The Access HD DTA10870D Digital TV Converter Box

[Opcom]

I just got one from CompUSA. It was $40.01, so I had to pay a penny. Small, with plenty of vent holes underneath, and some in a round pattern on top like for a speaker. RF CH 3/4, passthrough, and video outputs, no S-video.  On stations where the signal was very snowy the box did not do well at all, but on those with light to moderate noise, it did a good job. Considering I am using rabbit ears however, even this is very good. It came with batteries for the remote and an RF cable.

It programmed itself then I was able to go back in a menu and get rid of the infomercial and spanish channels I do not watch, including one especially annoying screaming hellfire preacher. They are still in memory, just "skipped", so that I could manually select them later if I please. The picture quality from the RF jack is "TV good", but when the signal strength bar is selected to be shown, there is a buzz in the video, so I suspect the same is a bit hot in the internal RF modulator.

That's not the only thing that is hot in there, check the huge heatsink on the main IC and the big thermal pad full of vias underneath it. The unit stays warm when left on, so the many cooling holes are no joke. There are places where either parts or jumpers are "not installed". These might be good places to snoop. At a post-card cost of just one penny, the Access HD DTA10870D Digital TV Converter Box is a good value. I would like to know the make of the IC, and do some snooping.

[WA1GFZ]

Gee, I should go out and get one before the card expries for the second time.

[WB2YGF]

I have an Artec T3A Pro, $40 cheapee, and a DTV Pal made by the dish network guys.  I got these last spring so I paid a lot more for the DTV Pal as it was one of the first pass thru units which were scarce at the time.  The DTV Pal has a better reciever and a much more professional OSD.  IMHO, worth the extra cost.