Samsung DTBH260F HDTV Terrestrial Receiver
Samsung
- DTBH260F
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Reviews
(19)
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This unit was just ok. It worked well with the exception of pulling in one channel that all my other tvs could. The remote is simple and well laid out which was helpful since I could not find codes that would work this device for my Onkyo multi-purpose remote. The negatives included poor build quality on the optical audio connection. It broke the first time I plugged in a cable. The guide was very slow, especially if you moved beyond the five or so channels that show at once on the screen. The biggest downer is that it just will not power up after 18 months of use. The unit is protected from surge by a Monster Reference PowerCenter HTS 5000 MKII and all the other devices connected to it are fine. If you want a long term solution for a display with no tuner beware!
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I need to supplement the analog tuners in my DVRs. This unit is useless for anything that does not have a RGB or HDMI input. The sound quality using analog connections is awful, too. The unit produces a loud buzz on the audio channels that makes hearing any sounds practically impossible.
You cannot use this unit on an analog-only TV or a VCR or DVR with analog-only inputs. I tried every connection on the back of the box & could not get a picture through my recorder. The RGB component connection worked only on my TV, but I don't need it there.
It also nearly fried my DVRs tuner using the antenna output. After I tried connecting it, the DVR would only receive channel 4 & I could not change the channel through either the remote or the unit's control panel. I had to completely reset the unit & run factory setup again to get it working.
This turned out to be a very expensive fiasco for me.
The manual leaves out a lot of instructions on how to set the unit up and does not make a point
You cannot use this unit on an analog-only TV or a VCR or DVR with analog-only inputs. I tried every connection on the back of the box & could not get a picture through my recorder. The RGB component connection worked only on my TV, but I don't need it there.
It also nearly fried my DVRs tuner using the antenna output. After I tried connecting it, the DVR would only receive channel 4 & I could not change the channel through either the remote or the unit's control panel. I had to completely reset the unit & run factory setup again to get it working.
This turned out to be a very expensive fiasco for me.
The manual leaves out a lot of instructions on how to set the unit up and does not make a point
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Not wanting to pay for poor local cable service, I put up a rooftop antenna and used this tuner with an older 720p LCD TV. Set-up was a brick wall at first because the manual isn't very useful. Finding auto-scan got things going. An online web site translating DTV to channel frequencies helped in manually adding channels that needed antenna rotation.
HDTV colors are rich and cinema-like though the HDMI port. Digital audio and video quality is as good as the TV station can provide. Reception is very good. Channels that have moderate snow and ghosting in analog are flawless in digital. Urban power line noise and overhead airplane ghosting is gone. Analog only wins on the faintest stations.
The remote control is more useful than a stick only because the tuner has no buttons on its front. The remote has to be aimed within 15 degrees and held still while pushing buttons. You can't bounce the IR off a wall, send it through a glass table, or tap the buttons while it sits on a table
HDTV colors are rich and cinema-like though the HDMI port. Digital audio and video quality is as good as the TV station can provide. Reception is very good. Channels that have moderate snow and ghosting in analog are flawless in digital. Urban power line noise and overhead airplane ghosting is gone. Analog only wins on the faintest stations.
The remote control is more useful than a stick only because the tuner has no buttons on its front. The remote has to be aimed within 15 degrees and held still while pushing buttons. You can't bounce the IR off a wall, send it through a glass table, or tap the buttons while it sits on a table
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The Samsung DTB-H260F is a high definition digital receiver that I researched for a long time before purchasing it. Pros: 1) the tuner is quite sensitive and will pick up many more digital tv stations than the government-approved converter boxes; 2) with a strong enough digital broadcast signal and the right equipment, you'll be able to receive gorgeous hi-def video with hi-fi 5.1 surround sound for free; 3) digital broadcasts are a definite improvement over analog ones. Cons: 1) you cannot add stations manually--all you can do to add a new channel is perform an auto scan after moving your antenna and hope that you pick up additional channels (but you may also lose some channels); some of the menu items (e.g., signal strength meter) are buried deep in the menu and require the user to go through several layers of choices to access them. Please note that in order to get the full benefits of this receiver, you must have a tv that has either HDMI and/or component video inputs. If you have only
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If you're planning to use this product to receive digital TV broadcasts on your old standard definition (SD) analog TV, this unit has serious limitations.
For many such TVs, you would have to use either the composite or s-video output from the Samsung, but they did not implement the on-screen menus, signal strength meter, etc. on those outputs, which means that many of the features that justify this unit's price will not be available to you.
One of the missing features is the manual aspect ratio correction, which allows you to correct the stretching of the picture that makes people look either too thin or too fat, depending on the direction of the stretching. This appears to only be a problem when viewing a high definition (HD) broadcast on an SD TV. SD broadcasts viewed on an SD TV are OK. Still, for people like me who can't stand the stretching, it's a serious drawback.
