Thread: Set Top Box - Waste of Money

Originally Posted by Turtle61

In a nutshell, a STB will do nothing much for a regular CRT TV - there will be no perceptable difference except for the quality of the reception and better sound etc etc.

That's plenty as far as I'm concerned - anything that will get rid of the Ch 2 ghosting....

So whats a good brand of STB for cheap ?

Saw some in Coles Supermarket last Tuesday. $39. Christ you wouldn't even worry about Warranty at that sort of price, Just ditch it.

Like most things electronic these days, they all look like they come out of the same factory so it possibly have been an ok make.

Originally Posted by VladTepes

That's plenty as far as I'm concerned - anything that will get rid of the Ch 2 ghosting....

So whats a good brand of STB for cheap ?

Channel 9 ghosts here. I bought Aldi's set top box & it's brilliant. Not quite as cheap as the $39 jobbie but I'm sure it will be the same guts.

I know this is a bit different but we got one for the caravan because so many parks you go to have poor recption, since getting the box, setting up is a breeze

Bought the Dick Smith one a year or so ago, broke after a year, but that was because I put the fan on top of it, not because it's particularly dodgy.

One of the differences between the cheaper and mildly less cheap is S-video versus Scart plugs - I think mildly better pic with S-video and quality of menu and on screen display.

The display thing doesn't sound like much, but you see it every time you change channel, and I became addicted to the tv guide. Saw a mate's STB and couldn't stand the display after first five minutes.

The DSE one is now under a hundred bucks.

Also, when I called tech support they were dead keen to fix the box outside warranty period, if only I could have made any kind of proof of purchase.

Cheers
Simon.

Can't say what's good or bad on the Oz market... but I know for a fact that the cheap ones use cheap components woth very short life expectancy and, in general, high failure rate. But, if there is 1 year warranty - what's not to like about a cheap DTV STB. The cheap ones may also be a bit dodgy - in a sense that they may not be paying royalties for technological rights (no finger pointing). Not that this is any concern of the consumer... we had this issue with pricing war recently - our STBs are manufactured in Thailand, engineering done in Poland and Taiwan, design WAS done by this Aussie bloke in Switzerland and all royalties were paid to the intelectual property owners (DVB, MHP, DivX, MPG etc) ... now the cheap Chinese products are fully designed (or ripped off) in China and in some cases there are Chinese government subsidies high enough to counter the high import duties (happened with EU import duties). So for $39 don't expect it to live very long - 13 months would be my guess

As for the comment that they come out of the same factory - that may be true but often the 'brands' will dictate a certain level of component quality, stringent testing, quality control and so on, so what on the surface may appear to be the same product, the little things do start to count.

The difference between the higher spec models is that they may be running software / system capable of interactive TV applications such as gaming, betting, shopping with return channels via built-in modem or ethernet, as well as multi-room system ready, conditional access system for premium (paid) content which all adds up to quite a bit of dosh.

We had this bloke working for us in the Oz office who would setup a satellite dish and hook up his STB everytime he went 'camping' with the caravan - a bit of an overkill for me but well... I also saw portable DTV kits in supermarkets here in Geneva - they come in a nice cary case with everything but the tele. I thought going bush was to get away from it all...