Stb

[jf3233]

Looking for some help. I have a friend who is giving his parents an old hd tv with no tuner. Any rec. on a stb that is out there and cheap$ They do not have cable or D* so a tuner through one of them is out.

[brewtownska]

Ruling out a D* box is not necessarily valid.  I've had 2 different Samsung boxes (TS-160 and TS-360) work via just over-the-air (OTA) antenna, as well as an RCA box.  In all cases, you just need to make sure the options in the software are set to NO DISH, then it'll scan the antenna input for OTA channels.  If the Samsung box was last used for D*, then you need a D* card to put in the slot in order to configure the box back over to NO DISH (the card doesn't even need to be activated or tied to an account, but I think the card has to be one that hasn't been ruined).

Hope that helps.  Many of the old D* boxes can be had refurbished or via Ebay for under $50.  Seems like a viable solution for the 'rents.

[GGalewski]

This is similar to my situation.  No cable and no D*.  I bought a Samsung SIR-T451 tuner and I get excellent HD reception OTA.

But I found that I had to upgrade my antenna to have reliability.

You can probably get a tuner, like the SIR-T451, for under $200.