REVIEW
					TWO FOR THE MONEY Samsung's SIR-T151 and SIR-T165 set-top receivers reviewed
					by Peter H. Putman, CTS, ISF For better or worse, the United States continues its slow and error-plagued transition to an all-digital terrestrial TV broadcasting system. While "zero hour" approaches (January 1, 2007) and digital stations scramble to get on the air, there are encouraging signs. The number of hours of HDTV programming has increased significantly, thanks to NBC finally joining the fray with 1080i telecasts of several prime-time shows including ER, Frasier, and Ed. ABC and CBS continue to offer a full slate of prime time filmed programs in 720p and 1080i, respectively. ABC will also cover several major sports events in 720p/60 including the Super Bowl, Stanley Cup, and NBA Playoffs. Couch potatoes can rejoice as Monday Night Football returns in 720p next season. PBS also has a few HDTV shows each month in the 1080i format, and the WB network has launched four prime-time shows in 1080i this fall. Fox' 480p widescreen telecasts include the best show of the 2001-2002 season, 24, as well as Boston Public and Bernie Mac. So there's plenty to see, and that's as it should be. These expanded program offerings will drive the audience for SDTV and HDTV digital programming. But for the majority of potential DTV viewers, receiving the signals remains a big problem. It's caused largely by a lack of information on terrestrial DTV and HDTV viewing, not to mention a scarcity of more user-friendly digital set-top receivers at reasonable prices. Samsung is one company that's committed to DTV in terrestrial flavors, and two new set-top boxes are proof of that commitment. The SIR-T151 is an entry-level digital-only receiver that tunes all 69 ATSC channels and connects easily to any TV with component or even basic AV inputs. It replaces the popular SIR-T150 (reviewed elsewhere on this site) at an MSRP of $449. For more ambitious viewers, the SIR-T165 is a full-blown set-top receiver that also tunes OTA and cable NTSC signals and even works as an AV switcher for other components in your system. The T165 also is equipped with a FireWire IEEE1394 interface to control and record to digital VHS (D-VHS) recorder/players like JVC's new HM-DH30000U, Mitsubishi's HS-HD2000U and even Panasonic's older PV-HD1000. I have had both models in-house for a while now and have tested them in all kinds of signal configurations, using both indoor and outdoor antennas. Both the T151 and T165 offer higher receiver sensitivity and improved equalization over their predecessor (the T150). The improvement isn't much - only 1 dB or so - but both receivers do a slightly better and faster job of signal detection and acquisition. SAMSUNG SIR-T151 The T151 is quite a departure from the 150. For one thing, the case is more stylish than the 150. For another, the user-friendly tri-state LED tuning indicator is gone, replaced by a single green LED that lights when a valid 8VSB DTV signal is detected. The remote is completely different, too. Gone is the old paddle-style remote in favor of a multifunction design that uses an attractive silver finish. You can use it to control other Samsung AV devices in your system, such as a DVD player, VHS deck, or TV set. Some new functions have been added to the remote. You can now toggle between aspect ratios when viewing 480i content or watching downconverted 1080i and 720p on a 480i or 480p TV set. An INFO button will bring up any program guide data, typically transmitted with the digital station's PSIP data along with time, date, and virtual channel number. Because the T151 is an entry-level DTV product, the rear panel has also undergone streamlining. There is only one analog component video output connection (YPbPr) which just about all manufacturers of DTV-ready monitors now support. Gone is the 15-pin RGB jack, but Samsung provides a composite RCA jack as well as a DIN S-video connection for viewing downconverted DTV programs. For audio connections, you'll have a pair of RCA jacks for stereo analog audio feeds, plus coaxial and Toslink optical hook-ups for Dolby Digital AC-3 audio output. Unlike the T150, only one RF connector is provided for signal inputs - there are no lop-throughs or CATV inputs (the tuner is not a CATV-ready tuner anyway). A four-position output format switch completes the picture and lets you select all DTV channels to be fed as 1080i/30, 720p/60, 480p/60, or 480i/30. This switch lets you best match the optimum rate for your TV or monitor. Most direct-view DTVs do not support 720p, so either 1080i or 480p output will do the trick with those sets. Plasma and LCD monitors and the new DLP rear-projection sets generally look best with 720p sources. 