False advertising, irresponsible refurbishment
Written: Sep 25 '09 (Updated Sep 28 '09)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: None!
Cons: Does not work. Advertised features are incorrect or false.
The Bottom Line: This experience highlights very incompetent, and likely illegal, practices from whichever business entity was in charge of distributing and refurbishing this product.
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| towwang's Full Review: Magnavox TB110MW9 Digital to Analog Converter (538... |
In this review: mainly a forensic analysis.
The Magnavox TB110MW9 is another converter box to let you view digital television broadcasts, in the ATSC format, on your old analog TV set. It is a "CECB", coupon-eligible converter box, so you can purchase it with the NTIA $40 discount coupon, but please finish reading this review before doing so!
[Why I bought it?]
It was mainly due to the fact that a relative had an extra NTIA coupon that was about to expire, and the unavailability of most of the well-regarded converter boxes out there, including the Zinwell ZAT-970A that I reviewed previously. I searched frantically for a decent box that was actually in stock, and found this model. To be accurate, it was listed as a refurbished item, with an R pre-pended to its model number, so it read "RTB110MW9".
The one particular feature that caught my eye while I examined the TB110MW9's features was:
"Digital audio output for use with optional surround sound systems"
...which I hoped could be used with my receiver.
(Note: I found multiple vendors stating this feature for the TB110MW9, so I am less inclined to believe this was a typo from just the vendor I purcahsed from.)
I knew that the NTIA prohibits CECB's from including digital VIDEO outputs, to ensure that these discounted boxes would be used mainly with old analog TVs. This time I reasoned that the aforementioned rule did not prohibit CECB manufacturers from providing a digital AUDIO output though. Furtherly, it might make sense; Magnavox is a big manufacturer of home-theater equipment sporting digital audio capabilities, ATSC broadcasts carry AC-3 digital audio, and it should not be difficult to output the AC-3 signal before downsampling it to 2-channel stereo and outputting the latter via the RCA analog outputs. So I "bought the farm".
The old saying "haste makes waste" holds oh so true. In order to beat the expiration date of the discount, I placed my order without doing further digging. The "TB110MW9" appeared to be a late-comer to the digital TV transition party, and no formal reviews were to be found for it on the InterNet. Compounding my mistake, I kept searching for information on the "RTB110MW9" and found even less web entries.
Only upon digging much deeper in the 2-3 sentence reviews of the (now sold-out) product at other vendor sites, did I find a few interesting tidbits:
1) Many people complained that, within months of acquiring the TB100MW9 and TB110MW9, the unit would shut off, and refuse to turn on.
2) Nobody mentioned the existence of the "digital audio output", a feature that I thought would make this unit highly-regarded.
3) This "Magnavox TB110MW9" product is actually distributed by Funai Electric Co., Ltd.
I then visited www.funai-corp.com, and promptly found the manual for this product. No mention of a digital audio output. A call to Funai confirmed this further: no digital audio output.
[What came in the box]
The packaged promptly arrived in a few days. The first problem I noticed was, there was absolutely no packaging or padding inside the cardboard box. In other words, the box on which the shipping label and shipping tape are placed was the box distributed to the resellers. (I infer this because the labeling on the box mentioned Funai and had a printed serial number corresponding to the unit I actually received.)
The lack of padding meant that, while the box was being thrown around and banged up during shipment, all the hapless contents therein were being subjected to a hell of a physical stress test. The actual contents were:
1) TB100MW9 main unit (without the R)
2) Infrared remote control
3) AC-DC power adapter
4) 75 Ohm coaxial cable
5) Manual
6) Two AA batteries
The more interesting part was the actual condition of the contents:
1) The main unit and the remote control had food stains on them. The refurbishing people did not bother to clean the product before repackaging it for resale.
2) The batteries were dead: 0.7 V and 0.1 V respectively on the volt-meter, and the latter was leaking a corrosive substance.
3) Surely enough, there was no digital audio output on the product.
[Short review of actual usage]
Ignoring the condition of the contents, I decided to plug it in and see how it works, using my own fresh batteries of course. Upon initially turning on, it displayed a black screen with a small message saying to the effect of "scanning" or "searching" for TV stations.
About 2 minutes later the screen went completely black. I tried to open its menu, change channels, all to no avail. I turned it off, hoping to turn it back on in its reset state. That was the last time the unit responded in any meaningful manner. All subsequent attempts to turn the unit back on yielded a behavior of the TB100MW9 flashing its LED for a few seconds, while remaining off without sending any output, audio or video, to the TV. Unplugging and replugging it in made no difference. End of story.
[Usability, or the lack thereof]
Only thing worthy of mention: the main unit has no buttons whatsoever, so it can only be operated via the remote control (if it were working).
[Conclusion]
The product was promptly returned to the vendor, with a request to exchange for a different brand.
This experience highlights very incompetent, and likely illegal, practices from whichever business entity was in charge of distributing and refurbishing this product. To state the obvious: you don't market a product with the blatantly false specifications. You don't "refurbish" merchandise just by discarding all protective packaging and throwing the parts into a plain cardboard box. And you surely can NOT resell a refurbished product without verifying that it works!
[Revision history]
2009-09-25 Initial publication. Copyright Tow Wang 2009.
2009-09-28 Fix typos, add links.
Recommended:
No
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Epinions.com ID:
towwang
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Member: Tow Wang
Location: California; U.S.A.
Reviews written: 45
Trusted by: 8 members
About Me:
Rabidly passionate about computers and electronics!
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