Motorola HDT101 vs. Samsung SIR-T451

jeffkrug

Motorola HDT101 vs. Samsung SIR-T451


Background Information:

I purchased both at Circuit City. The Motorola box was $299, and the Samsung box was $249.

I purchased the HDT101 as a temporary solution while I had a SIR-T451 on order. I needed something to test out my new antenna, and I could not find a SIR-T451 for sale anywhere. As it turns out, I only had the HDT101 for one day, as the SIR-T451 was ready the next day.


Video Formats:
Both boxes support 1080i and 720p. The Samsung box has a switch on the back, the Motorola box you can select via the remote. I don't think you would typically need to set this anytime other than installation, so I don't consider either to have an advantage here. Both boxes supported additional modes, but these were the only modes I tried.

Video Outputs:
Samsung supports component and DVI.
Motorola supports only component.

Video Quality:
I have not tested with the component output of the Samsung, but the Samsung's picture with DVI seemed a little better based on comparing ABC's MNF to Fox's Sunday football. Many other things could be the source of my sense that the DVI was better. The component output on the Motorola was excellent; HD Shrek (on NBC Sunday Night) looked better than component DVD.

If you have DVI available, it's probably worth getting a DVI cable (but don't buy one in electronics stores for $100+). You can always hunt Froogle, but I found good quality and inexpensive cables at:

http://www.computercablestore.com/



Audio Outputs:
Samsung supports A/V (RCA/composite - standard L/R analog audio), toslink (optical digital), and SP/DIF (coaxial digital).
Motorola supports A/VLand SP/DIF (coaxial digital).

Audio Quality:
I had no way to compare quality. I only had optical dolby inputs available on my receiver, so I could not test the Motorola's digital output, and I have not connected the Samsung's L/R analog audio. I believe this dolby digital signal is not processed by the tuner (it's just demuxed from the HDTV source), so I believe that the quality would be identical for the Motorola box if connecting to a digital audio decoder via coax is an option for you.

Interface:
Both have passable interfaces. I found the Samsung one more intuitive and user friendly, but the Motorola one was acceptable.

The Motorola out of the box required a password for all setup features. The password was the default of 0000 (first guess), but typically I would expect one to have to setup a password. I never found a way to disable the password feature and it was a little annoying.

Another nuisance for the Motorola box (or perhaps I did not figure out how), is it lacked the ability to delete a detected channel. That meant channels that were detected, but tuned in horribly would still appear in the channel list.

The one advantage the Motorola box had was it's favorites list. When you push the favorite button on the Motorola box it pops up a menu of favorites and you choose the channel you want. The Samsung box also supported favorites, but instead of a menu allowing you to choose your channel each press changes the channel to your next favorite.


Tuner:

Both seem to have good tuning ability, but I believe the Samsung tuner is slightly superior. During channel detection the Samsung box found 6 channels the Motorola box did not find. The Motorola box found 1 channel the Samsung box failed to find. It's worth noting that 5 of the 6 channels the Samsung auto-detected were of sufficiently low quality that I deleted them (they were all channels I was not interested in). The 6th channel the Samsung auto-detected that the Motorola box failed to tune may have under gone transmission changes over night (see the thread ABC OTA in Atlanta for details). I was able to manually add the one channel the Samsung box failed to detect (UPN), but it appeared to be of intermittent quality. This channel tuned in better on the Motorola box Sunday night.

The Samsung box changed channels faster than the Motorola box. The Motorola box would pop up a little window showing the signal strength as it tried to lock on. Once it locked on this window would disappear and the picture would appear. The Samsung box seems to just change channels (it's possible that the Motorola box's choice to pop up a signal strength window created the optical illusion of slower channel changes, but I do not believe this to be the case).


Overall:

For me the choice is obvious. I need toslink audio and I want DVI video (my TV has a limited supply of component inputs with a PS2 and DVD player consuming them). The Samsung box is cheaper (albeit harder to find). I believe the Samsung has equal if not superior tuning capabilities. The one case of poor reception with UPN may have been an anomaly as I did not investigate it much.



I hope this information is useful to others.

bnewt

Do either of these units display the channel for reference? Are either capable of analog reception in addition to the digital reception?

jeffkrug

I am not entirely sure I understand your question. The way both boxes showed the channels was the channel number followed by the stations call-sign. For example 11.1 - WXIA and 36.1 - WATL. I looked for a way to edit these identifiers so I could put more meaningful names in like NBC or WB, but that was not an option on either box.

In addition to this information both boxes supported the notion of program guides. I don't think any of the Atlanta stations are broadcasting the data required for this feature, as the program guide and program descriptions were almost always empty.

I did not investigate this very much as I was entirely focused on the HD aspects of the devices. The additional channels found by the Samsung box may have been analog channels. The Samsung box will take analog signals, but I am unsure about the Motorola box.

bnewt

I meant do they display the channel being viewed on the front display of the unit itself, not an on screen identification on the tv.

Regrading the analog reception, I have seen that some units receive both analog & digital, but don't really know if it would be important to receive both.

jeffkrug

They both display channel numbers on the front of the boxes. Just numbers though.

rickgfromkc

I've owned both models and I'm returning my Samsung because I've look extensively and can't figure out how to get the HD programming to display in a letter box on a standard tube television. Normal programming displays fine, but HD programming has the 16:9 aspect ration and the Motorola has a button on the remote to (as does the Samsung) to change the aspect ratios. The Samsung doesn't have a letter box setting to show 16:9 programming on a 4:3 older tube television. So the HD programming is all "squished" and everyone looks like they are skinnier than they are. For me... that's real distracting.

Obviously, my next purchase is going to be a flat panel television with a 16:9 aspect ratio. Most likely a plasma, television that will have the tuner built in. So I'm betting that I really need this feature now and in the future, and believe that my stand alone tuner will continue to need this feature now and in the future for a office/guest/kids room television.

rickgfromkc

I found the onscreen menu setting to change the tuner from 16:9 to 4:3 aspect ration. All is good. Sorry for the confusion.

slowmo

The 451 does not receive analog channels. No NTSC tuner. Others such as the LG 4200 do have NTSC tuners in addition to ATSC / QAM.

The 451 does not allow you to input a subchannel directly. You input "42", it locks on to 42.1 (assuming there is a channel there) and then you would hit "channel up" to go to 42.2 (assuming another subchannel). This works OK but the ability to input "42.2" directly would be preferable.

The 451's output switch is a manual switch on the back of the box as noted above. I do prefer a remote control for this feature as I like to manually change format to equal the native resolution of a given channel (Fox 720p, CBS 1080i, etc.).

My 451's has been much more reliable than my prior 351 in terms of audio reliability (no dropouts) and signal strength.

marioman360

You wont need to receive analog channels in another year or so