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Integrated Digital Tuner or Set top box
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[Deleted User]
Posts: 8 Forum Member
Reluctantly the time is getting very close to having to replace my long suffering Rediffusion MK4 tv.
Never have liked the grey plastic excuse they pass off as a cabinet on the "newer" sets. Nor have I seen that gives as nice a picture. Not sure whether that’s due to the display device or the amount of video processing they seem to do now.
But I digress.
Have been watching the Slim Line Samsung thread and notice that it would seem that it does not come with a digital tuner. In fact many of the new TVs don't have an integrated digital tuner. Since we will all have to switch over to digital by 2010 I cannot understand why any manufacture would produce a TV for the UK market without one.
This leads me, at last, to the question.
Are integrated digital tuners in some way inferior to the separate set top freeview box, and why does having an integrated digital tuner seem to add £100 to the cost of the set whilst you can get a separate box for around £30 ??
Never have liked the grey plastic excuse they pass off as a cabinet on the "newer" sets. Nor have I seen that gives as nice a picture. Not sure whether that’s due to the display device or the amount of video processing they seem to do now.
But I digress.
Have been watching the Slim Line Samsung thread and notice that it would seem that it does not come with a digital tuner. In fact many of the new TVs don't have an integrated digital tuner. Since we will all have to switch over to digital by 2010 I cannot understand why any manufacture would produce a TV for the UK market without one.
This leads me, at last, to the question.
Are integrated digital tuners in some way inferior to the separate set top freeview box, and why does having an integrated digital tuner seem to add £100 to the cost of the set whilst you can get a separate box for around £30 ??
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Also, in my opinion, a set top box is a much better bet than an integrated digital tv, at least with a set top box, you can upgrade it at any time.
Get real man! In only two years time analogue transmissions are going to be switched off in some areas. What is the point in buying a product that is not going to work unless you buy an extra piece of equipment, another remote control and more leads to connecting them both.
If technology advances greatly there is nothing stopping anyone with an IDTV buying a set top box some time in the future.
I sell TV's for a living, and not once have i seen an IDTV that works reliably, the Philips ones the digital text barely works, the Samsung ones lock up frequently, and there's alsorts of other problems with the other manufacturers.
Also, after say 12 months of the product being out, support for OAD's is likely to be dropped, meaning any new technology isn't likely to be supported....
I have to agree with your thoughts on the Sammy slimfit. I had the 308 when it first arrived. The problems with it made me ditch it after two months of trying to sort it out. Apparently the new one is deeper so they may have sorted some of the problems. I await reports...
Glad you haven’t tried to sell me a telly then. I have a Sony KD-32DX150U IDTV, which must be at least 2 years old and I have had no problems at all. I hope that when you sell an analogue television you inform your customers it will soon cease to become a TV and will become just a monitor.
The "problem" with intergrated digi is 1) you cant upgrade it without upgrading the whole TV (though as others have said you could always buy an external one after_ and 2) in my mind it is just paying for something else which you dont want and could go wrong - it is much cheaper to buy a new STB than it is a new TV if freeview happens to go wrong.
The biggest problem I have is wires, remotes and plugs so when things come built in they are very welcome. The TV has the 8 day EPG, very fast Digital Text, option for Pay-DTT if anything decent ever comes along, 2 scart sockets plus composite and s-video inputs.
I agree with the other poster when he says that with a STB you can upgrade, but I don't think that there will be a need to for quiite a long time. They won't dare upgrade to Mpeg-4 transmissions for at least 10 years IMHO.
Well that’s a load of tosh. No one in their right mind would buy a recorder without built in freeview these days otherwise you would be limited to recording just one channel and the set top box would have to be left switched on.
That precisly what I am saying you are going to buy a twin tuner recorder so unless you think you need 3 tuners just go for the best screen you can get and not worry about the tuners in it as you probally are not going to use them.
I can see a argument for TVs having no tuners built in at all
Having said that, I am not a fan of TVs with integrated anythings (DVD, DVD etc). More complex boxes means more complex kit, one bit breaks and the whole is devalued.
Seperate DVD player, DVB box etc might mean more wires but probably better quality and certainly more flexibility/upgradability.
Rgds,
Scorp
Set top box- do you have scart on your rediffusion? If not make sure you get a box with a built in modulator to send the freeview signals through to the tv aerial socket. And make sure you get a box with 14:9 mode or you'll be cursing the black bars top and bottom.
Do you use ceefax/teletext?
Scart ... you must be joking the set dates back to the very late seventies. Don't think scart was "invented" in those days. And what is scart apart from an excuse to produce over priced cables to place a couple of coax connections in one cable
only for the basics i.e. news, tv guide and subtitles.
Problem is if I go down the set top box route then I will also need a larger coffee table just to hold all the remote controls hence the main reason for wanting it built into the TV. But from reading the replies thus far and some regarding HD reception I wonder whether its too early to be buying a new TV as I would like it to last as long as my last one and not have to replace it in a few years simply because of transmision changes.
The extra remote can be a nuisance - although you might try a 'one for all' I did but found all the spare buttons confusing, and the changing of function of the buttons - I'd like one set of buttons for each piece of kit.
With freeview
- programme guide is more difficult to get to hidden below sub menu options for radio/tv etc
subtitles - are behind the words by a few seconds (- and no height options.)
news - there are less pages - more difficult to get to , and theyve chosen a new character type which means that a typical teletext/ceefax page fits on 2 and a quarter freeview pages.
Great improvement - not