Went to Circuit City, and saw the new Samsung STB on the shelf, next to the Digital Stream HD 3150 Plus. The Digital Stream is still priced at $229, considerably higher than the Samsung's $179.99. Strange. The only advantage of the Digital Stream now, as far as I can tell, is that the menu works fine on any of its outputs, whereas the Samsung's menu only works on the component or HDMI outputs.
Spoke with the salesman. He didn't seem to know much about the Samsung's capabilities as an OTA receiver, compared with the Digital Stream. But he says they keep selling out. I don't know how many they keep in stock before they sell out, but he made it sound like they are selling well.
But the interesting thing he said was that a big appeal of the Samsung is that with its QAM tuner and cable frequencies, they also sell to people with basic cable over here. Because they can get all the OTA stations in digital and HD, without paying extra, just like Tom was saying. Except here, that means all the major networks and then some. Even if they don't have a cable card, they still have a meaningful role for cable users. Cool. I had missed that until Tom mentioned it.
The new TiVo Series 3 also sells to both cable and OTA types. Next box to look for will be the new HD DVD recorders. My bet is that they will come with ATSC and QAM tuners, and will also appeal to basic cable people and OTA people.
Bert _________________________________________________________________Get live scores and news about your team: Add the Live.com Football Page www.live.com/?addtemplate=football&icid=T001MSN30A0701
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