Zenith DTT901 Digital TV Tuner Converter Box with Analog Pass-Through

I bought this waaay after the digital transition, so I payed full price for a used one, but to be honest, it is a high quality unit. Low noise and clear picture, good sound. Very pleased with my purchase. Compared to an APEX digital converter, the Zenith is far superior. I bought the APEX a couple of years ago from Best Buy for $50 and it was just terrible. The remote works when it wants to. You hit the foward channel button, it goes back a channel, if it does anything at all. You practically have to be within 2 feet of the box for the remote to work. Glitched constantly and high noise. Also, no buttons on the front of the unit itself except for the power button. No channel buttons, and even the power button is tempermental. Had me wondering why they even bothered to make such a crappy product. You can't even find digital converters at the store anymore. But the zenith is wonderful, remote works perfectly, guides are excellent, low noise, and just an all around wonderful device. Would recommend the zenith to anyone. APEX, not so much.

Cannot believe that AMAZON had this product which was made in 2006

This earned 4 rather than 5 stars because I had to try several different configurations and wound up having to buy an amplified antenna to get this to work. It has features which give detailed information channel by channel about the current show and also lists the current and upcoming show (regardless of how long each might be). It also gives choices about the aspect ratio, i.e. viewing something in letter box format or cropping a widescreen broadast to fill the old 4:5 TV screen or compressing the widescreen image to fit the old proportions.In my situation the device will pay for itself in a few months (since Comcast wanted $15 a month, forever, to rent a tuner). Also, with it the reception is quite good, better than basic cable with Comcast. With this and the amplified antenna there might be a moment or two of pixillation in an evening's viewing versus repeated freeze ups and pixillation (often many times in a single show on some stations) on Comcast.The device was originally purchased because the current VCR/DVD recorders do not have a tuner built in and my old recorder died. The tuner received 4 rather than 5 stars because it would not work with cable (as I thought it might, as if the cable were an antenna feed for an apartment building), required the additional purchase of an amplified antenna, and even then I could not get it to work with my VCR/DVD recorder. It is good enough, however, that I wound up keeping the basic cable, this digital tuner, and the amplied antenna, too. Overall I'm pretty happy with the mix even though I miss the ability to record shows and watch them later.The rest of this may be applicable just to Philadelphia, but may be similar in your area. This digital TV tuner converter box when coupled with an amplified indoor antenna brings in about 35 stations in Philadelphia (versus about 65 for basic Comcast). The stations lost include CSPAN, TBS, MeTV, several shopping channels, many religious stations, many Spanish-language stations. Other than MeTV (a station with shows from decades ago)I can't say I miss many of those stations. Two odd things which probably apply only to Philadelphia: with this regained the New Jersey public station but the Philadelphia PBS station appears some days and not others. Also, I am not getting the local ABC station. Switching between this device (with the amplified antenna) and basic cable is convenient enough. Add in Netflix for movies and shows from premium cable stations and you have what seems the most economical way to go.

My mom still has an analog TV and she does NOT want to give it up. The previous digital TV tuner would lose sound when the antenna signal was bad...and it wasn't getting all of the channels that my mom likes, so I bought this expensive Zenith digital TV tuner. This tuner does not lose signal on weak channels. We live in Southern California and this tuner gets approximately 175 channels! The picture quality is great. The sound is great! And, the remote was easy to program for her Sony Trinitron 32" TV. My mom has had her TV since 1994/95 and it's still going great due to this Zenith Digital TV tuner. The channels no longer lose antenna signal strength when someone walks past the TV and my mom no longer loses sound when an antenna signal is weak. Overall, she loves the Zenith Digital TV Tuner. We are using an Amazon Basics Leaf Antenna which is also amplified by the Amazon Basics TV antenna amplifier.

It even picks up channels that the digital-ready TV couldn't pick up. It delivers very good picture too! I use this box so I can record the channels into my Panasonic DVRs that are NOT digital. This is what you need to use with your old-fashioned VCRs and DVRs that are not digital-ready. And I really like that this has a guide to tell you what program is on. Sure works way better than my local cable company's guide that's supposed to show what's on through the cable when I had cable! I also use this machine to hook up to a wireless transmitter so that I can watch TV in the kitchen without wires all over the place. I don't have an outlet in my kitchen, so I use a wireless transmitter to transmit picture and sound over to my kitchen. This works. This is what you need. I have the transmitter hooked up to the A/V Out on the back of my VCR, and have this box hooked up to the A/V Input of my VCR. This does the trick. You can record and even watch TV with a transmitter anywhere with this setup.

This item was returned. Out of the box the Zenith converter box appeared new -- as advertised, but when plugged in no light appeared. (This unit sports a red light when off -- blue light when on). Through trial and error I found that to get a red or blue light the unit had to be plugged in for a few minutes ... then unplugged and plugged back in. After the unit sat in the off position (red light) the only way to get it on was to unplug and plug back in. A bit too much plugging and unplugging for me. Especially for the almost $80.00 price tag. I found another new unit (that came right on when plugged in) for $30.00 less on another web site.

I'm so happy with my purchase. My 22-year old converter box died and this one works great - just like the old one when it was working!