SNEAK PEEK REVIEW: JANUARY 4, 2008
Zenith DTT900 Digital TV Converter
It’s DTV made easy, and at an affordable price.
Figure 1. Zenith’s DTT900 digital TV converter.
I recently had the opportunity to use Zenith’s new DTT900 digital DTV receiver for a few days in my studio. It was the centerpiece of a demonstration I did for a story on the 2009 DTV transition that
Philadelphia affiliate WTXF-DT (FOX29) videotaped.
Although the DTT900 wasn’t in retail stores as of early January, it’s one of several DTV converter boxes you’ll be able to purchase later in the month. With a retail price around $60, it will take one NTIA coupon and a "Jackson" to pay for it.
The DTT900 is a very simple product to connect and operate. It receives all valid ATSC (8VSB) digital TV broadcasts and converts them to baseband standard definition video (480i) through a composite video output, or RF modulates that signal onto VHF channel 3 or 4 for use with much older analog TV sets.
As a result, the connector complement is minimal, with an RF input for ATSC signals, an RF output to connect the NTSC down-converted signal to as TV, and the previously mentioned composite video jack, along with stereo RCA jacks for audio output.
Figure 2. Rear view of the connector panel.
Seeing as how Zenith developed the 8VSB transmission and reception system over a decade ago, you’d expect this converter (made by parent company LG) to work really well – and it does. The DTT900 and all other low-cost DTV converters have to meet standards developed by the NTIA for “translation” of ATSC signals.
Among them are carriage of all electronic program guide (EPG) data that is contained in PSIP, which stands for Program and System Information Protocol. PSIP is transmitted as packets of data along with digital video and audio in the ATSC transport stream.
Other PSIP data that must be detected and shown are date and time, program ratings for parental controls, virtual channel table information, and closed captions. Secondary audio programs (SAP) should also be accessible.
IN OPERATION
If you’ve used any of LG’s stand-alone DTV receiver products before, you’ll recall how quickly they scan for available channels and build channel tables. In the Philadelphia market, LG’s tuners take about 30 seconds to scan and find all of the local ATSC broadcasts, which is still faster than any other ATSC set-top on the market.
The DTT900 is just as fast. Once you connect an antenna and the analog TV, you simply open the menu and start a channel scan. You can edit channels from the compiled table and add new ones simply by entering the physical channel number.
Figure 3. The DTT900’s remote control is versatile.
Channel information is presented in one of two ways. Every time you change channels, you’ll see a banner in the upper right corner of the screen that shows the DTV station’s virtual channel number and call sign. You can also get this information, along with a description of the program (if transmitted) by pushing the Info button on the remote.
The Guide button brings up a more detailed program guide that scrolls across the top of the screen. You can use this guide to scroll to a program you’d like to watch and the tuner will change channels automatically.
Another button on the remote lets you cycle through three different aspect ratios. The first will letterbox any HDTV programs to fit the width of the screen, which means that any 4:3 programs present in an HD broadcast will appear window-boxed (black bars all around).
Figure 4. Here’s a view of the DTT900’s Info display, as seen on a generic 13-inch TV.
You can get around that problem by using the second aspect ratio setting, which zooms the image to fit the height of the screen. With an HD program, the picture width will be cropped, but a 4:3 program will show normally. The third step stretches the image to fit the height of the screen, but leaves the picture width as is, resulting in an anamorphically squashed picture. (DTV broadcasts with 4:3 480i images will automatically fit the full frame.)
The remote control also provides a Favorite button for fast recall of any channel, and there’s also direct access to closed captions through another button. Two other buttons provide muting for audio through either output connection and show the relative strength of the received signal.
You can customize caption displays in the main menu, changing fonts, colors, sizes, and backgrounds. By the way, the menu can be set to display in English, Spanish, or French.
CONCLUSION
It’s hard to believe that over 10 years have gone by since the first bulky, $2,000 ATSC digital TV receivers were shown at CES and NAB. Now, all of that functionality is packed into a small chassis about the size of a paperback book, and it works very well. (No word on what generation 8VSB receiver is used in the DTT900, but it’s at least Gen5 and may be Gen 6 by the time these finally come to market.)
