Home > Consumer Reviews > Grandtec Tun-5000 Airvision Atsc Dtv/Hdtv Receiver Tuner

I bought a VHS/TV set in 1997, which has composite RCA inputs (yellow video and red/white audio). Having experienced digital television stations by connecting a "rabbit ears" antenna to my parents' new "HD-ready tuner-built-in" tv, I became "hooked." I'd been looking for a digital TV tuner for a little while now, with some personal guidelines, since I have an older tv:
1) I was not looking for the newest up to date features (HDMI output, digital audio, surround sound, etc); just a way that I can watch the programs that I've come to watch using an RCA (yellow video and white/red audio) output. New TV sets are required to have DTV tuners in the TV set, so I'm not concerned about using this on a newer TV when I decide to purchase one. We've got other TVs I can donate this to, anyway.
2) The Samsung tuner (DTBH260F) does not offer on screen menus with the method that I would have been hooking up the receiver to the TV. On-screen identification of channels, customization, and other features would not be easily available using the Samsung product-aside from switching cables whenever I wanted to do so.

The TUN-5000 offers on screen menus with any signal output. The menus contain:
- automatic and manual scan
- add/remove channels
- favorite channels
- picture modes (normal, vivid, movie, game, sport), customizable picture modes are brightness, contrast, saturation, tint, sharpness
- picture aspect ratio (automatic, 4:3 full, 4:3 zoom, 16:9 full, 16:9 zoom)
- audio control (volume, treble, bass, balance), left/right channel, mono, stereo, and english/spanish/french secondary audio programming options)
- an electronic program guide (present "what's on tv now", daily "what's on today". depends on if the station broadcasts that info...)
- parental controls
- closed captions
- on screen display settings (transparency, hold on-screen time)
- signal strength indicators (strength and quality)

When changing channels, it will tell you on screen the channel number, digital channel number, the call letters, and will usually tell whether the signal is high definition (HD) or standard definition (SD) that it is tuned to; for example: "5-1 CALL-HD" or "5-2 CALL-SD".

After a while of having this product, the quirks with this product I've found are that
1) a single channel that I've deleted from the channels I receive (weather channel from a distant city) occasionally reappears.
2) sometimes it will tune to a digital subchannel on its own.

A last complaint is the manual, at least in the one I received, the controller is different than the one pictured in the manual (with buttons in very different places). It's writing seems to be from a non-native English speaking source, but, even still, it is fairly easy to understand.

This does ship with it's own indoor antenna, not amplified though, and I've found that it picks up more channels at a stronger signal strength than an indoor amplified antenna did.

Overall, this is a great product and tuner.

Excellent quality, supports 4:3 and 16:9. Setup was very easy. Small size is great, fits anywhere. Program guide is ok, but I don't really use it. Includes HD antenna which works well (for an indoor antenna). Occasionally changes channels to a sub-channel on it's own. The device has locked up a few times, but unplugging it from the wall seems to reset it. I tried to email the manufacturer's customer service about the problems, but after several weeks I have received no response. Over all it was a good purchase, the price it still a bit steep though.

This is the only ATSC tuner that is still available. (At least in my searches.) The Box Stores (Best Buy etc.) list one or two but they are never available.

This works. For those of us that have not succumbed to cable or satellite TV , it about the only way to record on air broadcasts. None of the DVD/Hard disc recorders have an ATSC tuner. They rely on your cable or satellite box.

I am very pleased with the quality and performance of the unit.

Amazon's affiliated supplier, Electrogalaxy was absolutely terrific. They had an unexpected rush of orders and they kept me informed on status constantly including calling me on the telephone.

Great!!

NOTE: See update at the end of this review for reliability problems that started about a week after installation.

This set-top box enables your old analog standard definition (SD) TV to receive digital broadcasts if it has a "composite video" input connector. If your TV only has an RF input, then you will also need a video-to-RF converter.

The Grandtec also has "component video" connectors with high definition (HD) capability for people whose TVs support that capability.

Although it receives both HD and SD digital broadcasts, unless you have an HD television, HD broadcasts will only display in SD mode.