42" SDTV plasma and some older analog TVs prefer 480p/60, while conventional analog TVs with AV inputs will need 480i sources. One neat thing about the Samsung STBs is that the 480i output is always active, no matter where you have the output format switch. (The menu, however, is only seen on 480i connections when the output format is set to 480i specifically.) This means you can watch 4x3 480i programs on another input of your TV, or even record them to TiVo and Replay PVRs. Some 4x3 network programs are simply upconverted to 1080i or 720p and shown with black pillars on either side of the image. With the 480i output, you can zoom these shows to fill the screen. The menu is easy to navigate. The customary procedure is to connect an outside antenna (or inside, if that's what you prefer) and let the T151 do an auto channel search. It will save any 8VSB DTV signals it receives to memory along with any virtual channel information sent out by that station. Time and date are also saved in this way and used to set the internal clock. If you have a DTV station broadcasting on UHF channel 42, the T151 will stop at that channel and save channel 42 into memory s a "physical" broadcast channel. But what you'll see is the broadcaster's "virtual" channel number (usually the same as the broadcaster's existing analog channel), plus any minor (secondary) channels. You'll also see time and date info and perhaps even a program description, if that data is being transmitted. You can, of course, enter active DTV channels by using their physical channel number. Once channels are entered, you can save the ones you want to watch in a Favorite Channels menu and use the channel up/down button to make your selections. To aid in reception, the T151 includes the Samsung bar-graph signal strength meter first seen on the SIR-T100. It's not as useful as the older tri-state LED indicator, though it will help you in aiming your antenna in the right direction. I tested the T151 for indoor and outdoor reception at my home location as well as indoors at my office. I also installed one for my sister who lives outside of Portland, Maine. In all these locations, I found tuner set-up and channel scanning to be slightly faster than the T150. The T151 found all active DTV stations near my home, including two from New York City (65 miles), five from Philadelphia (25 miles), two from Allentown (25 miles), two from Scranton/Wilkes-Barre (about 70 miles), one from Trenton, NJ (about 20 miles) and one from Atlantic City (about 35 miles). There have been problems with signal drop-out reported with older Samsung tuners and in virtually every case, the problem was traced back to DTV encoder problems. During my tests locally - and in Portland, where I loaded up three local stations and one from 70 miles distant in Bangor, ME - I did not experience any drop-out of video and audio once the channel locked up. During a period of enhanced atmospheric propagation (know to us ham radio operators as a "tropo duct"), I picked up five additional stations from Baltimore and Washington, DC with my rooftop antenna at home. That's 22 different DTV stations tested with the T151 and no evidence of video and audio dropouts on strong signals. The format conversions from 720p to 1080i and vice-versa are acceptable for direct-view TVs, many of which have such coarse beam spot sizes that a slight softening of the image isn't as noticeable as it would be on a higher-grade projector or monitor. If you are a progressive-scan nut and your direct-view TV does not support 720p, I suggest tolerating the 1080i conversion rather than using 480p - the image isn't quite as crisp. The T151 also has a button for electronic program guide, but I don't know of any terrestrial DTV broadcasters who are sending out EPG information at present. In most cases, the received signal will have a title for what's on screen and sometimes you'll spot a program schedule time slot. Remember that Program and Systems Information Protocol (PSIP) data encoding is still in the early stages and you may observe some bizarre channel info or program names from time to time. All in all, the SIR-T151 is an excellent entry-level receiver and does what it is supposed to do - decode and display ATSC-compliant terrestrial DTV signals. User set-up is fast and easy and the intuitive menu navigates quickly. I would still prefer Samsung to bring out the signal strength meter to a button on the remote for faster signal checking and antenna alignment, though. And a loop-through jack would be nice for connecting older analog TV s to receive OTA NTSC signals, eliminating the need for a splitter. Note: DTV viewers who happen to have 8VSB signals present via cable (as is the case with Cablevision on Long Island, NY) will not be able to use this receiver unless the channels fall within the range of 2 to 69. The SIR-T151 is an ATSC-compliant DTV receiver and terrestrial DTV channel assignments stop at 69. SAMSUNG SIR-T165 The T165 is as different from the T151 as the T151 from the T150. The T165 has an even sleeker and higher-tech appearance with no visible controls and a pop-down front cover that disguises a few operational buttons. A