1080P HDTV Reviews Blog

Terk Indoor Low Profile TV Antenna TV4

compact matched-pair receiving elements * VHF and UHF capability for reception of channels 2-69 * VHF/UHF band separator with 75-300 ohm matching transformer * 25-1/4″W x 4-11/16″H x 11-13/16″D * warranty: 1 year

User Ratings and Reviews

1 Star Did nothing for me
I bought this hoping to get reasonable reception in an urban area away from serious geographical barriers and broadcast interference. I didn’t. In fact, I got better reception for some channels with a plain coaxial cable.

4 Stars Good reception.
This antenna provides excellent reception where others have failed before. I live in a metropolitian area, however, my house is surrounded by large trees. The reception is crisp and clear and I have found one position that works on all my local channels.

2 Stars Not what I was hoping for.
I had been using a single rabbit ear on my HDTV and was able to pick up more than half the digital broadcasts in my area. With this antenna I get one less. It’s a nice design and easy to set up, but users will experience results relative to their location or distance from the broadcast towers. It can be great for some while doing almost nothing for others. Basically it’s a dice roll.

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Winegard HDTV Square Shooter Antena SS 1000

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Terk Low Profile Indoor Antenna TV5

Terk Technology TV-5 Low Profile Indoor Antenna - You might think an indoor TV antenna is as outdated and useless as the 8-track tape, but think about it for a minute. If you have satellite TV you know the joys of having your service knocked out during a storm, cable TV sometimes goes out of whack as well, & some people simply do not want $50 a month in television channels. All are great reasons to pick up an indoor antenna like the Terk TV-5. This specific antenna has a great low profile design which stands just 4 3/4″ high and fits inside most television cabinets. In addition to that, the built-in video selector is a great convenience - letting you switch between broadcast TV & a video source (ie: DVD, VCR or video game).

User Ratings and Reviews

2 Stars Looks Good on Top of the TV
Based on the glowing reviews I read about this product I guess I was expecting too much. After trying the antenna in several locations around the room, I went back to my old rabbit ears (markedly better reception than the Terk — even for local HD stations) and then moved the Terk to a another set in the house. Even there it made very little difference from what I was getting with a $10 set of ears from Wal-Mart. Decided to keep the Terk, however, since I expect to eventually move and hope it will work better in a new local not surrounded by trees.

5 Stars A Great Indoor Antenna
I had tried to use my old antenna, but it would not pick up many TV digital stations. The Terk TV5 is very effective in receiving the new digital signals.

4 Stars Good antenna for the price
I purchased this antenna in early 2007. As of today (8-8-08), I’m able to pick up at least 19 digital US channels and 2 digital Mexican channels on my Polaroid 32″ HDTV (I live 8 miles away from the border). CBS and NBC have strong signals, while with ABC, I have to move the antenna around a bit to find the best spot. Moving the antenna means I have to readjust it for the Mexican digital channels. The NBC signal is strong as sometimes I can watch their 2 digital channels with no antenna. Regular rabbit ears are useless for digital channels where I live. I don’t know why the government sponsored DTV commercials say: “All you need is the same antenna you are using to watch over-the-air channels”. I haven’t tried any other antenna to get ABC, but I recently purchased a rooftop antenna for my second TV.

4 Stars Works for me!
Item came and when it was all set up was WAY larger than I had anticipated. Works well and defiantely does the trick. The only problem was trying to find a spot for it. My roommate went out and bought one too when she saw that mine worked. The success of this product is defined by the area you live in and the signals available- I live in NYC so it is great!

1 Star Not as advertised
This product is one of the worst I have ever purchased. It sounded so good with many features. What I found was that there was no difference in the received signal was the same no matter what mode the unit was placed in. The gain control video switch had no affect on the received signal. It does have noticeable directivity. it was very disappointing as the unit looks well constructed.

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Terk Technology TV 2 Passive Indoor TV Antenna

extendable dipole elements (7-1/2″ - 44″) * VHF and UHF capability for reception of channels 2-69 * RF-style video input with antenna/source switch * VHF/UHF band separator with 75-300 ohm matching transformer * 8″W x 9″H x 4-1/4″D (height includes AM loop) * warranty: 1 year

User Ratings and Reviews

4 Stars Works Great
Bought this antenna last year after we went through Hurricane Wilma, and lost cable for over 2 weeks. Worked great.