These features are available on the component video output if your TV has that type of input, and the component video
For many such TVs, you would have to use either the composite or s-video output from the Samsung, but they did not implement the on-screen menus, signal strength meter, etc. on those outputs, which means that many of the features that justify this unit's price will not be available to you.
One of the missing features is the manual aspect ratio correction, which allows you to correct the stretching of the picture that makes people look either too thin or too fat, depending on the direction of the stretching. This appears to only be a problem when viewing a high definition (HD) broadcast on an SD TV. SD broadcasts viewed on an SD TV are OK. Still, for people like me who can't stand the stretching, it's a serious drawback.
These features are available on the component video output if your TV has that type of input, and the component video
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I've been using two of these beauties for a year now connected to my Comcast
basic-basic $13/mo cable. The first one was to provide HD to my older "HD ready"
wide screen TV. Later, I bought a smaller Sharp Aquos LCD TV for another room and
was disappointed by its HD picture quality. I moved the Samsung box from the other
TV to this one to try (via HDMI) cable and, voila, awesome picture quality. So, I
bought a 2nd Samsung DTB-H260F and am foregoing the inferior HD tuner in my new
Sharp TV (I've since learned that the best thing to buy is a TV monitor [no tuner inside]
and attach it to one of these Samsung set-top-boxes).
Reception is exceptional. I get all the HD channels I'm supposed to get plus the analog
ones. Only a couple of times has the box not responded to up or down arrow channel
changes. Powering off/on the set-top-box resolved this.
I recently bought a TivoHD thinking it was time to move in the recording, time delayed
mode mode of watching TV. I
basic-basic $13/mo cable. The first one was to provide HD to my older "HD ready"
wide screen TV. Later, I bought a smaller Sharp Aquos LCD TV for another room and
was disappointed by its HD picture quality. I moved the Samsung box from the other
TV to this one to try (via HDMI) cable and, voila, awesome picture quality. So, I
bought a 2nd Samsung DTB-H260F and am foregoing the inferior HD tuner in my new
Sharp TV (I've since learned that the best thing to buy is a TV monitor [no tuner inside]
and attach it to one of these Samsung set-top-boxes).
Reception is exceptional. I get all the HD channels I'm supposed to get plus the analog
ones. Only a couple of times has the box not responded to up or down arrow channel
changes. Powering off/on the set-top-box resolved this.
I recently bought a TivoHD thinking it was time to move in the recording, time delayed
mode mode of watching TV. I
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I have a Panasonic HD ready TV and need to subscribe toComcast cable to receive my TV programs. The SamsungDTB-H260F tuner only tunes the digital stations and none ofthe non-digital cable signals. Not very useful. You willalso have to view these stations in the wider format and theoverall picture will be smaller. The digital programs werenot as sharp as my regular cable TV without the tuner. Thishas limited usefulness for anyone that depends on cable TV forreception.
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There's no chance I'm ditching my Toshiba and Sony analog CRT tv's. The pictures on both are gorgeous, better than any HDTV playing classic 4:3 movie DVD's, and infintely better than the visual damage inflicted by LCD's with their narrow brightness range and their habit of showing only 1/3 the colors and half the detail you see on a CRT. Folks, your eyes and ears are not digital: they're analog. So no matter how much "digital" stuff you have in your home, it all gets converted to analog before your analog brain can use it. Kapeesh? Samsung ostensibly created this monster so you could use it on analog equipment, then did all they could to make it unusable in that capacity. There's no way to setup this guy or program it thru its analog outputs -- you can't even see which channel you're on! So because you're dealing with engineers from Larry Curly & Mo Tech, you've got to have some way to get either HDMI or component video to run Samsung's setup. I did that by feeding one component output
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After much soul searching, I decided to get rid of cable, satellite, etc. because I was spending too much time watching the same programs over and over again. I decided to free up my time. However, I knew there would still be times when I would want to watch some TV. Limited basic cable in my area only covers the major networks and independent stations, which I knew I could get with a TV antenna. So why pay? However, reception was bad, so I wondered if I would get better reception if I had an HDTV tuner. My Sony Trinitron Wega is only two years old. There was no way I was going to upgrade to a newer model, so I did some research and found that if I bought an HD receiver that could be set to analog (480i), I could watch TV in digital format. The Samsung works wonderfully. It is an especially useful receiver for those of us who do not have HD nor digital tuners in our TVs. This tuner, plus a Radio Shack "Indoor VHF/UHF/HDTV Antenna with RF Remote Control" (model: 15-1892) will save me hundreds
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It was a bit of a wait in order to get the item, and in the end I ended up getting it through an outside seller via Amazon (meaning I had to pay shipping). Regardless, Samsung made another great product at a low price point. Works fantastically with my 32" Samsung LTP-326W LCD.
