guys i am about to do a fairly large job where 20+ stb need to be included.
what is the cheap yet quality alternative?
plain STB no recording necessary

Is this job related to your other posts about MATV systems?

If it is, you will need to ensure the building MATV system is digital compliant, or you may have a lot of very unhappy customers who's new STB doesn't work.

yes it is and how do i make sure it is?

Have a pro installer inspect the distribution system and measure the digital channel power, BER and MER of each digital channel and also check analogue levels, including FM radio, as these signals (if strong) can compromise digital reception performance.

Depending on the measurements, it may be necessary to replace some or all components in the distribution chain if the digital signals will not provide reliable digital reception.

The Bush HD STB has been advertised lately for $79, but if you want something a little better maybe go for the Topfield 7010

wats warranty etc on bush
where is it made
as for topfield i have had positive dealingsa with their product again whats the warranty etc and where is it made

Healing 893 might be worth looking at. See this post here

Laceys have them listed, you would have to check out their price.

dpanda have them at $149

just a suggestion

Spammer reported

Warranty is 1 year. Bush is a British brand but like everything, the box is manufactured in China. Personally I'm very happy with our two Bush HD boxes - a reliable, strong tuner. First unit cost $99, 2nd unit cost $79. Normally sell for $139, but the Model DFTA13HD I have seems to be on the run out for a new incoming model.

great
thank you for that
appreciated

who is bringing BUSH in?

It's been posted before, but it's probably worth repeating.

Tuner 'sensitivity' isn't the only aspect of a receiver that will result in one working, where another one won't. As well as aspects such as Sensitivity, Selectivity and Linearity, an extremely important one is how well the demodulation of the complex COFDM signal is carried out.
This is usually performed by a specialised chipset. And these often-patented chipset designs do perform differently. And it is also usual that the better ones do cost more.
Having said that, given a 'good' signal in the first place, most digital receivers (STBs, TVs, PVRs) should give similar results. It is in the problem reception situations (not that uncommon ) that differences appear.

I had an interesting install last week that really showed the differences between a couple of STBs. The location was a very tricky one, with lots of multipath signals, and no easy location where all channels came in with balanced levels.
Raw BER (cBER, off the antenna) was similar at around 2 x e-4, but levels varied. Moving antenna locations resulted in a trade off between channels. SBS and ABC would all but dissappear in certain locations,and 2m away would rise back up again. However with those BER readings (and other ones taken), a good STB shouldn't have had problems.

The original STB was a base model DGTEC (DG-SD1401, SD only). It had no SBS before the new antenna, and after it was installed it would pixellate every few seconds on SBS. I initially just swapped it for an SD Healing HST816 that I had handy in my kit, to see how that would handle the reception. That worked flawlessly. No pixellation or sound problems.

Healing HHT893
I then tried the new Healing HHT893, which again worked perfectly. What was really interesting was that when I did a full scan with the HHT893, it picked up the Illawarra Knights Hill transmissions, and stored their channels numbers. The antenna direction for Knights Hill was about -270 deg from the main Sydney transmitters, where the new antenna was receiving from.
Switching to the WIN, PRIME and SC10 channels showed clear, uninterrupted reception. I thought this a bit strange, and took some meter readings of those channels, as I thought maybe they had just tuned in as 'phantom' channels.

CH 36, 37 and 38 all had signal strengths of 41 dBuV (minimum recommended is 55, note 6 dBuV change is a doubling/halving).
BER (cBER) of around 2 x e-2 (a couple of errors in 100), not good.
MER readings of 19 - 21. Below 21 expect problems, good reception usually delivers 25.
C/N readings of 14 - 16. Should be getting 25 - 30 and better.

Basically those channels shouldn't have been coming through error free, but they were. I only watched for a few minutes admittedly (no glitches noticed), but even so that was remarkable.

So I agree that the new Healing HHT893 does indeed perform very well in marginal signal reception situations. And it seems they are available at around $146 via mail order. That's pretty good.

Interesting in as much that the 3 instruments I have do not give reliable cBER measurements unless the level is 45dBµV or greater, so unless:

1) enhanced measurement techniques are used, or
2) your measurement device gives valid readings at lower levels,

I would suspect those readings are not necessarily a true indication of what is really happening from an unprocessed signal point of reference.

This may help to explain why some set top boxes (and integrated TVs) work better than others, as is pointed out, because of chip set complement, or perhaps lower noise conversion chains prior to the demultiplexing.

Readings were from a Unaohm T40 A Plus.
The readings I'm sure probably weren't too accurate at that level, but were given as an indication that all key aspects were reading low. I didn't give any decimal places.


The point I was trying to make is that in terms of what the meter read, I wouldn't have expected it to work as well as it did.
And BTW, to qualify this whole thing, I would never leave a job with the 'wanted' channels (coming in from an installed antenna selecting them) giving those sorts of readings. Those readings (and the channels) were coming from stray reception. And the client is very aware of this.

If I had measured that with my T40, I probably would have expected it to work. For my instrument (at UHF), going from 45dBµV to 41dBµV introduces a cBER reading error of several orders of magnitude. The plus may be better in that regard.




Not suggesting for one moment that you would

Whatever you do, do NOT go with the Bush. I purchased the $79 advertised one and it's rubbish (get what you pay for). Gave it back. So many problems with it and picture quality is poor. I'd rather the Topfield 7000 or even the one mentioned. Quality units.

+1 for the Healing recommendation.

Hi Rain,

Topfield 7000 is verygood, i bought 2weeks ago from clievepeeters and going really well with my 21inch crt sony tv

Thanks