Home > Consumer Reviews > Samsung DTBH260F HDTV Terrestrial Receiver

This item has been hard to find in stores and online. After being waitlisted with Amazon for some time, I finally ordered it from another large electronics vendor that offerred free shipping, but I had to pay sales tax.

Last year I purchased two HDTV's (without built in tuners) thinking I would always get HD from my cable company. When I totaled up the cost of HD on cable with all of the extra boxes and fees, over-the-air HD for the price of a tuner seemed like a much more reasonable alternative.

The tuner was not difficult to hook up. I used an inexpensive HDMI cable (purchased off the web), regular rabbit ears/UHF antenna and plugged the tuner directly into my TV. (Remember to flip the switch on the back of the unit and to set your TV to HDMI input.) According to the manual, audio is supposed to be transmitted to the TV through the HDMI cable, but my TV does not accept dolby 5.1 surround sound. I had to change the audio setting on the unit to PCM to get sound out of the TV. Alternatively, I got stereo sound by running separate audio cables (included with the unit) to my home theater unit.

Being at an age where I grew up with over the air TV and recalling that we continually had to adjust the rabbit ears to improve the picture, I was astounded by the quality of the signal. The transmission towers are about 19 miles away and I was getting all bars on the signal strength. No fidgiting with the rabbit ears was required and the picture has no ghosting. Clearly, this is not the over the air TV of the 60's and 70's.

In addition to the HD shows, I'm also getting a 720 digital signal on most of the non-HD programming, which is a big improvement over the 480 analog. The improvement is so good, I'm thinking of getting another tuner for my other hd-ready TV.

I do have a couple of small complaints. As noted by other reviewers, the channels seem to change very slowly using the remote and you need very good aim. And, don't lose the remote because you cannot change the channel without it. Another reviewer noted that it takes a bit of time for the unit to boot up when first turned on, which I can also confirm. He also noted that the unit gets very hot, which is NOT my experience.

Happy viewing!

Many people may consider using this receiver to upgrade their analog (non DTV-ready, non HD-ready) TVs. (Why replace that big old projection TV with plasma at 10 times the price? Wait a couple of more years for the inevitable price/performance improvements.) There are a few things that you need to know, though.

(1) Nearly all of the TV stations in your area simultaneously broadcast analog and digital signals over the air. Many stations broadcast several digital sub-channels, which effectively multiplies the number of programs available to you at any time.

(2) Because of the Samsung's sensitivity, your old TV antenna will pull in all of the digital channels with crystal-clear reception. (Obviously, it won't change the resolution. It will never look like a digital TV, but every broadcast will look as sharp as a DVD played through the same set.)

(3) Some digital broadcasts use the 16:9 aspect ratio, while others use the 4:3 dimensions of your old set. This results -- somewhat unpredicably -- in blank strips at the edges of the screen and/or a slightly compressed horizontal picture, because both the broadcaster and the Samsung are trying to compensate for aspect ratio differences. (When stations broadcast 4:3 content on a 16:9 signal or vice versa, it is they who insert the blank areas. For me, 3 out of 4 stations broadcast signals that come through undistorted at full screen size.) BUT, the Samsung's aspect ratio adjustments DO NOT work through Samsung's analog TV output, so what you see is what you get.

(4) Further, the Samsung will NOT show you any station information on the screen. When you select channels or set up the system using the remote control, you are flying blind unless you can infer your position in the channel sequence or on the menu. (These caveats apply only to analog TVs.) It's not as bad as it sounds, but it does take a little getting used to. You can, if you like, follow the somewhat cryptic advice of an earlier reviewer. Temporarily plug your yellow video composite cable from your TV into the green DTV OUT (component) jack in the Samsung. Slide the rear switch to Y,Pb,Pr. The menus will become visible over a black-and-white TV picture. After you complete your setup, plug the cable into the appropriate yellow jack. (If your TV has multiple video inputs, e.g. Aux1 and Aux2, or Composite plus S-Video, you can leave the B&W menus on one input and watch your shows on the other.)

Hey, all transitional technologies have their limits, but some of Samsung's choices seem a little arbitrary. All in all, I think this is a neat little product and fairly priced at $180 or less.

p.s. Watch for prices to drop in 2008 when federally approved TV converter boxes go on sale. Check out https://www.dtv2009.gov/ and apply for a $40 coupon while you're there. But beware that coupons expire 90 days after they are issued.

p.p.s. Exactly 2 years after I purchased this unit (i.e., 1 year past warranty), it stopped working. Apparently something in the power supply. Not the fuse. Not the remote. I am not happy. I won't bother trying to fix it.

