Over the last month I have tried 4 different HD DSS receivers in my system, from three manufacturers, (one brand was tried with two different receivers to eliminate a possible defective unit). These tests by myself, in conjunction with the glowing report on the Panasonic TU-HDS20 in the May 2001 Sterephile Guide to Home Theater issue prompted me to write these observations.
First, I have a Sony KW-34HD1 HDTV direct view TV. I have found out the hard way that it has a substantial HD 1080i input problem. With two copies of the Mitsubishi and one copy of the Sony HD DSS units I observed the following. On any scene change from dark to very light, such as a sudden change from an indoor scene to an outdoor scene, or in scenes with an explosion, the Sony will BLACK out the display, (the audio continues, the picture does NOT pixilate first, this is NOT a DSS signal loss). The picture simply goes away as if the TV were turned off. The blackout will last from 10 to 30 seconds, and then suddenly reappear.
Both the Mitsubishi and the Sony HD DSS receivers exhibited this problem to the point of being unusable on the 1080i output. Changing to the SD 480i output (S video in on the TV) ALWAYS stopped this behavior. A way to reproduce this at will was to tune to channel 199, the HD Demo loop on DirecTV during the Fantasia 2000 loop. The picture was black nearly as much as it was visible. In conversations with my local dealer, it was confirmed that the same problem had been seen by other customers, even on the latest Sony RPV HD ready TV.
Based partly on the report in the May Stereophile Guide to Home Theater issue, as well as another option to try and eliminate the Sony TV blackout issue, I tried the Panasonic TU-HDS20. There was good news and bad news. The good news is that the frequency, and duration of the blackout phenomena is greatly reduced. The Fantasia demo loop plays if not totally error free, nearly so. However, the blackouts DO still occur even with the TU-HDS20. With the TU-HDS20 the blackouts are most noticeable on commercial breaks and promo spots for upcoming shows. (Note, this blackout phenomena occurs for standard DSS, HD DSS, NTSC Analog and HDTV over the air (OTA), only the frequency of the problem, and length of time the blackout lasts, has been positively impacted by the Panasonic.)
In the process of testing the TU-HDS20 several things came to light that were NOT in the Stereophile glowing review of the TU-HDS20.
The unit has the LOUDEST, most annoying fan I have ever heard in ANY consumer electronics. I have PC's (rack mount server class systems), in my home that are not as loud as this thing. Indeed the noise level is so bad, I contacted the Panasonic 1-888 customer service number to inquire about this and was told basically too bad, that is the way it is. The fan noise is so pervasive, that from 12 feet away, during even a quiet passage of a TV show, or movie, the fan is constantly audible. That any consumer gear could be released with a fan this loud is unconscionable. How did this thing ever get past the user testing?
Not everybody has the space, home design, or cable length to hide all equipment away in a locked closet. Anybody considering this unit for use in a main area of their room needs to consider the noise level. (By the way the Sony SAT-HD100 also has a fan, and while audible, it is NOT as bad as the Panasonic.)
The guide and menu navigation on TU-HDS20 is the SLOWEST I have ever seen. The supplied remote control is almost unusable. Entering 501, (HBO), for example, on the keypad, the unit is so slow to respond that you nearly always have the numbers entered and the remote put down, BEFORE anything happens at the receiver. In addition, the supplied remote has such a narrow angle of IR emitted that it is common to have over 20% of the remote commands fail to even cause any reaction on the receiver, (for example, press 501 on the remote, but you actually tune to channel 5, or 51, or 01, etc.).
Trying to use the menu for setup is so tedious as to be almost not worth it. However, programming the Panasonic codes into a Philips Pronto, and using the Pronto helps greatly, there is seldom any loss of commands to the receiver, and nearly all commands "feel" as if they respond faster. (I suspect part of the problem with the Panasonic remote is that the remote flashes the currently selected component; DSS, TV, etc., LED multiple times for each button pressed, slowing down the reaction time of the unit.)
