Customer Reviews

Philips SDV2750/27 Amplified Superior Digital Design Antenna

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I purchased this antenna at Walmart because of its small foot print and low price. I had previously used a Winegard ss-3000, which is probably the best indoor HDTV antenna around, but it measures 27 inches across. The Phillips antenna does OK with analog signals, but does require careful use of the gain and amplifier to receive digital signals. In fact, I had to use the low amplifier settings and near the lowest gain on the UHF signals (HDTV) to recieve all of my local channels that were digital signals. Also, I found moving the UHF head to a horizontal position, not the verticle position shown in the product photographs, gave the strongest signals. You may also want to retract and push down the rabbit ears when watch HDTV, as they seem to lessen reception. If you TV has a digital strength meter, that is a big help in the fine tuning the Phillips antenna. The Winegard and this antenna are both directional, so you must direct it at the transmission source for best reception.

The #1 thing about this antenna is: the UHF part (the flat panel) can be turned up to 90 degree left and right. This is a must adjustment to get all digital stations 40 miles away.

Of course the 24GB amplification really helps a lot. There are two gain controls; one for VHF and one for UHF. There is also a switch for high gain and low gain. There is a power switch too. Seems Philips was trying to make this a high-end unit with full of controls.

The black rabbit ears look and feel superb, love them, much better than chrome. I don't pull them out though (what a pity), because I'll lose some channels.

In comparison, the Philips MANT510 sold in kmart is a crap. Although claimed to be 50dB amplified, it gets no station.

I've tried several antennas, this one is the only one gets all my stations, all at "good" signal level out of excellent, good, fair and bad. I use it with my newly purchased Haier HLT71 7" TV, love both of them.

Cable and dish companies will be in trouble. With such a good antenna to get all the digital channels in superb image, why people still want to pay for watching? My local stores are all running out antennas as the digital transition is approaching.

I'm an OTA person, feeling its simply not in my makeup to pay for tv :) I have been using rabbit ears and a bowtie for the past many years (I live in a metro area (Col's OH) and the fartherest station I wish to receive is about 30 miles away. (all this info can be obtained at tvfool.com) and I could get a pretty good preview of what was to come for the "digital revolution".

It is of note that I also moved to an apartment from a house (located about 3 blocks apart) It's clear that this apartment (one among several 4 families in the area and all 2-3 story cinderblock, brick, and plaster construction. It is pretty clear that reception here is poorer than it was at the house. A large power substation is also about 3 blocks away.

Since I have purchased a converter box for my old 20 yr old tv set , I am now viewing digital tv (Zenith DTT901 apparently no longer available). While browsing Walmart I bought this (Philips) on a lark since it was the only one they had in stock, and I had noted that tv reception was mediocre at best since my "going digital". I get all the stations I want with just the rabbit ear/bowtie setup, but they are highly variable.. coming and going .. and high humidity or precipitation causes lots of problems. When they are good, they are great (digital is much improved picture.. but its very unforgiving of "marginal" reception.. while the old analog was quite viewable even if reception was poor)

I expect that these issues are not the fault of this antenna rather than my situation (but I expect I am quite representative of urban dwellers). So the best I can say is to research your situation as best you can before spending your money (or expect to try a few solutions)

This unit did absolutely nothing to help in my reception. I played with it all ways (location, with/without amp, direction, etc). I got the same variable and unpredictable reception as I got from my old setup. I believe most of my issues are related to severe ghosting and reflection issues rather than absolute signal strength (all confirmed by data for tvfool)

Its also noteworthy that the AMPLIFICATION does absolutely nothing to get better reception. You need the ANTENNAE GAIN (a function of its design, not the amp), not a "booster". The booster only overcomes losses from the antenna to your set(s) caused by cable run distance, splitters, intervening equipment, etc. In fact it injects even MORE NOISE that MAY make your reception worse.