1 Star It’s better than a coat hanger
What can I say? It’s not a Radio Shack 160″ boom antenna. However, this antenna would probably work better if you nail it up on your roof.

5 Stars Number 1 indoor TV antenna.
For a non-amplified indoor TV antenna, you’ll never find a better one than this Terk TV-2. I got 2 of them, and was pleased. If you need to get better reception, you might want to get an outdoor TV antenna. If needed, outdoor antennas can provide much better TV reception, which can include HD signals. This Terk does work.

2 Stars UHF loop is useless!!
I ordered this antenna to enhance the reception of the UHF channels. I live in a big city and I thought I shouldn’t have a problem with any indoor antenna. it seems I was mistaken. this antenna is useless. it is almost no better than my previous 99 cents store antenna.

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RCA Indoor Antenna ANT115

There’s a full range of RCA antennas to handle all kinds of reception and installation needs. The indoor antennas feature technologically advanced engineering, along with contemporary styling to allow you maximum effectiveness without interfering with your home decor. Also, all indoor antennas come with the necessary hook-up accessories for immediate and easy installation.

User Ratings and Reviews

2 Stars ok for the price
while this works as well as any other type of antennae, please be aware the UHF part is stationary…and the VHF “wands” ONLY move up and down from side to side - NOT front and back as you would think it would. i learned my lesson as one antenna broke off right at the base as i tried to get it to do what it wasn’t intended to do i.e. move forward. it is an ok product for that OTHER TV you have in the den or guest bedroom… (this may all be moot anyway come Feb 2009 with the new law taking effect)

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Lasonic Turntable CD Recorder

- Lasonic turntable with CD CD recorder radio and cassette player- Function select turntable CD recorder cassette AM/FM radio AUX in- 3 Speed(33 1/3 45 78RPM) turntable- Compatible to 18cm 25cm and 30cm records- Build-in adapter for 45RPM records included- Front-loading CD drawer with recorder function- CD Program with 32 tracks function- CD-DA CD-R CD-RW disc compatible- Rec level control and Rec level indicator for CD recorder- One touch recording for CD recorder- Audio from AUX (all outside audio signals) phono or cassette tape can be recorded onto digital audio type CD-R or CD-RW blank discs- Side slot cassette with single playing function only- Rotary Analog AM/FM tuner- Rotary digital volume control- On/off power- LCD Display with backlight- AUX in function with cable- Earphone jack- Two full-range speakers- Full functional remote control included- Nostalgic design with wood detailsSEE ALSO: LAS-ANQ-800R-ST standLASANQ800R

User Ratings and Reviews

1 Star do not purchase

This machine didn’t even play the cassette tape….very cheaply made….I called Amazon to return the item and they could not be nicer….agreed to take off shipping etc and then referred me to (I guess Lasonic) for a free shipping label….well they not only wont give me a free shipping label for a defective item.. I have to pay for shipping…they may also ask for a re stocking fee….and if they don’t see anything wrong with it I may have to take it back!!!!! P.S. also have to ship in another box and place original box inside…..I will never purchase a lasonic item again……there may be other items a better quality but if you don’t like or if it is defective…would you want to go thru this…I think not…

2 Stars ceramic cartridge
THIS IS A WARNING TO ANYONE BUYING THIS TO RECORD YOUR RARE,MINT LP’S.DON’T GET THIS!!!!IT HAS A CERAMIC NEEDLE AND CARTRIDGE WHICH IS CHEAP AND DESTROYS RECORDS!IF YOU DON’T CARE ABOUT THE QUALITY OF SOUND OR THE CONDITION OF YOUR ALBUMS THEN GET IT,EVERYTHING ON IT WORKS FINE.NOT FOR QUALITY RECORDING.

5 Stars Excellent product for a small places…all in one!
This a a great “all in one”. Plays old records, tapes, Cd’s and records from your tapes and old records on Cd’s…what else you want! It’s very compact for small apartments.