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This item has been hard to find in stores and online. After being waitlisted with Amazon for some time, I finally ordered it from another large electronics vendor that offerred free shipping, but I had to pay sales tax.
Last year I purchased two HDTV's (without built in tuners) thinking I would always get HD from my cable company. When I totaled up the cost of HD on cable with all of the extra boxes and fees, over-the-air HD for the price of a tuner seemed like a much more reasonable alternative.
The tuner was not difficult to hook up. I used an HDMI cable and regular rabbit ears/UHF antenna and plugged the tuner directly into my TV. (Remember to flip the switch on the back of the unit and to set your TV to HDMI input.) According to the manual audio is supposed to be transmitted through the HDMI cable, but I found that I had to run separate audio cables (included with the unit) to my home theater to get sound. (My HDMI cable was low cost at $7.50, so I wouldn't be shocked if
Last year I purchased two HDTV's (without built in tuners) thinking I would always get HD from my cable company. When I totaled up the cost of HD on cable with all of the extra boxes and fees, over-the-air HD for the price of a tuner seemed like a much more reasonable alternative.
The tuner was not difficult to hook up. I used an HDMI cable and regular rabbit ears/UHF antenna and plugged the tuner directly into my TV. (Remember to flip the switch on the back of the unit and to set your TV to HDMI input.) According to the manual audio is supposed to be transmitted through the HDMI cable, but I found that I had to run separate audio cables (included with the unit) to my home theater to get sound. (My HDMI cable was low cost at $7.50, so I wouldn't be shocked if
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I was an early adopter of flat panel technology having had a plasma monitor for many years, but I refused to pay the huge fees upgrade to HDTV. I originally used a Sylvania HDTV receiver and a relatively cheap antenna but could not reliably get over the air signals without frequent drop-out. When I purchased an Mitsubishi DLP TV with its QAM tuner, I accidentally discovered all of these HD cable channels. There aren't many QAM-capable external tuners to choose from (1 or 2) so I was pleased that the reviews of this tuner were overwhelmingly positive. Since getting it, I must say that it's one of the best entertainment values that I have purchased. I am pulling in HD versions of all the local (Washington DC) stations, plus the Baltimore stations, HD TNT, and quite a few other expanded basic cable channels that have left analog and have gone to digital broadcast in anticipation of Feb 2009 when analog goes away.
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Agree with everyone else here. Sure beats paying the cable co's. I was blown away with the picture I got. Just a word of advise, Use a HDMI cable, it you use the component (even the monster cables)your going to perhaps get ghost images. As soon as I used the HDMI cables bingo. I agave it a 4 star only because you have to reach behind to change the resolution settings but thats small.
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The receiver works just as described. It receives HD signals over the air and allows the user to use his HD ready T.V. as it was supposed to be used. Many HD T.V.'s do not have a built in HD tuner, this solves the problem.
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I decided to get this tuner when my cable company refused to provide most of the local stations in HD. I live 6 miles from the transmitter, so the signal is at full strength with only rabbit ears for an antenna. The picture is perfect for the 1080i broadcasts, with no digital artifacts or loss of signal. The only drawback is if you want to view content at the correct aspect ratio, you have to manually change the aspect ratio when switching between broadcasts in standard definition (4:3) and high definition (16:9). Otherwise, the HD channels are squashed down to 4:3 (everyone looks skinny) and the standard definition channels are stretched out to 16:9 (everyone looks fat). The remote has a button that allows you to manually change the aspect ratio without going through the on-screen menus.
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Very small and sleek. Easy to set up and operate. Delivers a great picture. Now I just wish the antenna would work as well. The remote took a few uses to get familar but things are working out.
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This units works well. It only has one antenna input. If you wish to tune both over the air (OTA) stations and digital cable (unscrambled only) you will need a switch to select from the two sources. It also won't tune standad non-digital cable signals. It is very sensitive, and delivers a great HD picture from fringe OTA and also from Digital Cable. It will not allow you to receive any scrambled digital cable (ie HBO). You will have to spend some time cleaning up the list of cable channels as it will lock on any signal, even if there is a scrambled picture.
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I'm from Quebec, in Canada. Here, they don't sell HDTV terrestrial receiver. With this little box, I finally receive HD signals!! Nice design, simple to use, nice in every ways.
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This is my first Samsung HDTV Receiver. It worked right out of the box. Installation was simple. It even provides component cables. Picture quality was incredible. The unit is small and sleek. The price is just right. I am able to pick up all the channels in my area with a cheap antenna.
