For my second review of the new digital to analog converters I bring you the Zenith DTT900, a great converter with all the bells and whistles you could want. The Blue Ribbon for Excellence goes to the Zenith Digital TV Tuner Converter Box, okay that’s what they call it but the rest of us know it as a Digital to Analog Converter Box or just the DTV Converter Box. The Zenith TV Tuner Box is what you need for converting those digital signals to your analog television when the analog signals are no longer being broadcast from your local television stations.
The Zenith Digital TV Tuner is the same thing as your Digital to Analog Converter Box or what that government website calls the DTV Converter Box and it is what all the fuss is about for your analog televisions. It’s also the one you want and so does everyone else by the fact that Radio Shack cannot keep them on the shelves. This little baby has many great features and I’ll start with the main one that you will really enjoy for setting up your system.
Once you connect the antenna to your DTV Converter Box and connect the analog television you can scan for channels which will take a considerably shorter time than I have seen in my other converter boxes as well as my digital television. When you have the channels scanned and you can watch the various channels you can hit the signal button that will show an actual working signal strength of the digital channel.
This bar is about six inches wide and shows the active signal your television and antenna are picking up as well as give you an audible or beeping sound when you have a good signal above 50% or so. When it is low there will be no sound and when it is above about 85% it will be a constant tone telling you that it is getting a great signal.
This will be very handy in adjusting an antenna for getting the best signal especially if you are alone and trying to do the job by yourself. The audible alarm will allow you to turn the antenna and tell you are getting a good signal without having to actually watch or see the TV. This came in quite handy while my son turned the antenna outside and I told him how much and when to turn it.
This does not mean you can be outside on the roof and listen through the attic into your bedroom but it is one feature that makes perfect sense for us do it yourselfers who are trying to get the most out of their old analog TV’s. It is also nice to have this 6 inch bar that actually shows a varying level of signal strength for you to find out the best signals for all your channels instead of this tiny bar an inch long and only shows 100% or nothing for all the channels.
I have another digital to analog converter box that I have just received and this one has this tiny bar for a signal meter that does not change unless you lose the signal and cannot get a channel. But more on that converter box when I have played around with it some more, so stay tuned for more reviews after this one.
Know that I have jumped all over the best feature I will start from the beginning and tell you all about this DTV Converter Box from Zenith. First off the Zenith DTT900 was one of the winners of the 2008 Consumer Electronics Shows Innovations Award for its handsome styling and consumer friendly features. Well this one also wins an award from me as well, my Blue Ribbon for Excellence.
The Zenith DTT900 comes with the tuner box itself, a set of audio/video cables with RCA connections, an RF cable for connecting the box to the TV, the remote control with two batteries along with the manual and a quick start guide. You can connect the antenna or cable TV RF cable to the input on the back and the analog TV to the box using either the RF line out or the RCA connections.
The converter box is a nice piano black front and the rest is black painted metal, the power on off is a blue on and red off light on the front as well as the channel up and down buttons and the power button. This is really nice to have the channel up and down on the front of the unit and on the converter itself instead of having it only on the remote; if you just can’t find the remote at least you can change the channels.
The DTT900 DTV Converter Box has an easy six step setup when you first plug it in that takes you through setting up the main language, the aspect ratio and scanning for channels. Once you have run through this your ready to watch digital television on your analog TV set. You can also check out the many features and also check out the signal strength as I have already mentioned but you can quickly check out the one touch buttons on the remote like the zoom for different aspect ratios and the sleep mode.
Great features of the Zenith TV Tuner Box include the various closed captioned functions that really do show they have taken great care to add in features for people that would need the closed captioning and would be able to really enjoy them. I’m talking full editing of those closed captioning features including font type, color, size, background and opacity of both letters and background. They also have all the various closed captioning channels and fields for those that need them and want all the available choices.
There is the electronic programming guide that may be a bit basic for the first part but it is a bit more than you have been used to with analog television. You can see the show that is currently on and the next show that will be coming on no matter how many hours away it will be. This is really nice to not just give you an hours’ worth of programs but the actual next show on, for a good example the program guide last night showed the news on after the two hour episode of Lost.
You can also hit the display button to find out more detailed information about each show that adds to the basic guide when you first turn it on. This is nice and gives the more detailed information such as the rating of the show, when the show is on, current time and closed captioning information as well as a description of the show.
The usual parental lock is available for those with inquisitive but impressionable minds and allows you to block channels as well as programs according to four different rating systems. Programs can be locked out by ratings using the Children, General, Movie and Canadian rating system that further specify the ratings of shows.
The different rating systems are geared toward making it easier for you to choose appropriate programs for your younger people so you don’t have to worry about them while watching TV. The Zenith DTV Converter Box also has the downloadable rating ability so if TV stations change their rating system in the future the box will update accordingly, a really nice future proof feature.
The Zenith converter has the usual aspect screen settings but there are many more than the other converter box I reviewed with aspect ratio of the TV for wide screen or standard screen. The digital TV signal is sent in wide screen format and your converter changes that signal to fit on your screen or crops it off so you see the center section of the show. The stations have standardized with this and are sending the digital TV signal in a standard widescreen format that has a ratio of 16 to 9.
This means that the program you see on a widescreen TV is actually wider than it is tall and they have started sending the signals like this for all TV’s. The converter boxes have the choice according to the manufacturer what to do with this signal and how it appears on your analog or standard sized TV screen. Some analog TV’s are also widescreen so this would not be a hassle for anyone who owns a newer widescreen analog television but for the rest of us there are a few ways we can watch our television on a standard screen size.
With the Zenith TV Tuner Box you can view your standard screen television using set by program, letterbox, cropped and squeezed. If you think about this the size of your wide screen TV is different than the standard TV due to it being wider so they have to either squeeze it on the screen or cut it off somehow. The set by program allows the channel to pick what they want to show it as; this would probably be different for movies and TV’s show as well as news.
The letterbox will have a black area above and below the box with the television show on it to allow all the sent digital television show to be seen on your TV. The cropped format will cut off each side of the screen so you miss things that are happening one each side of the screen, usually not much of a problem. The squeezed is not really useful as it stretches the picture to fit on your screen and makes everything look odd.
Sometimes it is nice to watch a movie or TV show in the widescreen format as you get to see more of what is happening but for things like news and talk shows you really don’t miss much by cropping the sides off. With all these choices you can quickly and easily change the formats on the fly using the zoom button when you start watching a show so you see what you want and not what the manufacturer thinks you should be watching.
I guess that is the main difference with the Zenith converter box and some of the others I have seen, the user friendly aspects and you’re given the choices instead of only having the choice they think you should use. I like the feature of being able to turn the TV on and off with the Zenith remote as well but a volume would have been nice as well. They have a list of controllable TV brands for use with the TV power button and it is easy to set the remote to work with your TV. My TV on off using the Zenith remote worked without having to program it, lucky I guess.
The Zenith converter box is really my choice so far and I have seen three DTV converter boxes and have read a lot about them on the internet. I hope I have helped in your choice of a DTV converter box and answered some questions you may have as well as showed why the Zenith TV Tuner Box DTT900 is a great choice for your DTV converter box.
Ease of Use, Performance: 24/25, Look & Feel: 24/25,
Features 24/25, How much I enjoy 25/25
Total: 97/100