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Samsung BD P1200 Blu ray Disc Player

With its HQV true 1080i to 1080p HD deinterlacing process, the BD-P1200 delivers the sharpest, most detailed HD images possible. There are no jagged edges with the per-pixel motion adaptive algorithm and asophisticated multi-directional diagonal filter. It doesn’t get any better than this for viewing enjoyment.

User Ratings and Reviews

1 Star Samsung BD-P1200
The Samsung BD-P1200 looks great for a paper weight, as delivered and is incapable of playing Blue Ray Disk unless you go on line and download version 1.4 (Image), you must download in “Image”, otherwise it will damage the unit. The next generation Blue Ray disk will not work because existing Samsung’s will not have the necessary hardware. Most of these good reports must have been written by Samsung, there are a number of class action lawsuits going on.

1 Star Absolute Waste of Money
The Samsung BD-P1200 is an absolute waste of money. The latest blu-ray titles won’t play on it, so I had to do a firmware update. Three hours and a few tears later, I received error messages flashing across my plasma TV after installing the update. But–the firmware update must’ve worked on the BD-1200 because it played the discs. Then the optical port went bad–fell apart. I sent it in for repairs, but since it was 90 days past purchase date, I had to pay $60 for the repair + $24 for shipping it back. I packed it carefully in its original box and mailed it off. Samsung returned it to me in a cheap packing box with packing peanuts! Needless to say, it won’t play anything now–skips, jumps, hops… Since the motherboard has to be replaced in order to replace the optical connector, the firmware update I sweated over is gone as well. I called Samsung and spoke with their incredibly rude “customer service” people. The “fix” is to send it back again, and they’ll supposedly fix it, but I can kiss my original box good-bye; they toss those. They did agree to do this repair “for free” and sent a pre-paid shipping label. They also agreed to install the firmware update. Do I have any confidence whatsoever that Samsung will repair this unit to operate the way it’s supposed to? Not at all.

1 Star i hate this player and samsung support
this is the worst experience that i have ever had with any piece of electronic equipment. Samsung is incompetent and doesn’t care about service either. this player won’t play a BUNCH of the new DVD’s and the LAST time i went through this i had to spend HOURS TRYING to download a ‘firmware’ fix? that finally they had to send me a fix that STILL won’t play 1/2 of the new Blu Ray DVD’s i buy, I HATE THIS AND FEEL RIPPED OFF, DON’T BUY THIS OR FROM SAMSUNG, SAVE YOURSELF THE AGGREVATION.

1 Star Junk
I’ve had nothing but problems with this DVD player. Samsung FINALLY released a firmware upgrade for POTC: III but it froze my player after I downloaded the update. The download turned my DVD player into a paperweight so I trashed it and will now buy Panasonic.

3 Stars Great picture and sound
I really like the product when it works. I had a problem upgrading the firmware. I followed the directions and burned a cd. The update hung at a screen for over a half hour. Support told me to kill the power. I was apprehensive since I know it can screw things up. Sure enough, killing the power made it so it didn’t work at all. Couldn’t even open the tray. Sent in over a month ago for repair and still haven’t gotten it back. Samsung now said they will send a replacement since it has taken well beyond a reasonable repair time. Hopefully I get a replacement unit soon. That is what we get for embracing a new technology.

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DIRECTV Plus DWO2 10021 HD DVR Lease

User Ratings and Reviews

1 Star 14 months, and still unbeleivably bad
I was really excited to step up to D*TV HD, and my old Tivo was so good I was unaware DVR was an unperfected technology. This piece of junk taught me otherwise. Some problems cleared up, but others are as bad as ever.

Don’t go near this!

2 Stars NOT AN HR20 THEY ARE SELLING
IF YOU ARE PURCHASING THIS PRODUCT AND EXPECT TO BE SENT THE ITEM SHOWN IN THE PICTURE DON”T BE FOOLED, THEY WILL SEND YOU AN HR21 WHICH IS BLACK AND WHILE IT IS A NEWER UNIT DOES NOT HAVE OFF AIR ANTENNA INPUT ANYMORE!! I ORDERED THIS THINKING IT WAS GOING TO BE AN HR20…

1 Star Directv is no good
They told me this was an upgrade. That’s a joke. I have now switched to cable because of this product. Directv decided not to continue to do business with Tivo–a big mistake. They are also lying to their customers by claiming that the Directv boxes work as well as Tivo boxes.

