Samsung SIR-T451 HDTV Receiver

The Samsung SIR-T451 is a high definition terrestrial tuner for receiving over the air HDTV broadcasts and viewing them on a TV which doesn't have a built-in ATSC tuner.

The Samsung SIR-T451 tunes and decodes all 18 ATSC Table 3 broadcast formats. Supported output formats are 1080i, 720p, 480i and 480pand connection options are DVI, component, composite video and audio, digital coaxial audio and optical audio. The DVI output is HDCP compatible.

Hook up the Samsung SIR-T451 to an HDTV antenna and plug one of the audio connectors into your home theatre amplifier and receiver, and the tuner will immediately and automatically seek and tune itself to the available terrestrial TV broadcasts.

For less than the price of five months of cable HDTV, this Samsung HDTV tuner gives you access to a wide range of HDTV channels, many of them, depending on the area where you live, which aren't available on cable.

Reviews from customers on Amazon are almost universally positive with owners citing ease of set-up, auto tuning, and the wide range of available channels as some of the best features.

Note that this HDTV tuner requires an antenna which isn't included in the box. If you don't have an external antenna, you may need to fit one or buy an internal antenna such as the Zenith ZHDTV1.

Terrestrial HDTV tuners and receivers allow you to view free-to-air HDTV broadcasts. One of the advantages of this method of watching HDTV this way (apart from not having to pay a monthly subscription) is that you have access to local HDTV channels that are often not carried by other means, even by local cable operators. Unless you really want all the channels offered by your local cable or satellite operator, terrestrial HDTV is an excellent and very cost-effective way to get HDTV.