Home > Consumer Reviews > Samsung SIR-T165 HDTV Terrestrial Receiver

This is currently the top-of-the-line product in its category (HDTV receivers). It has three capabilities of interest:

(1) reception of digital over-the-air television broadcasts
(2) scaling of VCR, DVD, satellite, or cable signals to either HDTV 720p or 1080i
(3) FireWire output and recording control to D-VHS VCR

The first capability (reception) is well-implemented. The receiver was able to pick up all the digital channels in my area (not to mention the legacy analog channels) through its auto-detection capability, and provided a channel list editor to allow me to knock out the channels I didn't want, such as analog channels that duplicated digital channels, home shopping channels, and analog channels where the reception was too poor to be of interest. For the digital channels, it also includes a signal strength meter, which is useful for finding the best antenna position and angle. Overall, as a digital broadcast receiver, I found nothing to fault in this product. Before buying, however, you should do research to determine what digital channels are currently available in your area. The web site ...is excellent for this purpose, showing not only what channels are available, but also those that are scheduled for future availability, and finally the signal direction and strength. It may seem strange to go back to over-the-air reception, especially after satellite and cable have made picture quality such a selling point, but digital over-the-air television, even for non-HDTV programming, has better picture and sound quality than cable or satellite (including digital cable and satellite - both over-compress their signals to squeeze in more channels and degrade picture quality), and its free. As for the HDTV programming, well, its just the best quality picture available - much better than even DVD

The second capability (scaling) is an attractive bonus capability. The receiver can scale from 480i, 480p, 720p, or 1080i to either 720p or 1080i, the two standard HDTV resolutions, and output them to either RGB, component, or DVI. What's interesting about this is that it can do it not only for the broadcasts it receives, but for video signals from other sources such as VCR's, DVD's, satellite, or cable, through either compositve, S-Video, or component inputs. The quality of the scaler is quite good; by running my other sources through the receiver, I get better picture quality for all of them than I did by running them directly to the television. For 4:3 source material, it supports full (for anamorphic sources) conversion, zoom ( for letterbox sources) conversion, and letterbox (centered with sidebars). My only gripe is that the sidebars it adds are gray. Now for some types of televisions (CRT, plasma) gray bars are useful for avoiding picture burn-in (uneven where to the display). But for other types of televisions (LCD, DLP) burn in is not an issue and gray bars serve no purpose. The receiver should have included an option to replace the gray bars with black. That said, for me the scaler alone would have justified the price.

The third capability, D-VHS recording control, works, but just barely. There are quite a few issues here: (1) FireWire recording ties up the device; you can't watch one program while recording another, which precludes use of the scaler while recording. (2) The timed recording feature does not support repeated events - it can't be programmed to record every Tuesday at 10:00; it has to be re-set for each individual recording, (3) the timed recording feature only works if the receiver is turned off - if the receiver is accidently left on, the recording will fail, (4) the timer depends on the time broadcast by the stations themselves - it can't be set manually - and many stations do not bother to broadcast the correct time (I have been trying to get the stations in my area to fix their time broadcasts, and have had some success). With regard to compatibility, I have the JVC HM-DH3000L D-VHS deck and have not had any inter-operability problems. Over the FireWire connection I could control, record, and play back digital video and audio successfully and without loss of picture quality.

Product ease of use varies with the features used. The reception capability is pretty simple. Anyone who can hook up a VCR or cable box to their television should be able to hook this up to their television. The scaler capability is a little harder to use, but probably within the reach of a lot of people. The D-VHS recording capability is not particularly easy to get working; unless you are into home theater, you shouldn't try it; there are just too many limitations in the current generation of hardware.

This STB is one of the very few on the market today with a Firewire connection, which allows recording HD content on a DVHS deck. This is the main reason I bought it.

The picture quality via component is great (my projector doesn't have a DVI input, so I couldn't try that).

However, there are a number of problems that Samsung needs to address to make this box more usable. At the $499 price point, this is really expected.

1. grey bars

On a widescreen (16:9) TV, when showing regular 4:3 content, such as NTSC broadcasts or SD DTV, there are grey bars on the left and right sides. On a projector setup, these bars are very distractive. They should be black, not grey ! This is probably a feature to save CRTs TV from burning in, but it should be possible to turn it off. Unfortunately, in current firmware, it is not.

2. frequent lockups

Sometimes, on digital channels where the signal isn't strong or has incorrect PSIP data, the STB will crash, and reboot.
I'm a software engineer and I think there is no excuse for this behavior - it's OK for an error to be displayed, but not for the box to crash.

3. long boot time

It takes about 10s for the box to come up. This wouldn't be a problem if it didn't crash (see problem 2)...

4. no discrete remote codes for the scaler inputs

This box is also a scaler with 3 inputs - DVD, AV1 and AV2. Unfortunately the only way to switch between the tuner and those inputs is a toggle button on the remote. For example if you are watching a broadcast and want to go to AV2, you need to press that toggle button 3 times - first to go to DVD, then AV1, then finally AV2.
This makes it impossible program macros.