However, the overall navigation of the receiver is very tedious, entering the Guide for example requires up to 15 seconds for the entire Guide data to be displayed on the TV. It literally "paints" the Guide data down the screen one element at a time. The worst thing is that ANY change to the Guide, (for example, paging down, moving forward in time on the Guide, etc.), requires the SAME time. Page down one page in the Guide and the whole thing repaints from the first line of the Guide to the bottom.
The TU-HDS20 will power fail (it literally powers off and back on, it is obviously doing a reboot/reset) if you are in the Favorite Channel setup for any length of time, (at least longer than a minute or two) and have added apparently more than approximately 99 channels to the Favorites List. The problem is that the Favorite setup routine is so incredibly SLOW and tedious that you are almost guaranteed to hit the point where the unit for some reason, powers OFF, and then resets itself back to ON. However, the worst part is that when this reset occurs ALL of the Favorite settings are LOST, you have to start all over. After, fussing with this for over 45 minutes I just gave up. The setting up of favorite channels in the Panasonic is the MOST cumbersome, archaic, obnoxious interface I have ever used. The really unpleasant part of this is that the Guide is so slow, that eliminating ANY channel that you do not want, or subscribe to, would be helpful. However, I DO have more than 99 channels that we potentially would want to look at. So I either have to limit the number of channels we can watch and minimize the navigation delays, or accept ALL channels and live with the slowness of moving through all the unwanted stuff.
Unlike the Mitsubishi and Sony, the Panasonic does NOT have a signal strength meter for LOCAL over the air HDTV signals, (the Sony does have a HDTV signal meter, but it is much more cumbersome to get to than the Mitsubishi). In addition, the Mitsubishi picked up ALL of my local HDTV stations once I aimed the antenna at the highest signal level for ONE of the channels, the remaining channels were all lower in signal and all were tuned in by the Mitsubishi. With the Panasonic, it absolutely refused to even indicate that there was a local NBC HDTV channel. I had to re-aim the antenna, once I did that, the Panasonic picked up all channels. It is just a pain since there is no signal strength indication, you have to "guess" at the antenna positioning until you get all channels to tune in.
Another item of note, unlike every other DSS unit I have ever used. the Panasonic TOTALLY mutes the sound and picture whenever the Guide is displayed. There is nothing but a black background, and the Guide data. Some may like this, some will not. There is absolutely NO preview of what the channel is that you reading about in the Guide. However, the Guide data is the sharpest, easiest to read of any Guide I have seen. The Mitsubishi was almost unreadable, a very light colored text, with a bad font against low contrast backgrounds. The Sony was in the middle in this area.
In using HD DSS units from Sony, Mitsubishi and Panasonic, it must be noted that the manner that 16:9 TV's and HD output versus NTSC 4:3 are handled vary greatly. For example, on the Sony HD DSS unit, if you setup your system as a 16:9 TV, and you use the 1080i HD output, and you attempt to watch any standard 4:3 program, you WILL have black bars to the sides of the 4:3 image centered in your 16:9 display, (not cool for a Plasma, and many other TV/display devices). The Sony absolutely overrides all controls, you cannot change the display in the above condition. The Mitsubishi offers the greatest flexibility in how to handle a 4:3 image on a 16:9 TV, or conversely, a 16:9 image on a 4:3 TV, however, the Mitsubishi processing of the image results in a decidedly inferior, softer image. The Panasonic has very limited options, (you can stretch a 4:3 horizontally ONLY, no vertical stretch) to fill a 16:9 display, but the processing is the cleanest I have seen.
The Guides vary wildly between these three systems. The Sony has the worst integration of OTA NTSC analog, OTA HDTV and DSS of the lot. It lists the satellite rebroadcast of the local channels at their real local channel numbers, (not the 900 series numbers of the older DirecTV receivers), but then has a SEPARATE section, with the SAME numbers for the local OTA channels. However, if you enter 4 on the Sony remote, for example, it ALWAYS goes to the satellite channel, you have to KNOW that there is another channel 4 to get to the OTA signal and manually navigate to the local channels. In addition, the Sony has NO local data at all in the guide, just channel numbers.
