I am sure many people are looking for a good HD DIRECTV receiver. I just bought the Samsung SIR-TS160 from BEST BUY. This was probably their last one. I am very pleased with it. It has every type of connection and very easy to use. It worked perfectly with my OTA (I live in Orange County, CA) and I get all the local digital channels. I have a Toshiba 65HX81 TV. TV picture looks great and so far I am very happy with it.

I used to have a Toshiba DST3000 receiver. Now, this was a nightmare receiver. It always had problems. I had to change the unit 3 times and in the end, Good Guys store just gave me credit for it since they stoped carrying the unit. Each unit had a problem with the OTA picture. While the signal was at 100%, the pictures kept freezing.

My friend has the Hughs HD reciever, and he is very happy with it. However it does not have DVI output. By the way, Hughs made the hardware for DST3000.

Anyway, I think the Samsung receiver is the best one I have ever experienced, and I highly recommend it. Plus, it is only $599.

thats the problem, "only" $599! When are these units going to come down in price so we can all afford them?

You might want to do some searching on the HDTV forums about the Samsung 160. I went through two of them before I said "enough"...

I purchased my SIR-TS160 from Frys in Fountain Valley in early Jan. Aside from rebooting once, it has been flawless. I live in Trabuco Canyon/Portola Hills in south Orange County. I receive most of the San Diego digital stations. I am still working on LA. I get KCBS, but I need some time to play with the antennas. The box will hold a picture even at signal strength 20.

I too read all 360 pages of the "problems" thread on the 160 at the avs forum. Of course, it was after I bought it.....

BUT, I read all three months (at the time) worth of posts-and you could see the problems getting fixed (and people discovering what they had set up incorrectly) over time. Some people are still having some IMO small problems which other people don't have and can't duplicate.

Other than lockups (2 in the first two weeks) which I traced (rightly or wrongly) to leaving the tuner on an OTA station and corrected by trying to put it on CNN every night. NO problems in the past 8 weeks.

All of the latest generation of these things are complex-they output nine different ways, format your screen, combine three different inputs (SAT, OTA, CABLE), they generate a ton of heat and they have to conform to a spec as directed by DirecTV.

I've played with and built PCs since 1991 and can say that anything doing what these things do, if it said
"Windows" on the side, everyone would they are working incredibly well. But this is CE and everything is supposed to work perfectly w/o even reading the manual.

Everyone has some carp about their choice-note the threads on the Sony/Zenith, etc. they'll get just a s big as the samsung after they have been out as long. The Samsung, because of the features, price and timing (first new gen you could buy) sold a TON for something as esoteric as as an STB-so there are more potential complaints-AND it probably wasn't ready for primetime before the December fixes came out.

I like mine, hate the silver color and wished the remote worked better (very weak/directional IR). But overall, I'm extremely pleased.

$.02 from Florida.

Robert

I was one of the first to have problems with the 160, (my posts are one of the first in the three month tread at AVS)I agree that most of the problems have been fixed,but there should not have been so many in a released unit! When my unit(s) worked, they were nice, but I have two home theater setups, and I insist that they work everytime I want to use them, nothing more - nothing less.

"I leave my unit on CNN at night so it doesn't lock up"...excuse me, I don't think so!

I am currently looking to buy a HD/DirecTV receiver. I tried very hard to get the Samsung 160 at BB ,but they were out. I wondered if they all were out was there something wrong with this unit. Since then I have tried to read as much as possible and make a good choice. I was looking at the Sony HD200 ,Zenith HDSAT520 and the Samsung160. SAmsung160 is now available at etronics.com ,but some of these posts are making me gun-shy.

Hows that firewire output working for yall?

Jim - I can tell you that I bought my TS 160 in mid January, about a month ago.It had just arrived at BB from the factory the same day i got it.

It's been flawless. I'm not craxy about the silver color , and the remote is somewhat weak, but in functionality, it's been great. No problems whatsoever.