Does what it is designed to do... Simply

Author's Rating:

Pros: Clear and concise owner’s manual, simple to use, backward and forward compatible.

Cons: Initial cost is high.

The Bottom Line: 
Although the choices of programming are limited and the initial investment is high, you will love this purchase for many years to come. It only gets better from here.

Author's Review
Wow. That was the first word out of my wife’s mouth when I asked her to look at a football game to tell me if my fiddling with the cables made a difference. Sure it may be immoral to use my wife as a guinea pig, but considering she did not know that I just hooked up the SIRT165 to the rear projection HDTV, I was quite impressed with her response. And, I did fiddle with some cables, so it was not a complete lie.

I went into research mode when I decided that my brother had one-upped me in our technology race by subscribing to the local cable company’s high definition package. I figured for sure that by receiving upwards of 15 channels (compared to his 4), I would easily put great distance between us. I had subscribed to satellite TV and cable, but tired of the expense and myriad channels with poor resolution. The satellite looked slightly better by comparison, when the weather was clear. So, until last night, I was receiving my boob-tube entertainment the old fashioned way, over the air and in analog. The townhouse I bought came with an attic antennae and standard RG59 cable run to two locations. I had bumped that up with a splitter and powered amplifier to send signals to the various TVs now located throughout the house, as the result of consolidating pre-marriage assets.

I wanted to solidify a home theater experience by purchasing a high definition widescreen rear projection TV. After many months of reading reviews and hitting the forums, the most cost-efficient set I could find was carted into my home. I borrowed a DVD player from my brother and hooked it up to my 5+ year old Technics receiver.

Well, as anyone with a big screen TV can tell you, they definitely show off imperfections, so I stuck to the two stations that I can receive well and that was that. The DVD player was connected to the TV with an S-video cable as I found the component video connection did not produce a noticeably better picture. I could watch my movies and my limited TV shows and I was content.

Reviews of the SIR T165 were a little scarce if not from it being newer, then from its being expensive. I finally figured that since I could get it for $200 less than the brick and mortar store nearby, I would order it from the internet. It had the most important feature of all... compatibility. This Set Top Box (STB) picks up all the approved digital transmissions, has all the connections to hookup to your TV (S-video, component, and DVI) an RS232 port (for upgrading firmware later?) digital audio out, a plethora of on screen menu options, and two firewire ports (one in and one out). You can hook up your digital camcorder and watch movies on your TV or record shows to your digital video recorder. Apparently these ports are what make this STB unique from the rest.

Testing the STB was a breeze. I hooked up the digital audio out to my Samsung DVD Home Theater, moved the antennae cable feed from the TV to the STB, and hooked component cables directly to my TV. I went through the easy to navigate menus and set my time zone and channel search. It took no time at all to lock into the channels, both analog and digital. The analog channels come in the same as before (there is a way to fine tune them, but no adjustments were necessary) and the digital channels were very clear. I am use to having the whole screen fill in (using JUST mode or FULL) but some stations refused to take advantage of the 16:9 screen I offered. Sharp pictures and high quality digital sound were amusing my senses and it showed with a permanent grin. The TV downstairs was on the same channel, but my digital version had a time delay. This is annoying and reminiscent of the satellite hookup I once used as the sound delay messes with my viewing. For football parties, I will have to find a way to isolate the sounds between the folks downstairs and upstairs.

Now it was time to look at the high definition broadcasts. I quickly checked off the stations that I could receive and discovered I was missing quite a few. I was prepared for this as I knew that I would need to point my attic antennae in the direction of the stations. Although it is in the attic (apparently loses 50% of signal reception) and pointing in the opposite direction, I was able to get quite a few stations and even the one that was about to air a Monday night football game in High Definition. My brother called me back just in time for the start of the game. I gave him a play by play of how it looked like the broadcasters were sitting in my TV behind a glass window! Wow! Even on a rear projection TV, this picture was incredible. It looked better than any cable or satellite broadcast I have ever seen, and from now on it was free!

Fine tuning the TV was a lesson in disappointment with my TV. Even though this STB can send signals to your TV in 1080i, 720p, 480p, or even 480i (for analog), my TV would only accept 1080i. Too bad since I was able to recently get my DVD player to send progressive scan signals to my TV and it was like I had a brand new player. Anyway, the 1080i looked just fine!

In conclusion: The SIRT165 is a fine piece of work. It picks up analog and digital signals, and has various inputs and outputs. It has connections for features I have not used yet, but I know I will not have to buy another one anytime soon either. I feel confident it can be connected to any TV with composite, component, S video, or DVI. DVI is a fully digital signal transfer method and this is ready for it. This is the OTA receiver with all of the bells and whistles. Although some stations are broadcasting in redundancy across their digital sub channels, it is only a matter of time before they are used for some serious programming options. If you want all the technical details and pictures, do a google search on SIRT165.pdf or download the updated manual from the Samsung website. My home theater system: Samsung SIR-T165 (Digital TV Set Top Box), Samsung HT-DM150 (Digital Home Theater System), and Panasonic PT-47WX49E (47” High Definition Digital Ready Rear Projection TV).