Grandtec Tun-5000 Airvision Atsc Dtv/Hdtv Receiver Tuner | 
 enlarge | Brand: GrandTec
Category: CE
List Price: $249.99
Buy New: $146.50
You Save: $103.49 (41%)
New (13) from $146.50
Avg. Customer Rating:  7 reviews
Media: Electronics
Autographed: No
Memorabilia: No
Shipping Weight (lbs): 3.9
Dimensions (in): 11.5 x 7.6 x 3.1
Legal Disclaimer: Warranty does not cover misuse of product.
MPN: TUN-5000
Model: TUN-5000
UPC: 768267091581
EAN: 0768267091581
ASIN: B000HZJRSY
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Features:
| • | Auxilary Input For Factory Radios That Have Cd Changer &/Or Xm Controls | | • | Tunes & Decodes All 18 Approved Atsc Digital Television Formats (Sdtv & Hdtv) | | • | 480I, 480P, 720P & 1080I Selectable Outputs To Match Television'S Optimum Viewing Capability | | • | Output Can Be Configured For Either Widescreen 16:9 Or Standard 4:3 Televisions, Choosing From Letterbox, Zoom & Full-Screen Outputs | | • | Easy-To-Use Electronic Program Guide Displays Tv Programming Information |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
GRANDTEC TUN-5000 Airvision ATSC DTV/HDTV Receiver Tuner Receives HDTV and SDTV terrestrial broadcasts and displays them on the legacy TVs or HDTV; Tunes and decodes all 18 approved ATSC digital television formats (SDTV and HDTV); 480i, 480p, 720p and 1080i selectable outputs to match televisions optimum viewing capability; Output can be configured for either widescreen 16:9 or standard 4:3 televisions, choosing from letterbox, zoom and full-screen outputs; Easy-to-use electronic program guide displays TV programming information; Full V-Chip parental controls; 1 component and 1 composite output Airvision ATSC DTV/HDTV Receiver Tuner
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| Customer Reviews: Read 2 more reviews...
Grandtec Tun-5000 September 30, 2008
Ordered this to use with an older tube HDTV without a tuner. Installation was easy but getting it to work was hard. The manual is worthless(written in Chinese and translated through two or three languages). For instance: the manual said that when functioning, the red LED would turn green: it turned orange. There was no explanation of the variou buttons on the remote. I got it to work by randomly pressing buttons: one called R seemed to do the trick but you had to press and wait 5 seconds each time. Now, it works great but needs a better manual.
Better than most on the market September 19, 2008
The Grandtec Tun-5000 Receiver Tuner is a very good product that gets very good reception. The unit offers many features that are not offered with most tuners.
The unit has button controls on the unit itself as well as on the remote. This seems like a standard feature, yet other products may not offer this feature.
Every so often, the unit may not get a signal and may need to be reset by unplugging and replugging the power cord. The initial setup will need to be performed again (editing and selecting favorite channels and so forth).
 Good features, manual needs help, has reliability problems March 7, 2008
NOTE: See update at the end of this review for reliability problems that started about a week after installation.
This set-top box enables your old analog standard definition (SD) TV to receive digital broadcasts if it has a "composite video" input connector. If your TV only has an RF input, then you will also need a video-to-RF converter.
The Grandtec also has "component video" connectors with high definition (HD) capability for people whose TVs support that capability.
Although it receives both HD and SD digital broadcasts, unless you have an HD television, HD broadcasts will only display in SD mode.
It comes with its own indoor antenna, but you can connect your old indoor or outdoor TV antenna to it instead if you prefer. The better the antenna, the more stations you should be able to receive.
On first running the setup process, my unit seemed to find a few of the available stations, and then I kept getting "no signal" messages on every station. After that it couldn't find any stations at all. It was this way with both my old antenna and the antenna that came with the box. I tried setting Defaults to Yes in the Tools menu and re-running the auto-scan, and after that it found all the stations I would expect.
