Hello,

We are about to purchase a HD STB and would like to ask for opinions as to the best one.

My preference is for Panasonic but a local retailer claims that the manual switching is a problem and that the LG or Sony models with auto switching are better.

Any advice or opinions gladly welcomed!

Many thanks,

Regards,

Mark

The Panasonic HD STB's best output is component. Which just don't crack it for HD video.

If you can wait a few weeks, and have a HDMI enabled TV, you should pick up a HDMI out STB.

It depends. What screen do you have? If I understand correctly what you mean by auto or manual switching (eg the scaling is to a fixed resolution, or based on what the signal is), it depends if your display can handle the native signal res. Eg, a fixed resolution device (lcd plasma etc) needs to scale the input to whatever its output res is. So having the STB scale is (usally) ok.

If, OTOH, you have a CRT which can handle the signal resolutions, then you probably want auto-switching.... so that the signal does not have any scaling applied to it.

Hopefully thats what you meant ;-)

Regarding component vs HDMI... there is very little in it. It often depends more on the particular device and whether it has good quality component or HDMI connections. Yes, HDMI is better, all other things been equal... but its not a big difference.

Hi SARFan,
What sort of display do you have?. I have a CRT projector, which uses a RGBHV connections. For example, I have a Homecast HT5000. It has component, RGBHV ( via a DB15 VGA connector ) and a DVI-I connectors. I use the RGBHV connector to my projector, for which I use 720p. I have had no problems with it since its installation.
Make sure you check out what type of HD input ( connector and native resolution ) your display device has, so as to know what HD set top box will be compatible to it.
You have come to the right place, search on this forum too, for information, or maybe someone who has the same display as you can recomend a suitable STB.
Regards
Juz

There is a STB, the AUSID, which only has component, and apparantly it gives excellent PQ, even compared to DVI/HDMI, or VGA... Technically these higher end connections though do give a better PQ. You want to be able to change the format from the remote, i.e. cycle between 576i/576p/720p/1080i, and possibly also have a "passthrough" feature to ensure the signal is not scaled at all by the STB when you don't want it to be. In my case my TV will display 576i in "SD" mode and will only then display 576p/720p/1080i in monitor or "HD" mode. This means I like to scale all the SD channels to 576p/720p/1080i so I can watch them in monitor mode on my TV. Often upscaling 576p to 1080i on my Tv looks better as well. I have the Teac, they have a new mode out which I hear is excellent also... the LG has changed model, which isn;t made anymore I think by Humax. Humax make a good box... in the end whatever gives a good PQ and combination with your screen, just don't get the bloody Panasonic or DGTEC

JSmith :ph34r:

JSmith

I"ve had a thomson for a year and it's been absolutely perfect ... never had to reboot or switch off ever unlike some of the horror stories I"ve heard ... I was going for the panasonic as well but everyone has said that their products hasn't been very reliable over the last few years and have had alot of returns due to lots of problems ....