built-in LED alphanumeric display shows you the channel you've tuned in and also indicates whether the received audio format is digital or analog. There's even an indicator that lights up when the FireWire link is activated. In fact, the T165 is much more than a set-top receiver. It's also a hub device; one which allows you to connect and switch several components in your system and feed all of them at one resolution to your monitor. This could be a big help if you have an older TV with one component ad one AV input, but several video sources to connect and select. The supplied remote is identical to that of the T151 with the addition of one button marked "FireWire". Pressing this button takes you directly to the FireWire control panel and saves some unnecessary navigation through the menu system. As on the T151, you'll have direct button access to aspect ratio selections and program guide info, and you can use the remote to control other Samsung components. The rear panel of the T165 is far more complex than the T151, and as the nerve center of an AV system it ought to be. There are two RF inputs. The first is marked Air and is where your outside or inside antenna is connected. This input tunes only channels 2-69 and looks for analog NTSC and digital ATSC signals at the same time. The second input is marked Cable and is where your analog cable connection is made. The tuner connected to this input tunes channels 2-125, but also looks for digital 8VSB and analog NTSC signals. Unfortunately, the T165 does not recognize digital cable TV signals which are modulated using the Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM) format. (Perhaps a future model will have this capability.) There are two rows of AV inputs, each equipped with a composite jack, an S-video input, and stereo audio jacks. The third AV input has YPbPr jacks and stereo audio. The design concept was that you could take other components in your system - like a VHS deck, DVD player, PVR, etc. - and switch all of them through the T165 in addition to watching digital and analog TV. The component input is clearly labeled Component Video Input (480i/480p) and is not intended to switch 720p or 1080i component sources. You can connect the T165 to your TV or monitor in several ways. The most common would e through the YPbPr analog output jacks, using stereo analog audio. You can also watch a down-converted version of any digital or analog TV programs by connecting to the S-video or composite output jacks and hooking up audio in a conventional manner. The third option is to use the DVI-I connector and drive the DVI input on your RPTV, plasma/LCD monitor, or front projector directly, keeping intact an all-digital path from broadcaster to screen. Finally, there is a 15-pin RGBHV jack for non-standard monitor or PC monitor hookups. This output is enabled at the same time as the DVI output. As usual, both coaxial and optical Dolby Digital AC-3 outputs are also available to feed your home theater system. An RS-232C connector is available for remote control of the tuner via a separate system. And the four-position output format selector switch from the T151 is also present here. Of particular interest are a pair of tiny IEEE1394 jacks marked "in" and "out". These are used to operate D-VHS VCRs, but can also be part of a home networking solution if you so desire. Samsung does not have such a product now, but may elect to add it in the future a la Mitsubishi's HAVi system. This is where you'd connect the JVC, Mitsubishi, and Panasonic D-VHS decks. Since the T165 is a dual-mode tuner, you'll need to execute two channel scans once your antenna and CATV connections are made. This is easily done in the Channel menu, where you'll see virtual buttons for Air or Standard CATV channel spacing. The process takes about 1.5 seconds per channel, and as you watch the front panel you'll see the tuner search initially in digital mode on each channel, then default to analog if no channel is found. The T165 is very fast at scanning channels and adds 8VSB stations as fast as it adds OTA or cable NTSC broadcasts. As it loads digital stations, the T165 saves the station's virtual channel assignment in memory against the actual physical channel, along with date, time, callsign, and video and audio format data. This means that a digital station must be transmitting at least basic (or static) PSIP data for the T165 to recognize it. During my initial scans, local DTV station UHF-67 (WCAU-DT) was not transmitting any PSIP data. Consequently, the T165 did not load the digital station into memory, even though WCAU-DT was broadcasting video and audio. Because the T165 is a dual-mode tuner, it needs PSIP to quickly distinguish digital TV signals from analog. This means that if you are watching a channel with no PSIP data, the tuner may skip right by it. Older DTV tuners had the ability to defeat the channel mapping feature and would just save the physical channel data