a CATV feed instead of an antenna feed you are out of luck unless you can find the appropriate means of having the tuner recognize CATV channels. Don't worry, its somewhere in the menu but I'm not going to tell you because I want you to know how I felt at first.

Back to OTA reception: from the 6100's user interface it is possible to either scan for analog channels, scan for digital channels, manually add an analog channel or manually add a digital channel. Of importance is that no two of the four sub-interfaces are the same, and each requires a bit of experience to understand. For example, the scan of analog channels is the quickest, and generally does a good job. I had to manually delete some interference-laden non-channels later, but at least it tried. One troubling aspect of the scanning process is that no results are shown on the tv screen in real time.

The scan of digital channels is glacial, especially after BEV software revision 555 that was automatically downloaded by the 6100 around the end of April or so. As with the analog scans, no results are visible on the tv screen in real time.

The 6100 is not a Bell product, but rather an imported one from the U.S. firm Dish Network (nee Echostar). On flagging an analog station for addition, the interface asks for a network assignment, giving NBC, ABC, CBS, and NONE as options. If you select NONE you will find that in the later listings of channels the station you've added will show the term NONE beside it, which is confusing and annoying to people who are simply surfing the channels afterwards. On selecting one of the network options, a QWERTY interface is presented next, allowing you to enter up to 5 upper-case ASCII characters to describe the channel. In my own situation I found that the local Global station could only be entered as GLOBL, but Mrs. Stampeder understood what that meant.

For DXers, the 6100 is not for you. To manually add a DTV station, the receiver must be able to lock onto it or there will be no luck. Also, while the interface shows what is ostensibly a signal strength meter, it is in fact a signal-to-noise meter and not a particularly accurate one at that. This means that what might seem like a promising DTV station may actually be a mirage caused by a high noise level from the very receiver itself! Time and again I saw activity on UHF channels that do not have DTV stations.

One further annoyance concerns antenna pointing, which often involves a trip outside and back inside to chart progress. The 6100's interface arbitrarily bails out after a set time. This means that being away from the remote control for more than a minute causes the entire interface to simply go away!

I found that the 6100's signal meter had some unusual bugs that might be the result of software glitches. In almost every circumstance of entering the interface for adding DTV stations the receiver achieved a false lock on channel 2 where no such DTV station exists, albeit with zero signal shown. This happened on different occasions as I changed to different DTV channels; not always but enough to be irritating and misleading. For the DXers among you, another annoyance of the interface for manually adding DTV channels is that you cannot press an up or down arrow on the remote to go to the next channel; it must be numerically keyed in one after another, which is time consuming and clumsy.

Now on to something BEV users are familiar with: the 6100 allows users to create up to 4 customized lists of Favorites that include almost any combination of stations a person wants. If you include any analog stations into your favorites and press the GUIDE button you will see your added stations there, but with no programming guide information, which is understandable on BEV's part.

If you include any digital stations into your Favorites, you will not only find no PSIP programming guide information (which is sent by the broadcast station as part of its outgoing ATSC signal) but you will also find that the 6100's GUIDE interface assumes that all digital channels are using sub-channels such as 44.1, 44.2, etc. This presents an annoyance: if a station devotes its entire channel to HDTV, the 6100's GUIDE interface will still require you to select the local channel (in this case 44) and then select the one sub-channel again (44.1). Oh poor user, one more button to press! Nevertheless, its an annoyance and not welcome.

And so we come to the real nitty gritty: Picture and Audio Quality. To view the 6100's HDTV capabilities from an OTA source is to experience an almost new experience over watching the same program via satellite. By using A-B back-and-forth switching of views, Mrs. Stampeder and I were quite taken by the improvement in both the visuals and the sound. The troubles with the 6100's interfaces seemed to be not so important after seeing the end HDTV result in glorious 1080i resolution and Dolby Digital 5.1 sound, free of all the satellite broadcast processing and recompression. You will be delighted. For those with home theatre audio amplifiers, the 6100 offers only an optical connection.

Great, but what about the local analog stations? The 6100 is an average NTSC tuner, and when this average performance is combined with the tuner's automatic upconversion of scan lines from 480i to 1080i the results are not exciting, but not objectionable either, with Dolby Pro Logic audio being presented but more typically standard PCM stereo or mono.

In summarizing the BEV 6100, it seems to me that for those who already have contracts with BEV and want to experience the higher performance of OTA DTV, the 6100 will serve you well despite its quirks, and you'll find yourself accepting them for the big payoff of higher performance HDTV viewing.

LG LST-4200a

The LG LST-4200a is not encumbered by any of the mixed bag of tricks issues facing the BEV 6100: it is designed to be a great OTA tuner and it excels. Further, it also accepts Clear QAM (unencrypted) cable TV digital signals from digital cable boxes, although this is an area that I am not personally familiar with. I do know that cable providers in Canada use encrypted QAM.