After much soul searching, I decided to get rid of cable, satellite, etc. because I was spending too much time watching the same programs over and over again. I decided to free up my time. However, I knew there would still be times when I would want to watch some TV. Limited basic cable in my area only covers the major networks and independent stations, which I knew I could get with a TV antenna. So why pay? However, reception was bad, so I wondered if I would get better reception if I had an HDTV tuner. My Sony Trinitron Wega is only three years old. There was no way I was going to upgrade to a newer model, so I did some research and found that if I bought an HD receiver that could be set to analog (480i), I could watch TV in digital format. The Samsung works wonderfully. It is an especially useful receiver for those of us who do not have HD TVs. This tuner, plus a Radio Shack "Indoor VHF/UHF/HDTV Antenna with RF Remote Control" (model: 15-1892) will save me hundreds each year.

I need to add that I have two analog TVs. I am able to get the onscreen menus. You have to hook the S-composite video cable to a VCR or DVD player. I'm also using a splitter. So this one box serves two TVs. Also, HD is broadcast in 16:9 aspect ratio--not 4:3, so the aspect ratio on an analog (4:3) TV might have to be adjusted. You can adjust the aspect ratio via the tuner's remote. There is a delay of 2-3 seconds when changing channels. That's because the tuner has to take the analog signals from the antenna and convert them to digital signals. Like another reviewer said, I intend to spend part of my savings on Netflix. I live in San Francisco, surrounded by high buildings and hills, and with this combination, I'm able to get HDTV stations from as far away as Sacramento--80 miles.

To get onscreen menus (analog TV)

This is the arrangement I'm using. Perhaps others will work as well.

Main cord w/splitter: TV to antenna to tuner
Sound Cord: TV to tuner
RWY: TV to VCR
RWY: DVD to tuner
GBR: TV to tuner

RWY=red, white, yellow cord
GBR=green, blue, red cord

Hope that helps!

Update: I now live in Chicago. Picking up HD channels is even easier than it was in San Francisco. I live toward the back of a 16 story building and I get every last channel.

I've been using this receiver since mid-December. I have an indoor antenna, and an RCA 27V530T standard def tv. I've connected this receiver to my tv using both the s-video and the component cable (not at the same time). I don't have Cable so I was using rabbit ears to get locals. There has been a huge difference b/n tv before the receiver and after. Using the s-video connection, the picture looked great; 100x better than before. Not only the picture, but I was also getting several more channels than before. When I connected the receiver using the component cables, the difference was amazing. It's literally like I have DVDs of these channels (again I don't have a HDTV). There was also richer color using the component connections instead of the s-video connections. I'm getting FOX, ABC, CBS, NBC, 5 different channels of PBS (including PBS HD), a couple of weather channels, and the two WB channels. I'm missing one local channel, but the channel is not worth trying to readjust my antenna, as it took a while to place the antenna in the perfect spot.

The problems w/ this receiver are minor, and more annoying than anything else. For one this receiver does not have channel changing buttons on the front of the receiver. If I can't find the remote, I better hope the last channel I watched wasn't the weather channel, otherwise I'm out of luck. Another complaint I have is that I can't access the channel's signal strength directly; I have to go through the menus to view the signal. It doesn't seem like much of an issue, but hitting a button once is a lot easier than hitting "menu - right - right - enter - up - right" (and you have to do that everytime if you change the channel). There's also no sound to indicate whether your strengh is high or low (like the strengh meter on a Dish Network or DirecTV DBS receiver). The problem w/ these "little" issues is that I believe these are the same complaints that users of the previous generation of Samsung HD receivers had, yet Samsung hasn't addressed the issues. I believe these issues are the difference b/n this being a good receiver and a great receiver.

All in all, I still think this receiver is a great buy. The receiver is not perfect, but the pros far outweigh the cons. Again, I don't have a HD tv, but I still used the component connections (not composite!!!) and get an EXCELLENT PICTURE.

I decided to get this tuner when my cable company refused to provide most of the local stations in HD. I live 6 miles from the transmitter, so the signal is at full strength with only rabbit ears for an antenna. The picture is perfect for the 1080i broadcasts, with no digital artifacts or loss of signal. The only drawback is if you want to view content at the correct aspect ratio, you have to manually change the aspect ratio when switching between broadcasts in standard definition (4:3) and high definition (16:9). Otherwise, the HD channels are squashed down to 4:3 (everyone looks skinny) and the standard definition channels are stretched out to 16:9 (everyone looks fat). The remote has a button that allows you to manually change the aspect ratio without going through the on-screen menus.