5. Firewire recording should be much easier
You need to enter the program channel, start time, and end date. And there are only a few timers that can be set (10 I think).
This is despite the fact that there is an on-screen program guide. Even for the channels that do broadcast the program information, it's not possible to initiate the recording from the menu, as it is from, say a satellite PVR receiver like Dish network's.

6. Firewire audio stream cannot be selected when playing a D-Theater tape through Firewire

When displaying an incoming video stream from a firewire device, such as a JVC 30k DVHS deck, it's not possible to select which audio track to display.
For example, I played a tape of "Cast away" last week. The firewire stream contains the video and 2 audio tracks (DD2.0 and DD5.1). The Samsung however only passes the DD2.0 stream through its optical audio output connection . It's not possible to select the DD5.1 stream. For that you are forced to use the DVHS VCR's audio optical output. Quite annoying since the Samsung has better video than the JVC deck. But the JVC selects the better audio.
And if you use DVI, you must use the Samsung for display. But then you get the 2.0 audio. You shouldn't have to choose between the best audio or video !

7. lack of any digital audio inputs

If Samsung seriously expects anybody to use the scaler for DVD, they should have provided a digital audio input (coax and/or optical) pass-through. As it is, all 3 scaler video inputs only have stereo analog inputs. So once again you get stuck with 2 channel audio when you use the Samsung.

Perhaps some of you will view these problems as details. And if it were only one or two of them, maybe one could live with them.
But in my view, they significantly detract from the ability to use this box. So I'm rating it only one star out of five.

The first 6 problems, above could be solved by a firmware update, but Samsung does not appear to care about them.
So I'm not holding my breath, and I'm rating this box only one star. I will be upgrading to something better once it exists ...

Samsung already has a couple other HD set top boxes out on the market, and if this one didn't have the Firewire (aka i-Link or IEEEE1394) output I'd say go for one of them or the Zenith HDV420 (if you're not decoding a satellite signal). However, the Firewire output means one crucial thing: linked to the JVC HM-DH30000L DVHS VCR, you can record High Def programs from off the air. Really. Now, there is still not a huge amount of over the air High Def programming out there, but most of the scripted dramas on the big three networks and much PBS content is broadcast in HD. Stick a $... Firewire cable between this and the JVC, and off you go.

As a set top box this is a good unit, though not without its imperfections. The picture quality is excellent and the DVI output means that if your HD set has a DVI input you never have to corrupt your signal with an analog conversion--the pure digital signal goes all the way from the broadcast tower to your set without having to be prematurely converted to analog for travel via component output. But the menu/remote is only okay to use, my main gripe being that you have to scroll down to get to a signal strength function (the Zenith gives this function its own button on the remote).

One reviewer faulted this unit for not displaying guide information on the channels when the information is still not available from the broadcasters. I hardly see how you can blame a set top box for not displaying information that the broadcasters haven't gotten around to sending out.

Again, the biggest plus with this unit is the Firewire output. The Firewire link also allows you to control your DVHS VCR from this unit. This set top box has an onscreen menu that allows you to play, pause, and stop DVHS tapes on your DVHS VCR. The Samsung even allows you to schedule up to six (at least) programs to be taped. You enter the channel, date, and start and end time, and the Samsung will turn on your DVHS VCR to tape the scheduled HD program. No, it's not quite "VCR +Plus," but it's a start.

So, if you have an HD monitor and want to watch--and tape--HD programs from off the air, this is the only unit for you. Given that the big kids still can't decide on a single format for HD DVD (and recordable HD DVD is even farther out), why wait? My advice: get it before someone pressures makers like Samsung to quit putting Firewire outputs on their equipment.

I also live in bay area. I bought the 165 and have been very happy. Followed his recommendations and also hooked up my cable and TIVO to work thru it. I was surprised by how many channels there are here. At first I bought a regular antenna and had it in my apt patio. Almost bigger than the patio. Don't remember which magazine recommended the Zenith Gemini indoor UHF antenna. Small, unpowered. That thing is great, you can aim it, get 20-50% better reception than the monster in my patio which is stationary. Both highly recommended. Local PBS station is also running HDTV demos which really highlight the picture and dolby sound.

This is a very sensitive receiver, and will receive analog, digital standard definition, and high-definition broadcasts beautifully. Aside from having excellent performance and many useful, well-implemented features, it is so far unique among Over The Air (OTA) high definition tuners in that it is the only one with an IEEE-1394 ("Firewire" or "iLink") port that allows HD broadcasts to be recorded on a suitable device (a D-VHS cassette recorder or some PC or Mac-based systems). I have only two very small complaints, and these are really insignificant: (1) the menu is not displayed on the standard definition outputs (A/V, S-Video) when a high definition output mode is selected, and (2) it does not have an IR blaster that would allow it to control a VCR or other device. Otherwise, an outstanding product well worth the price.