RCA DTA800B1
MSRP: $50 at Wal-Mart
Introduction
The RCA DTA800B1 is the lowest cost box in the shootout and is available at Wal-Mart. It was one of the most difficult to acquire as my local stores were sold out for over a month. I believe the cost makes this a very popular option. With a basic black appearance and simple remote control, it is easy for the electronics novice to use. The package includes the tuner, remote, batteries and coax cable. It seemed odd that a simple A/V cable wasn't included as with some of the other tuners. The picture quality seemed acceptable but it lacked some screen format options that would have been useful. Overall, my initial impressions of this box were good for its ease of use.
Appearance – 4/5
This tuner is one of the smallest in the shootout and has a side panel that rotates to allow it to stand vertically as well as the usual horizontal position. The front has power and channel plus and minus buttons and a red/green LED for the power status.
Ports – 4/5
From left to right, the rear of the box has coax antenna in, coax TV out, Ch3/Ch4 switch, composite/stereo A/V jacks, smart antenna port, and a hard wired power cable. At this price, it was good to see the addition of the smart antenna port, but my later testing showed it to be no better than using an amplified antenna.
Remote – 3/5
The RCA remote control had large and easy to use buttons and felt very comfortable in my hand. Separate TV power, volume/mute, and input buttons were included and it worked without additional programming with the RCA TV used for the tests. It can be programmed to work with other TVs, as well. The D-Pad buttons were large and shaped well and the Menu and Info buttons were well placed for quick thumb access. There were no buttons for Screen Format or Back/Exit. It seems obvious that the screen format button is critical but the RCA only allows the change inside the menu. Perhaps this was designed to be part of the perceived ease of use for the product, but it became an irritation later.
Initial Setup – 3/5
The initial setup took about 2 minutes or so including the channel scan. The system prompted for the language and then began the scan. After a short time the guide appeared and began scanning the channels for program information and allowed channel selection. The initial setup seemed to omit some steps that other tuners included.
Menu System – 4/5
The menu reveals the more obscure settings settings including Power Saver for system inactivity, Time Zone selection, Picture format (full screen or widescreen), Audio format (Stereo or Alternate), and a System Reset. It seems that the designers assumed that this tuner will only be used with a 4:3 TV screen as no other picture formats were available. The main menu was simple and included the Channel list, AV Settings which were just mentioned, Ratings for V-Chip control, Closed Captioning, and Settings to control other system options. It was awkward to bring up the menu to get to some of these items, especially the screen format, but the menu was numbered and easy to read and the process became quicker after some repetition.
Channel Information – 5/5
The Info button brought up a very nice, semi-translucent info screen with a lot of information. The Program Title, name of next program, signal meter, time range for current show, rating, channel number and call sign, and the current time were all included. An additional click of the Info button added a text window with the full program description. Everything was easy to read and not distracting from the actual video material behind it.
Program Guide – 3/5
As there wasn't a Guide button, this information was only accessible through the main menu. The Channel List, as it was called, brought up a simple list of channels, the current program on each, and the next program coming up. It constantly rescanned the channels so it was always up to date. However, times for the programs were missing and you couldn't get extra info on the program unless you tuned to the channel first. The table structure was easy to read, but only provided basic information and could have been better.
Signal Strength – 3/5
On average, I was getting around 65% signal strength on most of my 11 channels with the basic antenna. If the signal dropped below about 50% I'd get some dropouts and artifacting. Once plugged into the amplified smart antenna, my signals improved by only 5%. The Apex antenna was used in two ways, both as an amplified antenna only and then plugged into the smart antenna port. I found no difference in the signal strength while using the smart port. However, the smart port is the power source for the antenna and the channel scan went from 2 minutes up to about an hour. I assumed that the RCA box was trying to change antenna parameters on each channel it scanned thus severely increasing the scan time. Again, it didn't make a difference in this case. Other than the mini-meter in the channel info, there was a full channel meter in the menu system that had sound to accompany it if you were trying to tune a distant antenna via the pitch of the audio in relation to the signal strength.
Picture Quality – 3/5
The image on the RCA TV seemed much better than anything that was available with the internal analog TV tuner. It was certainly as clear as the picture from the cheap DVD player usually hooked up to the TV. I didn't notice any dot crawl but there was a bit of artifacting along sharp, horizontal lines in the picture content. I also tried this tuner with a 20" Dell computer monitor that has a composite input, and I was a little disappointed. I could see some color problems around the edges of people or distinct objects that weren't visible on the TV. I know for sure I wouldn't use this box with my monitor or other higher resolution display.
Sound Quality – 4/5
Voices seemed clear enough and background audio was about average but I didn't use anything other than the TV for sound testing. It did seem like it could be a little better, even with cheap internal speakers. It's certainly adequate for standard TV speakers.
Conclusion
Overall, the RCA DTA800B1 is a simple solution for a low price. If the target display is a smaller set or the user doesn't feel the need for options like Screen Format, then this would be a good fit. Please note that this box will require a strong signal for good functionality. If it is used in a basement or an area with poor reception, not even an amplified local antenna will help create a stable signal, you'll need an outdoor antenna with sufficient range.
Overall – 3.5/5
Specifications
- Power supply: AC 120V/60HZ
- Power consumption: <1W (Standby) // <7W (operating, HD mode)
- Remote reception distance: >8m from front
- RF freq. range: 54MHz – 854MHz
- RF channel range: CH2 – CH69
- RF sensitivity: -83dBm to -5dBm
- RF impedance: 75 ohms
- Output channel: CH3/CH4 selectable
- Video System: NTSC
- Video output: 1V peak-to-peak
- Video output impedance: 75 ohms
- Audio output impedance: 600 ohms
- Unit Size (L x W x H): 190 x 140 x 38 mm // 7.5 x 5.5 x 1.5 in
- Net weight: 0.4 kg // .88 lbs
