Samsung SIR-T165 Opinions?

[chupacabra]

Hello,
I think I am going to get this OTA STB. Amazon has good reviews on it, I like it because it seems to be the only OTA unit that has all the outputs (DVI, Firewire) that makes it more scaleable for future applications.

Does anyone out there have any opinions or experience with this unit? Is the tuner on the T165 better than the tuner on the T151?

I want to connect this unit to my standard cable and to an OTA antenna (going to try silver sensor first, I live in New Tampa).

Eventually will connect one of the new HD Tivos to it when they are available too.

Thanks!

[bdraw]

I would post your question on the AVS HD Hardware forum, I think you will find more people over there with experience with this box.

[jaymer]

agreed,
there might be a few people here with that specific unit,
but all the reviews and problems would be listed ad-nauseum over there.

search on sirt165 or t165 and you'll have plenty to read

[chupacabra]

Thanks, I'm checking out the other forums. I will let you guys know how well I do with the Silver Sensor Antenna.


Thanks.

[mikeymo]

I purchased the T-165 for HD OTA recording and for no other reason. I am not a fan of this unit as it is very "inconvenient" to operate.

In addition, the time clock is a major problem. It cannot be set manually. Rather it logs onto the time clock of the OTA station that you are setting the timer to record. Since the stations (see my posts in the General Discussion thread) do not keep their clocks accurate you must adjust for that. Then you run the risk of not getting your recording when you attempt to record consecutive programs on different stations because of the variance of those OTA station clocks.

I have the MITS 73711 RP with integrated tuner which I utilize to record consecutive programs.

But then it is the only STB out there that I could find (I do have the 169 TIME modified RCA DTC-100 STB, but that is another story) to do what I wanted. Pretty expensive for my purposes.

[chupacabra]

mikeymo,
Thanks for your input. Can you elaborate on 'inconvenient'? I will try to look for your other posts also.

That's too bad about the clock issue too, real bummer.

Thanks.

[mikeymo]

By inconvenient I refer to the very numerous steps ("clicks") that are required to set the timer. For example to get to the scheduling screen, you must hit the menu button on the remote. Then you click to get to a second screen. Then you must scroll to the last item on that screen and click to get to the schedule screen. Then you click again to get to a blank "schedule" screen which you then must program. Each item (eg: the hour to start recording) you schedule requires three clicks.

While doing all of the above you must remember how many minutes to advance or retard the time you schedule based on the time clock of the station you wish to record.

You may want to search the AVS FORUM under the "HD Hardware" threads. You will have to search for the T-165. There is a lot of info there.

[chupacabra]

mikeymo,
Thanks for your input. I suspect however, that once I get and HDTV TIVO, I should not have any clock issues with the T165, since I think Tivo has it's own internal clock.



What do you think?

[mikeymo]

I'm going to take a close look at it. I have never had a TIVO product, but I would suspect it gets its time signal from its guide source (like DirecTv).

Tampa NBC Ch 8 still hasn't corrected its time clock. They don't respond to e-mails about it. Bummer.