It comes with its own indoor antenna, but you can connect your old indoor or outdoor TV antenna to it instead if you prefer. The better the antenna, the more stations you should be able to receive.

On first running the setup process, my unit seemed to find a few of the available stations, and then I kept getting "no signal" messages on every station. After that it couldn't find any stations at all. It was this way with both my old antenna and the antenna that came with the box. I tried setting Defaults to Yes in the Tools menu and re-running the auto-scan, and after that it found all the stations I would expect.

On the aspect ratio button, the unit defaults to Auto, which adjusts the shape of the picture to avoid having faces look stetched or squashed. There are a few stations where I have to set it manually to get the picture to fill the screen in at least one direction.

One nice feature is that you can either adjust the length of time the menus stay on the screen, or you can turn off the time-out entirely so that the menu stays up until you push the button again or press exit. (See OSD Settings in the Tools menu.)

On the Edit menu, the Signal Power readout would be useful for determining if your antenna is aimed in the optimal direction, except that it works in a quirky way. As signal strength is reduced, the signal power drops by ten percentage points or so, and then goes suddenly to zero. The Signal Quality readout seems to be more useful for antenna aiming. The minimum signal quality that allows reception seems to be about 15%.

The manual does not do a lot of explaining. One place where this caused a problem was in running manual scans. This is something you may need to do if you have a directional antenna that you can rotate and there are some stations that are in a different direction from the others. You would first run auto-scan with the antenna pointed at the main group, and then you would point your antenna at the other stations and do individual manual scans for any that were too weak to be picked up with the antenna pointed in the other direction. The user's manual doesn't explain any of this, but what's worse, it doesn't tell you that you have to enter the actual physical channel numbers that the digital channels are on rather than the virtual channel numbers that are normally displayed on the screen. So for example, if Channel 2 in your area has three digital channels associated with it, they would be identified on your screen something like 2-1, 2-2, and 2-3, but if you do a manual scan on channel 2, it won't find any of them. What you have to do is go online and look up the physical channel number for Channel 2's digital broadcasts and enter that. Then it will find them, assuming the signal quality is adequate.

For those who are wondering, one place to look up the physical channel numbers is on the National Association of Broadcasters' (NAB) "Antennaweb" site. They don't allow URLs in reviews, so you will have to search for it. Once you have found it, click on "Choose an Antenna," enter your zip code, and continue through the menus until you get a list of stations available in your area. The physical channel numbers are in the right hand column, labeled "Frequency Assignment." (You can leave the name and address fields blank if you want.)

One feature I would have liked to have seen is a timer that would allow me to program the unit to tune different channels on different days and times. There are a lot of legacy VCRs, DVD recorders, and DVRs out there, so I would think there would be some demand for that feature.

On the other hand, whether this unit is less expensive than buying a digital-capable recording device is not something I've researched.

This unit is also considerably more expensive than the Zenith set-top box, and I don't know whether its features justify the price difference, as I have not seen the Zenith yet.

UPDATE: About a week after installing the unit, it developed reliability problems. Using a fairly directional antenna aimed in the proper direction, some of the stations started dropping out every few seconds, even though the signal strength and signal quality readings appeared to be more than adequate. (Using the antenna that came with the unit produces the same result.) Plugging the same antenna cable into an analog TV shows good signal strength and quality from the problem stations. Turning off the power with the unit tuned to one of these stations results in its not turning off completely - instead the station it is tuned to pops back up on the screen from time to time. A couple of times the unit got into a state where it could not be turned on with either the remote control or the power button on the unit. Unplugging the power momentarily cleared that problem.

Ordered this to use with an older tube HDTV without a tuner. Installation was easy but getting it to work was hard. The manual is worthless(written in Chinese and translated through two or three languages). For instance: the manual said that when functioning, the red LED would turn green: it turned orange. There was no explanation of the variou buttons on the remote. I got it to work by randomly pressing buttons: one called R seemed to do the trick but you had to press and wait 5 seconds each time. Now, it works great but needs a better manual.