On the aspect ratio button, the unit defaults to Auto, which adjusts the shape of the picture to avoid having faces look stetched or squashed. There are a few stations where I have to set it manually to get the picture to fill the screen in at least one direction.
One nice feature is that you can either adjust the length of time the menus stay on the screen, or you can turn off the time-out entirely so that the menu stays up until you push the button again or press exit. (See OSD Settings in the Tools menu.)
On the Edit menu, the Signal Power readout would be useful for determining if your antenna is aimed in the optimal direction, except that it works in a quirky way. As signal strength is reduced, the signal power drops by ten percentage points or so, and then goes suddenly to zero. The Signal Quality readout seems to be more useful for antenna aiming. The minimum signal quality that allows reception seems to be about 15%.
The manual does not do a lot of explaining. One place where this caused a problem was in running manual scans. This is something you may need to do if you have a directional antenna that you can rotate and there are some stations that are in a different direction from the others. You would first run auto-scan with the antenna pointed at the main group, and then you would point your antenna at the other stations and do individual manual scans for any that were too weak to be picked up with the antenna pointed in the other direction. The user's manual doesn't explain any of this, but what's worse, it doesn't tell you that you have to enter the actual physical channel numbers that the digital channels are on rather than the virtual channel numbers that are normally displayed on the screen. So for example, if Channel 2 in your area has three digital channels associated with it, they would be identified on your screen something like 2-1, 2-2, and 2-3, but if you do a manual scan on channel 2, it won't find any of them. What you have to do is go online and look up the physical channel number for Channel 2's digital broadcasts and enter that. Then it will find them, assuming the signal quality is adequate.
For those who are wondering, one place to look up the physical channel numbers is on the National Association of Broadcasters' (NAB) "Antennaweb" site. They don't allow URLs in reviews, so you will have to search for it. Once you have found it, click on "Choose an Antenna," enter your zip code, and continue through the menus until you get a list of stations available in your area. The physical channel numbers are in the right hand column, labeled "Frequency Assignment." (You can leave the name and address fields blank if you want.)
One feature I would have liked to have seen is a timer that would allow me to program the unit to tune different channels on different days and times. There are a lot of legacy VCRs, DVD recorders, and DVRs out there, so I would think there would be some demand for that feature.
On the other hand, whether this unit is less expensive than buying a digital-capable recording device is not something I've researched.
This unit is also considerably more expensive than the Zenith set-top box, and I don't know whether its features justify the price difference, as I have not seen the Zenith yet.
UPDATE: About a week after installing the unit, it developed reliability problems. Using a fairly directional antenna aimed in the proper direction, some of the stations started dropping out every few seconds, even though the signal strength and signal quality readings appeared to be more than adequate. (Using the antenna that came with the unit produces the same result.) Plugging the same antenna cable into an analog TV shows good signal strength and quality from the problem stations. Turning off the power with the unit tuned to one of these stations results in its not turning off completely - instead the station it is tuned to pops back up on the screen from time to time. A couple of times the unit got into a state where it could not be turned on with either the remote control or the power button on the unit. Unplugging the power momentarily cleared that problem.
 99.99% perfect. March 3, 2008
I bought this unit to test HDTV in car. With a little experiment with various antennas. This unit works like a champ. Don't expect the unit to work while driving (It's not the unit fault, it the ATSC system. Our system were not design to work in a moving environment, not like DVB in other country). I'm very impress with this little unit.
Good Quality, Some Quirks November 27, 2007
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
Excellent quality, supports 4:3 and 16:9. Setup was very easy. Small size is great, fits anywhere. Program guide is ok, but I don't really use it. Includes HD antenna which works well (for an indoor antenna). Occasionally changes channels to a sub-channel on it's own. The device has locked up a few times, but unplugging it from the wall seems to reset it. I tried to email the manufacturer's customer service about the problems, but after several weeks I have received no response. Over all it was a good purchase, the price it still a bit steep though.
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