Apex Digital DT250A
MSRP: $55 at Best Buy
Introduction
The Apex Digital DT250A is the newest model tuner available from Best Buy and it is slowly replacing the Insignia box. With new features like S-video output and a smart antenna port, this tuner should provide good video quality, but worked better on the LCD panel than the CRT display. The package includes the tuner, remote, 2 AAA batteries, a cheap coax cable and an A/V cable.
Appearance – 3/5
The box is basic black with a reflective panel on the front. It is reminiscent of a cheap DVD player, but without the tray? Other than an indistinguishable RF sensor, the front left of the box had a small power button that is very light green when on and slightly brighter red when off. No channel buttons were to be found. It's not often you change the channels from a box, but it is handy on occasion or when you misplace the remote control.
Ports – 5/5
From left to right, the rear of the box has coax antenna in, coax TV out, CH3/4 switch, S-video, composite/stereo jacks, smart antenna port, and a hard-wired power cable. The addition of the S-video port was a nice feature. In fact, it isn't allowable to have higher output quality than 480i on a converter box that is eligible for the government coupons.
Remote – 2/5
This is by far the worst remote control in the shootout. It is very small and flimsy. There is no button for TV power, the buttons are very small, and there are no distinct channel and volume up and down buttons as they are part of the D-pad configuration. It felt very unnatural to use and was hard to find the functions I was looking for. The Mute button was placed in the upper right where power buttons are usually found. It is the only remote that has the number pad in the prime thumb position and they were located above the D-pad. However, there are distinct buttons for the Menu, Exit, Recall, Display, Guide, Signal Meter, Favorite channel add/delete, Favorite Channel plus and minus, Zoom, and MTS. The Zoom button cycled through three aspect ratios: Normal, Zoom, and Fill. These 3 settings only work if the TV shape is specifically set to 4:3 or 16:9. There is an Auto TV shape in the menu, but it disables all zoom functions.
Initial Setup – 4/5
The initial setup had all options on one screen, which was very nice. It felt more like a menu rather than being directed one step at a time through a wizard-like system. Perhaps this is nicer for more advanced users. Language, Time Zone, TV Aspect Ratio, and Channel Scan were easily accessible.
Menu System – 3/5
The main menu contained a large list of functions. There were sub menus for Manual Channel Setup, Parental Controls and Closed Captioning. Because there were so many items in the menu, the fonts and lines were narrow and flickered badly on the CRT. It was really a bad choice of visual interface for a box designed for interlace output. It was as if the whole screen was flashing when the menu was up. This tuner also had some extensive CC options but I couldn't get a good readable combo because of the small flicker-prone fonts.
Channel Information – 2/5
After the ugly Commodore 64 like interface on the Digital Stream box, I didn't think a channel info screen could be that bad. Well, Apex Digital managed to tie for the low score. With a small flickering font, and a semi-transparent box, the following could be seen: Channel number and call sign, the program title, the date and time of the current program, the program rating and whether it is decoding Dolby Digital to the stereo outputs. There was also an option to arrow to the right to see future programs for the channel currently selected.
Program Guide – 1/5
The program guide didn't even look like it was from the same manufacturer. Three bright blue boxes with small flickering white letters appeared at the top and a larger blue box in the middle contained the full program description. It was only a little more info than when arrowing right and left from the Channel Info screen, but with horrible readability. It wasn't possible to see what was on other channels from the guide. I hope someone got fired for this. At least the guide button is small on the remote and it's not likely to be used since it's so bad.
Signal Strength – 3/5
With the normal antenna, the Apex tuner was getting 65 to 70% across my 11 channels. However, the signal would occasionally drop down to 50 or less for just a second causing a skip, then return back to normal. With the amplified antenna it was 5 to 10% higher in several channels, but inexplicably had the same signal drop problem. Rescanning the channels with the smart antenna didn't take an hour like it did with the RCA, but only 5 minutes or so. There were manual settings in the menu for smart antenna calibration also. It was possible to have an antenna position for each channel individually and it could be set by hand or auto scanned. The overall signal strength went back down 5% or so, but the signal stability was a little better and there were far less drop outs.
Picture Quality – 5/5
The picture quality while using composite video was as good as the Insignia box, but it just got better when the S-video port was used on the CRT. It was an excellent quality video image on the LCD monitor as well. Also, there was no flicker while using the LCD, and that made the box bearable for menu setup and reading the fonts.
Sound Quality – 3/5
The sound seemed very average, and the volume was only controlled internally since there were no TV volume controls on the remote. The vocal range was clear enough, but not as good as others in the shootout.
Conclusion
With the worst interface of all the boxes, it was difficult to use the DT250A, but the picture quality was excellent once the smart antenna was in place and preventing drops. The S-video connection really did step the image quality up, but the sound wasn't as good as it could have been. If this tuner had a better menu and guide system, it would have been rated higher, but I would still prefer the Insignia tuner over this one due to the better interface, guide and menu system. Keep trying Best Buy, maybe your third box will be a charm.
Overall – 3/5
Specifications
- Unit Dimensions: 9" x 6.1" x 1.6"
- Net Weight: 2 lbs.
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9 / 4:3
- Tuner Type/ Range: ATSC/ RF CH 2-69
- Resolution: Down converts to 480i
- Video Outputs: Composite (1); S Video (1), RF Out with Audio
- Video Inputs: RF (1); Smart Antenna (optional)
- Audio Outputs: L/R Audio
- Energy Standards: <1 Watt While in Sleep Mode