The Mitsubishi and the Panasonic integrate the satellite rebroadcast, and the local OTA NTSC analog and HDTV channels all into a single area. However, you will have multiple channels numbers reused, for example, channel 4 satellite, channel 4 local OTA NTSC analog, and channel 4.1 local OTA HDTV. The Mitsubishi has probably the easiest to use navigation system for adding channels, and setting antenna aim. The Panasonic has the easiest to read Guide, extremely sharp letters on a solid background, but absolutely NO choice in colors, amount of information displayed, number of lines of Guide data, etc. can be controlled. The Mitsubishi lists only part of the description on the main Guide. To see all of the data you have to hit an information button, that MUTES the video and audio and takes you to another screen that you have to exit separately to get back to the Guide.
The Sony has tons of flexibility in colors, and transparency, and has an area in the left hand corner of the Guide where it displays a small view of the current channel in the Guide listing. However, the channel preview goes black for ANY HD channel, local or DSS, so it is limited value in many cases.
The Panasonic has a major problem where it periodically looses all information as to what dish type and satellites it is aimed at, and defaults back to the standard initial turn on of a new unit channels, no other channels can be accessed. You have to enter into the Setup menu, redefine the dish type and satellites and reacquire the Guide, (or power off the unit for at least 30 seconds, power on and wait for the Guide to reload), and then all is well for another couple of days, (of course remember that simply getting the Panasonic INTO menu mode, selecting the correct setup screen, entering the satellite setup and then waiting for the guide to be acquired is NOT a quick option).
In addition, the Sony periodically, (about once ever 60 to 90 seconds), refreshes the Guide (it does NOT download the Guide in advance). As a result as you navigate the Guide, if you take more than a minute or so, the Sony receiver reloads the Guide and TOTALLY blocks the user out until the data is downloaded again, this can take 15 to 30 seconds at minimum, so you are stuck. It can literally take over 10 minutes to simply view all movies coming on in the next 30 minutes, for example, on the Sony receiver.
The GOOD news on the Panasonic is the picture is OUTSTANDING, by far better than either the Sony or Mitsubishi units, much sharper, (less softening), very clear, and once the satellite dish and OTA antenna are positioned, the picture very rarely drops out. In fact I watched a Fox network broadcast on HDTV last night and never had a single occurrence of signal loss, (not withstanding the occasional blackout that the Sony TV has). In addition, the TU-HDS20 will output any signal that any display device will likely ever be able to use, including 720p.
I have contacted Sony about the Sony TV blackout issues to no avail. I have contacted Panasonic about both the noise level of the fan and the incredible slowness of the Guide and Menus. At least Panasonic indicated a software upgrade (directly downloaded into the receiver from the satellite) was in development. No date on availability of the update other than in a month or so, but it is expected to improve navigation and Guide performance, and it MAY reduce the fan speed to help the noise.
I have not seen, nor had an opportunity to try the Toshiba HD DSS receiver, but frankly, dealing with DirecTV to try and change out the four different units tested thus far is NO fun. On one occasion DirecTV told me the access card stayed with me and that I was to move it to a new receiver and then they would reactivate it. On the next change I was told that they NEVER allowed the card to move and that the dealer had to give me a new receiver with a new card. The dealer is reluctant to allow that to happen, since if the unit comes back, they now have an activated card and have to deal with DirecTV to reuse the unit.
Clearly, based on my problems with my Sony TV, you can NOT simply look at the demo units in the store and have a chance of knowing how the thing will work in your home.
In the end, I have kept the Panasonic for the picture quality. I am "hoping" the software upgrade will correct the slowness of the menu system. If the fan noise is not addressed by the software upgrade I will have to try some other options to keep the noise under control. However, the Panasonic flat out has the BEST picture of any of the three brands I tried, and once setup, it has the most stable picture, rarely showing any pixalation or signal loss. If I can only get the Sony interface issue resolved this would be outstanding. As it is, when the Panasonic gets an HD signal it puts out an incredible picture.
Perhaps my experiences can assist others trying to enter this new HD world?
