Customer Reviews

Accurian Premier HDTV Receiver Model 16-3499

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One of the best kept secrets about HDTV is that it's a broadcast standard, not a satellite or cable format. In fact, those compress the signal to get more bandwidth, while the free over the air signal is the full digital signal sent to those companies. HDTV exists in just about all areas where you can get a tv signal with a regular antenna. This box lets you get those channels.

Congress mandated that HDTV sets have built in tuners by now, but earlier "HD ready" sets did not have to have them. In order to get true HDTV, you need to get a box like this for those sets. Radio Shack sold these, and not many people bought them. Then they cleared them out for $99 each, and anybody with basic cable was able to get more channels, a much cleaner signal, and could use it with an old NTSC TV or an HD ready one.

If you have a recent HDTV, you don't need this. If you have a "regular" TV and can get snowy channels, your signal is probably good enough to get perfect signals that are far better than analog cable or traditional over the air broadcasts. Digital signals are either strong enough or weak enough to get, and if you get them, then there is no snow and no ghosts.

This model does the job reasonably. It does not give you analog channels, so if there are any in your area that are not also available in digital, you have to use your old tuner too. Most ones that come built into HDTVs let you mix and match signals.

If you can get this reasonably cheap, it's worth it to upgrade from analog. The remote does not work well unless aimed very carefully, and it's not compatible with most universal remotes. If you leave the unit on long enough, the firmware bugs will freeze things, or make the channels appear dead. Switching the unit off and on will fix that, and it's not an everyday problem.