Got an Sony WEGA system? Then why not the HDTV receiver to go with?
Written: Jul 24 '02 (Updated Oct 29 '02)
|
Product Rating:
|
|
| Sound: |
 |
|
| Ease of Use: |
|
|
| Picture Quality: |
|
|
| Durability: |
 |
|
| Customer Service: |
 |
|
|
Pros: HDTV over-the-air plus DirecTV, looks nice with a WEGA TV
Cons: HDTV picture is smaller than screen size by a lot. Discontinued because of quality problems?
The Bottom Line: It's a fine unit for HDTV OTA and DirecTV, especially if you have other Sony components
|
|
|
| Marc_Matthews's Full Review: Sony SAT-HD100 Multi-Satellite Tuner |
I have had my SAT-HD100 for over a year without any problems. On many of the AV boards, there have been discussions about quality problems that probably foreshadowed the products discontinuing. Apparently, some of the problems are so bad that Sony is will to give you your money back if you write a nasty letter. I have not had a problem with my unit.
The unit is a nice addition to my other Sony components. The silver casing matches my Sony 36XBR400 TV. When I got this TV, I wanted to be able to see what all of the fuss was about with HDTV. I already had DirecTV and I live in a suburb of Dallas, which was one of the first cities to have HDTV. I bought my SAT-HD100 and hooked it up to my existing DirecTV service and VOILA - no problems. DirecTV offers only a few stations of HDTV programming - Channel 199 (HD.NET) is a science-experiment for my fellow Dallas-ite Mark Cuban. He broadcasts all day in HD format. Lots of demo shows, but mostly sporting events (like Mavericks or Stars games). The highlight was when he carried the SLC Olympics, which never looked better. Unfortunately, it was one day delayed and lacked Bob Costas (they subbed in their own announcers). This is the channel I use when I want to demo HDTV to my friends. The other channels on DirecTV are HBO-HD (509) and Showtime-HD (543). Don't bother looking for these channels unless you have an HD unit - they do not show up. They offer simucast HD versions of the movies on the primary channels (501 and 541). Nice to be able to watch widescreen/dolby digital versions of movies.
The real beauty of this unit is being able to get Over-The-Air (OTA) broadcasts. I don't know why I need DirecTV locals anymore with this. OTA HDTV really puts favor back into local broadcasters. I bought a $59 Radio-Shack antenna (just a normal, big unit - make sure it has UHF capabilities because HDTV is over the UHF spectrum) and put it in my attic. The SAT-HD100 has a signal finder menu choice, very similar to the satellite signal strength finder. When I first set up the attena, I was able to get a few channels, but after messing around a bit, I picked up 8 channels of HDTV. HD channels have a .1 after their number to distinguish them from normal channels (i.e. channel 4 is 4.1 in HDTV).
The picture quality is better than DirecTV. Dolby-Digital comes in for some shows. Two of the channels have secondary channels that broadcast weather radar. One channel has a secondary channel in spanish. Prime-time TV is when there are the most HD shows. But even standard-definition shows look better.
The only annoying thing about this unit is that the HDTV picture gets cropped. Letter box shows look letter box. But anything in the 4:3 aspect ratio gets double-letterboxed. You know the black bars at the top and bottom of the picture in a letter box format, just imagine those on the right and left sides of the picture. Which means that my 36" picture is effectively a 30" picture.
I don't think this is a fault of the Sony, but in the Guide, OTA HDTV channels don't show any program info. I don't know if this is because broadcasts are not sending this info.
The remote is good and I use it to control all of my Sony components.
The unit itself has an LED screen that tells you what channel you're on. A nice feature is if you are listening to MusicChoice channels on DirecTV, the LED scrolls the song, artist, label across even if the TV is off.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 799
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
Marc_Matthews
|
|
Location: Southlake, TX USA
Reviews written: 12
Trusted by: 3 members
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.