with no station ID available. Once WCAU-DT reset their digital TV encoder, the T165 instantly found and saved the signal as "10-1", which is WCAU's virtual channel ID. I do not have any 8VSB signals available on my cable system (which is operated by Comcast) so I cannot say how well the T165 will work with this mode. Assuming the station's PSIP data is maintained, there should be no problem in capturing and viewing 8VSB stations on cable. The AV switcher on the T165 works well, but the composite video input needs better comb filtering. I connected my Sony DVP-S7000 DVD player through the composite, S-video, and component jacks on the T165 and checked the up-converted image quality at 720p and 1080i. With composite video, there was a loss of detail at 300 lines and 400 lines using the Video Essentials Zone Plate test and too much color moire. Switching to S-Video and component YPbPr inputs made a big difference. Images were much cleaner and crisper now. The T165's de-interlacing circuit isn't as good as my Panasonic DVD-RP56 with Faroudja FLI2200 chipset, but the upconverted images on the T165 looked better than half of a batch of professional AV projectors I recently tested. The flag-waving sequence from the montage of images on Video Essentials was close to the 480p output of the DVD-RP56 in this regard. As a result, upconverted analog NTSC signals have pretty good image quality but you may see some interlaced artifacts particularly with 1080i output. Colors were clean and little noise was seen in deep blues and saturated reds. The DVI output is a tricky beast. The only DVI-equipped display I had on hand for this test was Epson's new TW100 front 16x9 LCD projector. Although the owner's manual for the TW100 claims it will display 480p as DVI, the only format I could get to work was the 720p output on the T165. (Epson identifies this as 1280x960 in their table of compatible formats.) This combo worked exceptionally well when watching D-VHS tapes of movies and programs recorded in 720p and 1080i material that was format-converted wasn't too shabby, either. None of the AV inputs would work in DVI mode, no matter what I tried. My choices were limited to OTA and cable NTSC, OTA DTV, and D-VHS tapes. When I tried to convert a 480i component source to 720p DVI, I saw the image for a brief second and then nothing but colored static. Another problem arose when I couldn't pass a 480p signal from the Panasonic DVD player through the T165 in any output mode. The manual claims such a signal can be passed through the T165, and the rear-panel connector is labeled as such. But I could not get this function to work at all. I also found switching between analog cable and OTA signals tricky. To do so, you must go into the Channel menu and select Memorize Channels. Then scroll to either Air or Standard CATV and press the ENTER button on the remote. Do NOT scroll to the Start button and select it; otherwise, you'll initiate a new channel scan. This function needs to be brought out to a separate button on the remote, such as the TV/Video selector. The FireWire interface works quite well. Samsung has loaded in control protocols for the JVC HM-DH30000U, but the T165 will also interface to the Mitsubishi and Panasonic D-VHS decks mentioned earlier. Under Guide, you'll be able to set up as many as six scheduled recordings for any specific minor channels. That means if you have a broadcaster sending out HDTV programs on a second or third minor channel, that's the only program data that will be recorded.(Yes, I have seen at least one broadcaster using three minor channels with one reserved for HDTV.) To use the T165 with a PV-HD1000 D-VHS deck, simply plug in the FireWire connector and turn on the Panasonic from the T165's menu. As I mentioned, there is a button on the remote that will take you instantly to that menu - a nice time-saver. The Panasonic deck will be echoed back as "DHVS2 Panasonic" and you have full control over all PV-HD1000 functions including scheduled recordings. All in all, the T165 is a great STB to have in your system, despite a few shortcomings. It looks really snazzy and has a very user-friendly menu interface, plus just about every input and output connector you could wish for. It needs an easier way to toggle between OTA and cable signals (many of us use both sources for TV), and the 480i video decoder and de-interlacer could be better. On the other hand, the FireWire interface is great for time-shifting DTV programs and a snap to use. The DVI interface works well with OTA, cable, and D-VHS program sources with a noticeable improvement in signal quality. Support for 64-QAM and 256-QAM modes would be the icing on the cake, but that's probably coming next year as more manufacturers jump on the digital cable bandwagon. ©2002 Peter H. Putman / Roam Consulting Inc. Reproduction of this article by printed or electronic means without the specific written permission of the author is prohibited.