My fourth review of a Digital TV Converter Box comes from General Electric and is a pretty decent converter with some very good features.
Ease of Use, Performance: 18/25, Look & Feel: 19/25,
Features 20/25, How much I enjoy 18/25
Total: 75/100
The General Electric DTV Converter called the Smart Digital Converter Box is a pretty good converter for receiving your DTV signals with plenty of nice features. The one problem I had is it did not pick up one of the television signals that the others did.
The Smart Digital Converter Box does have a few features that the others did not and did get in the television signal after a little tweaking. I had to move my antenna around a bit in order to receive the DTV signal with this box but it did get the signal in eventually. I am not quite sure why this box did not get the signal in as good as the previous box but it does have other features that other boxes did not.
The GE Smart Box Model 22729 has a full days list of TV shows in the Electronic Program Guide that none of the other boxes did. The DTV Box costs about $60 from Target and is also available at Radio Shack and the internet using your government coupon.
The box converts the signals just fine but like I said I did have to adjust my antenna for receiving one of the channels. It has a nice signal meter that uses two bars to measure signal strength and signal quality which is another feature no other boxes had. This allows you to adjust the antenna even better and with more accuracy but it still means you have to go out and adjust the outdoor ones.
The box has the usual connections on the back with the antenna in and out coax connections as well as the three RCA type connections in case your TV does not have a coax antenna in. You can also use this as a connection to a VCR or DVD player to use that along with your DTV converter box. This box also includes the Smart Antenna connection for the newest in antennas if you want to try that out.
I have not read much about whether a smart antenna works better than a regular one and am currently trying to receive one for reviewing. I will get back to you on the smart antennas that are just becoming a topic in some HDTV forums but I could only find one currently available, the DTA 5000 from Funai Elcetronics.
The scanning on the GE Smart Box works well and did find the channels as well as having the added channel scan that does not erase the first channels. This allows you to scan for additional channels and not have to worry about losing the channels you already found. The menu and remote work on a color coded system that makes the controls and menu a bit easier once you get used to it.
The remote does not have any TV controls so you do not have the choice of using this remote to control the TV power on or off as well as volume. This is one feature that I do like on my DTV converter box and one that I would recommend you get, TV controls on the remote so you can shelve your TV remote.
The GE Smart Box has the full range of parental controls using both the TV and Movie Ratings to lock out shows and movies that are inappropriate according to the ratings. Other features that the Smart Box has are the common subtitle choices and being able to change font and the box around them.
This converter box is a pretty good purchase and does not cost very much after your coupon of $40, only an additional $20. But I would try to get either the RCA brand, the Digital Stream or the much better Zenith converter as I had no problems getting the channels with either of these boxes. You should be able to pick up whatever channels you get with the other boxes but may have to move your antenna a bit more which is facilitated by the signal meters.
This converter box does include the nice full day of programs in the electronic program guide which is a big plus as well as the handy signal strength and quality bars to make adjustments much easier. I would recommend this if you want the full days guide as an extra bonus that I did not find on any other converter box.
The GE Smart Digital Converter Box is a pretty good converter box for your digital to analog converter choice and I do recommend it.