3 Stars The Only Game in Town, But Buggy
I live in a remote area, with no over-the-air signal and no modern digital cable available. Therefore DirecTV and Dish Network are the only games in town. I have used DirecTV gear for the last several years.

I got my latest DTV HD DVR in October 2007, with two inputs to a large 5 LNB dish. From the start, it has worked just well enough to not send back. At least once a week, the machine needs to be reset, because some or all of the channels won’t display. The errors are different–sometimes it says, “Searching for authorized content,” and sometimes the error has to do with one of the two tuners not working. But in all cases, a reset (from the setup menu, from the front panel button, or by yanking the power cord) brings the machine back–after a five minute reboot. I assume this points to software problems. Once the machine is in a bad state, recordings will be black.

I don’t know if these are software problems or if I really have a marginal unit.

As for the unit’s UI vs. TiVo–it’s not as polished, but it’s usable.

The OnDemand feature is interesting, but I don’t have a fast enough connection to take advantage of it effectively.

4 Stars quirky initially but good now
I installed the entire system myself and aiming of the dish is very sensitive but doable, thus some of my picture problems are no doubt due to alignment. Initially, the receiver itself would freeze and I would have to reset it. It would then go through a lengthy setup process but in the end would fix itself every time. But in the last month it has been running perfectly. Sometimes I get picture problems, like the processor isn’t decoding fast enough but could be due to alignment or weather. I got the black receiver which doesn’t have the ATSC tuner but does have an RF remote. The tuner would be nice so I could record OTA signals, but a computer can be rigged to do that job. American Sattelite said the silver boxes were an old model as did SolidSignal, though Directv said otherwise. Who knows? I never had Tivo but this receiver seems to do fine recording.

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SAMSUNG DVD 1080P7 FULL HDTV COMPLIANT DVD PLAYER HDMI SELECTABLE UP CONVERSION 1080p WITH DVIX

Samsung’s new DVD-1080P7 DVD upconverter with patented HQV technology is ideal for consumers who want to savor their DVD collections on new HD displays.Samsung’s new DVD-1080P7 players rejuvenate DVD libraries by up-converting a DVD’s native resolution (480p) to output close to high-definition formats (720p/1080i/1080p). Because the upconversion process occurs in the digital domain, no data is lost (compared with analog conversion) and the resulting image is pristine.

User Ratings and Reviews

5 Stars hi def dvd
can’t believe the ease of use. third dvd we own. easier than the cheap basics with great resolution,clarity. in sync with our samsumg lcd(which we did not expect)very happy with our purchase

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Hauppauge 1178 WinTV HVR 1600 Internal Hybrid TV Tuner Video Recorder

WinTV-HVR-1600 is a dual format TV receiver for your PC. Watch ATSC digital TV or analog cable TV, in a window or full screen. Watch and record all ATSC formats, including the highest definition 1080i format! WinTV-HVR-1600 includes TV scheduler, the Hauppauge remote control and IR blaster to control satellite and cable TV set top boxes.

User Ratings and Reviews

1 Star Prodcut is unable to work with qam regardless of its description
Our old Replay TV (Lifetime membership) is still working strong. The only problem with Replay TV is that it won’t take a digital Qam signal (or any digital cable/OTA signal). Our goal when buying this card was to timeshift the HD locals.

We tried intensively for four days using the enclosed software, BeyondTV and then SageTV. Although we are computer literate, we could not get this card or the programs to work correctly on XP Pro with AMD 64 x 2 5000 chip. The video card we have installed is also heavy duty.

My little Vizio TV received Qam with no effort and takes 2 minutes to scan. But this card,,,,ugh….took 60 minutes to scan for analog and Qam. We did have the cable split. We did everything right…. but it constantly froze or was unable to map correctly.

After a point we looked at ourselves and said…”All this work just to timeshift the locals on HD?”

Better to watch the shows on the internet. They are there 24/7 and its free. Darn. Tivo is also out of the running since it won’t take Qam and map it correctly either.

I have to say that the engineering is just not there yet for what we wanted. Maybe in a year or two when the demand is there, Hauppauge will develop a better product.

I wish Replay TV was still there and I would upgrade to a digital Replay TV in a heartbeat.

