I realize that not all boxes are the same. I read online that one guy got a magnavox and it couldn’t pick up any of the DTV stations with rabbit ears, but when he exchanged it for the Zenith it picked up the stations fine. Apparently the tuners are not all equal
Anyway I was wondering if anyone already has an analog-dtv converter box and had any recommendations.
I understand the government site gives you $40.00 off the price of a box and some boxes are very expensive. Our Wal-mart has a magnavox converter for $49.00
No recommendation on a box, but just a warning that this is only needed for over-the-air reception. If you have cable, satellite, or any other provider, the box is not needed - even if you just have basic analog cable.
But even if you have cable, it might not be a bad idea to have one of these boxes around, just in case the cable goes out and you want to be able to use an antenna until it comes back on. Or if you never bothered to run cable to the TV in the kitchen.
I was also going to ask for suggestions on which boxes are good choices. The coupon cards I got in the mail came with list of several boxes the cards can be redeemed for, and I have no idea which ones are good, which are crap, etc.
With my two coupons I bought the $49 Magnavox converter at WalMart, and a $60 Insiginia (their house brand) at Best Buy. Both work as advertised, but the Insignia is worth the extra money because of added features like volume control.
For a list of digital stations in your area, both tvfool.com and antennaweb.org have some good information.