You gotta really love Sony to get this one...
Written: Jun 09 '00 (Updated Oct 07 '00)
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Pros: Sony name, a few bells and whistles
Cons: Nothing special over the other receivers.. and in some cases, worse!
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| JKalmbach's Full Review: Sony SAT B50 Satellite TV Receiver |
A lot of people seem to go after Sony just for the brand name. Why they would do this with a DirecTV receiver I do not know. DirecTV is a great option for certain people. It's great for people who can't get cable, or who are paying outrageous fees for their monthly programming. However, why they would go with an Sony receiver, I do not know.
The receiver does everything the Hughes and RCA receivers do at double the cost. But it also does some things that earn it a negative rating from me. The first is their guide and menu system. Their menu system is complicated and lacks the easy to follow layout of the RCA system. It's guide screen for scrolling through channels also leaves something to be desired. You'll get a window in the upper-left hand corner of the screen that will still give you a picture while scrolling through the channels. However, as you scroll through, the picture will change in order to give you a preview of the channel you have highlight on the guide. This may be great for some people, but I would have strongly preferred that it remained on a fix channel like the RCA system does. This way, you can still scroll through the guide and actually watch something at the same time. The constant changing of the window on the Sony system drove me crazy, especially since I scroll through the guide at a fast pace. My second problem with the receiver is that it was slower compared to the RCA and Hughes Receivers. If you know the channel you're going to and you use the buttons on the remote to enter it, it will take a good 5 to 6 seconds to change the picture and acquire the new signal. On the positive side, when you simply press the channel up/down button on the remote, it acquires the signal from dish at a rate that is competitive with the other systems. But it is still slower than the RCA models.
However, the system does do two things that other basic systems do not do. It has a VCR control port on the back. With this option, your Sony receiver can control your VCR, so you don't have to program both of them to do recording. This depends on your VCR, though, as some are compatible with this feature and others are not. It also comes with a radio frequency remote. What you can do with this is control your DirecTV receiver from other rooms. The signal will go through walls so you don't have to point the remote directly at it. This type of remote was designed for people who run two TVs on one DirecTV receiver. But, unless you're the only person living in the house, this feature may not be worth it. Hughes and RCA receivers have these features as well, except they throw these two features on their dolby digital systems.
Unless you're after these two features, the Sony model is not worth the extra $100 you're going to pay for it. In fact, a lot of the stores I talked to have a large number of these systems returned. I think it's kind of funny that Sony would make an inferior machine, but in the case of DirecTV, it's true.
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 200
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Epinions.com ID:
JKalmbach
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Reviews written: 20
Trusted by: 0 members
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