3 Stars A good idea
I installed this device into a airly powerful desktop with plenty of RAM and a 256 Mb Video card. The images were ok, a little jerky, but not really watchable. This may, however, be more user error than hardware quality…

2 Stars The Record feature doesn’t work in Vista
Beware buying any Hauppauge product for Windows Vista. Everything works except for Record, which crashes. The hardware may be good, but the software/driver seems to have been an afterthought.

4 Stars Great Card! Easy to Install! Needs Better Software!
I give the card 4 stars and the software 2.5 stars, for an overall rating of 4 stars.

Card produces great picture quality. I am using an old outdoor antenna plus a 20db to 30db adjustable amplifier from Radio Shack. I only got about 4 channels without the amplifier and between 28 to 50 channels with the amplifier. I bought a big new HDTV antenna, but I need to install it outdoors, because it doesn’t work well enough indoors. HDTV is way better than analog. The picture quality is perfect and much higher resolution.

You need a reasonably powerful computer to handle this card. At first I was using a PC with an Athlon XP 1800+ CPU and Radeon 9700 card. I could watch HDTV on this, but there was some occasional lagging or stuttering of the video. It was not quite fast enough of a computer. Then I tried to upgrade the CPU, and ended up killing the computer. So I built a brand new computer with really high specs! My new PC has a Athlon 64 X2 5600+ cpu, 2gb Corsair ram, and EVGA GeForce 8800 GTX graphics card. Now it handles the HDTV very easily. I can even play a recorded video at the same time as I have the HDTV running.

The WinTV software works, but it is lacking a couple of things. First of all, it will not adjust the proportion of the picture to your monitor. When you watch in full screen mode, it just stupidly stretches the whole picture to cover your entire monitor. I use a 16/10 proportion widescreen monitor. Therefore all the 16/9 and 4/3 tv shows are stretched out of proportion in full screen mode. Also, the timer recording software does not work! That is, when I try to schedule shows for recording, that just doesn’t work. I bought a WinTV card a few years ago and I returned it because the software was utter crap and would not even install properly. This new WinTV software is far better, but it still needs improvement for the above reasons! Why do they insist on releasing good hardware with inadequate software? Is it so hard or expensive to create decent software with complete functionality? I doubt it! I used to do computer programming, and I think with just a little more effort they could’ve made this software complete. I’m not asking for some super fancy software, I just want something with a complete set of basic functions that I need! Another problem was that they don’t give you any software to play your recorded HDTV programs! You can record them, but not play them with your WinTV software! So I had to find software that would play these big HDTV files. So I got VLC (a free program) to play the files. It works great. I also got the BeyondTV software to watch HDTV. I use that one most of the time instead of the WinTV software. BeyondTV shows all the programs in correct proportion on my 16/10 monitor in full screen mode. Also, the BeyondTV timer scheduling feature actually works and is easy to use. However, BeyondTV has one problem, in that it doesn’t have an instant recording feature that works the way I want. So when I need to record something immediately while I watch, then I go back to using WinTV for that. So I am using three different pieces of software for all my TV viewing. I should only have to use ONE and WinTV should have provided that! I haven’t tried to do any video editing. The video editing software that comes with WinTV is probably a piece of junk and I haven’t tried it yet. I know it has minimal capabilities. Fortunately there is rarely a show that I’d want to edit and keep permanently, but I’m gonna have to find some good software to edit a few important shows and burn them to DVD.

From what I’ve read and from my own experience, it seems that this card does not have a very sensitive tuner, so it may be difficult for you to get all the available stations. Even with a 30db amplifier, I’m still getting only about 30 stations and some of them are not very strong. I can get 52 stations on my Zenith converter box WITHOUT using an amplifier and all 52 channels are rock solid! I probably will consider getting a better HDTV card eventually, if my new HDTV antenna does not get me all the channels with this card.

1 Star Poor Tuning Quality
i bought this with the thought of having a higher quality tuner card for DVR purposes. I already have a $20 Sabrent that i use for broadcasting to pick up the signal from the internet. The Sabrent actually blows this tuner away. For some reason the Hauppauge does not have the power to convert as clean a signal as the $20 Sabrent. I will be returning this item.

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