Within minutes of first powering up this unit I was able to easily begin scanning for analog and digital stations, with the benefit that I could see the actual channels on the TV screen in real time as the scanning was taking place. Just as I was psychologically preparing for a long digital station scan (6100 style) the LG breezed through not only quickly but with accuracy. Using the same menu I was also able to easily add and subtract stations, as well as join them into a SURF list of frequently watched stations for future use.

The interfaces are polished, clear, and well explained both in the user manual and by use of an on-screen HELP assistant. Scanning and adding/subtracting of stations occurs within one interface, and options are clearly identified. For DXers the signal meter is present during manual DTV channel addition, but it is also possible to trigger it from a button on the remote at any time, and the meter remains on screen until you trigger it to go away. This is very helpful for antenna pointing, and puts the BEV 6100 to shame. Up and down arrow keys allow true DXing during regular viewing and during manual channel additon, while viewing all channels being scanned or added/subtracted is possible in real time.

One negative about the LST-4200A is that the remote control's capabilities for operating other home theatre equipment are quite few, but in this day and age a universal remote control is a necessity anyways, so it was comforting to find that I was able to easily train an RCA learning universal remote to emulate the LG's in every way.

And so we return again to the real nitty gritty: Picture and Audio Quality. If the 6100's OTA HDTV is a delight to those satellite subscribers who didn't know better, the LG LST-4200a's OTA HDTV is spectacular by any yardstick. By virtue of the latest generation of commercially available chipsets and technologies, this unit is able to render visuals and sounds at the highest level, including much better upconversion of 480i to either 720p or 1080i. Extra features of this unit include an RGB output for high quality computer monitors or projectors, as well as your choice of optical or digital audio outputs.

In true HD one look at a CSI corpse on this machine and you will know what I mean about spectacular! ;) Mrs. Stampeder and I agreed that the improvement in both the visuals and the sound was easily perceivable over the BEV 6100, just as the 6100's OTA HD was markedly better than its BEV HD.

The LG LST-4200a is a most enjoyable tuner whether on analog stations or most especially on digital ones. For DXers and those who want the best of HD tuner technology, look no further than this unit or perhaps read up on the Samsung SIR-T451, its nearest marketplace competitor.

Update October 14, 2005: on purchasing a Harmony Remote Control for my HT room I found that it was able to use the Harmony web-based update tool to add the LG LST-4200A with no further tweaking required.

Only one question, where can we pickup a LG LST-4200a!!!

This is the creme de la creme of OTA STBs and as such has a list price accordingly $550 usd. I have seen them on Ebay in the $300 to $400 usd range.

I have a question about the LG LST-4200a. If it scans for analog as well as digital channels, will it intelligently link the analog station to the digital one?

E.G. NBC analog and digital, some boxes will display the electronic program guide/PSIP information picked from the DTV stream onto the corresponding analog channel.

I have the LG LST-3100, which is the digital-only version of the LG LST-4200, and I can tell you that it is a superior ASTC tuner in every regard. It has easy-to-use interfaces and excellent ASTC sensitivity. As for US availibility of the LST-4200, it is available from several sources for $279.00 USD. While it may be a pain to get it to Canada, if you have access to over-the-air HDTV in your location, then it is worth the effort. B&H Photo in NYC has the LST-4200 in stock for $279.00US, and will ship to Canada if you ask them: here is the link:
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=productlist&A=details&Q=&sku=350623&is=REG

Shipping to Canada is $39.25 US, which makes the tuner about $398.00 CAD plus any applicible taxes and duty

Good luck...

Shipping to Canada is $39.25 US, which makes the tuner about $398.00 CAD plus any applicible taxes and duty

Good luck...

If they send it USPS, as opposed to UPS; you get hit with $5 brokerage fee not that $30 that UPS charges

I have a question about the LG LST-4200a. If it scans for analog as well as digital channels, will it intelligently link the analog station to the digital one?

E.G. NBC analog and digital, some boxes will display the electronic program guide/PSIP information picked from the DTV stream onto the corresponding analog channel.I'm still new to this lovely machine but I don't believe such a feature exists. Have you seen it in other products? Also bear in mind that analog stations do not necessarily broadcast the same programming as their DTV counterparts (PBS is the best example).

B&H Photo in NYC has the LST-4200 in stock for $279.00US, and will ship to Canada if you ask them: here is the link:
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=productlist&A=details&Q=&sku=350623&is=REG
That's exactly where I got mine from, Chip. I first went to price comparison sites and B&H always came in lowest. Shipping to the Vancouver area took about 10 days from when I ordered online.

If I ended up getting the LST-4200a is there anything I could attach to it to use as a DVR?

I looked on the web to see if it had firewire output, but couldn't find one. Many ATSC tuners have firewire out that you could connect to a D-VHS recorder. Does this have a firewire output?

I sure wish it did have Firewire! Here's the LGE USA web site for the LST-4200A and you can download a 6MB PDF of the owner's manual to see the product:

http://us.lge.com/Product/proddetail.do?actCategory=tv&archivedYn=&actType=search&categoryId=0000000104&prodId=1000000269&parentId=0000000001&parent2levelId=0000000001&category_level=3&totalItem=8&currentPage=1&perPage=10