followup edit(Apr '11): Over months of exposure to the OTA signals, I am certain that digital broadcast simply IS NOT equivalent to the old analog in practical application .. the received signal must be higher power and cleaner signal than analog to be usable in a given location.. Since this only applies to OTA users, it won't be addressed since we are a minority.. I could be paranoid and say its a conspiracy to promote cable tv, but I won't go that far.. but just be aware that after digital, you will never be as happy as you were with analog. It can be very frustrating to have a "strong" signal strength and yet still get dropped sound and frozen or broken pictures. And weather plays a significant role in the "receivability" of a station.. this was not at all true with the old analog broadcasts. This may be just my setup, but until I get a full digital tv, I won't know.. but this is my current thoughts

A solution MAY be an OMNIDIRECTIONAL antennae such as a Channel Master CM 3000 or similar (I am only speculating as I have not tried this). This CM3000 is meant to be mounted outdoors, but I see folk mounting it indoors or on patios as well. I want an omnidirectinal solution to avoid having to "repoint" the antenna everytime I change stations. Since I have decent basic signal strength, I don't need the kind of gains offered by highly directional antennaes. In fact the directionality is a negative to me as stations are all around me.

I recently tried five different antennae and found the Philips MANT940 to be the best of all five.

I compared it to the GE 24775, the RCA ANT537, Philips SDV2750, and the RCA ANT 1450. If I was giving a ranking for the five, it would be as follows:

1. Philips MANT940
2. RCA ANT 1450
3. GE 24775
4. RCA Ant 537
5. Philips SDV2750

By using the signal strength meter on my HDTV, the MANT940 was the only one to receive at least 80% on all relevant stations. I had chosen a location near a window in my garage and placed all antennae there and compared their performance. The top three I listed above all performed adequately, so I moved them to a place where I would mount the MANT940 between two windows.

Upon comparison of those three in the best window location, I found that the MANT940 had most channels in the 90-94% range and one channel at 80% while most of the channels on the other two were in the mid 70's to mid 80's.

I am in northern suburb of Atlanta, GA and found that the only channel that I wanted that no antenna would pick up is the NBC affiliate, WXIA.

We have used this antenna for approximately two years in two different locations. It was much more expensive when we purchased it. We have a Philips HDTV, so you would hope that a Philips antenna would work well with it. This would probably work well if you live far enough away from the signal towers (in the country), but in an urban/suburban setting, it has not worked well for us. We live about 10 miles away from all of the local towers. At first, the signal quality was just terrible until I turned the amplifier off. Since then, we have had issues keeping stations in tune for more than a day. We moved it all over, tried different heights, on the window sill, moved the antennas all around, turned the knobs to all degrees between min and max, and tried all sorts of things. We had to use reprogram the TV over and over, up to several times a day. It was able to tune up to fourteen channels, but there were only two that would stay reliably. The average was about five. When the signal would come in clear, it was great. Our first place was a one story townhouse with yard space around it and it was located on the first floor. Our second place was a third story apartment in a brick building. The results were exactly the same in both places. I finally went and bought a cheap non-powered antenna after reading reviews and all of the stations tuned right away. This antenna certainly has a lot of power, but unless you live in the country then it's too much power.

I have tried several amplified antennae's but this one smokes the rest. I get all regular channels, crystal clear, without having to move the antennae every time. My mom wants one for her TV.

Got this product a week ago and easy to setup and work without any problems. Picked up 16 channels with 4 HD quality with resolution equal to my prior cable provider.

The price was very acceptable. I picked up channels stronger than with an outside antenna. I have another Phillips antenna, 40 series, and this one puts it to shame. I can appreciate that it may not work for everyone, but it does for me.

Not bad for the price. Seems like you have to move the antenna around for different channels, hard to find one spot that will pick up every channel.

I was able to set up and adjust the position to get perfect OTA HDTV channels in less than 10 mins. The audio and video quality of local HDTV channels is amazing. I tried 2-3 different locations and finally placed it near the window and i get good reception even with blinds closed. Being in Fremont,Ca I am getting all Bay Area local channels (SFO/San jose) including NBC, CBS,ABC,FOX,PBS etc.

Update: I checked the performance of CLEARSTREAM2 Antenna (indoor/outdoor) with this Philips antenna and i had a tough time to adjust the position of CLEARSTREAM2 Antenna (placed in my patio) to get all channels. I will be returning the CLEARSTREAM2 Antenna as the Philips SDV2750/27 antenna beats it in cost and performance and ease of use (indoor).