Insignia NS-DXA1

Large Areial with tower 

ground level

55927 

$60+ tax - $40 coupon = $25.00 

This was souper easy to connect, just switch the cax from the TV in to the back of the box, then the box back to the TV. Onscreen menus led ou through the rest of the setup. It even has a guide (like satelite systems) for easy chanel surfing. I actually get more chanels now then I did with just the antenna.

RCA DTA 800B

Collapsible Gray-Hovermane (own design) 

ground level

55008 

$50 w/o coupon. 

This model is not on your converter list, please add it. I had to choose another model number to be able to add this review. Available from Targets. Spotted on shelves by white and light-blue box. Converter has chrome-color front and black housing. It only says, "Digital-to-Analog Converter Box" on the label, you have to hunt to find out it is made by RCA. Same price as the RCA-DTA8008B1 from Walmarts, but has better features (minus a few that aren't as important). Sound quality, very good. Built-in volume/mute controls. Limited set-up options but very easy to add and remove any channels from the channel list. No full-listing of stations and programming guide, only shows you what's on now, and next on the station you are watching. No need to go into a menu to see a signal strength meter (as in the Walmart RCA one). Meter overlaid on the program you are watching. Can reach aspect ratio changes by menu only, there's an interesting "Auto" function for aspect ratios but it's hit and miss if it works or not. It seems to only trigger at the beginning of a show or on the hour, or something. Overall, if you want one of the better bargain-basement converters this one will serve you well. Target offers another model made by GE for $10 more (the "Smart Digital Converter Box, red/white box, strange wavy case design), which might be worth the extra money, due to having much more features.

RCA DTA800B1

Collapsible Gray-Hoverman (own design) 

ground level

55008 

$50 

Rudimentary converter box sold at Walmart. (Spotted on shelves by the black RCA box with blue info panels.) Had to pay-full price due to coupons expiring before they had any in the stores here. Fuller TV station listing program-guide than another I tried, but just "Now Playing" and "Next". Sound quality is very very bad (low volume with rumble & hiss), tried 2 different ones, same thing with sound quality problem. Limited remote functions, have to go into menus to constantly change aspect ratio or other features. No built-in volume control nor mute but it does allow you to program its volume button to control your TV's volume (if compatible with available codes stored internally). No easy way to edit the channel list, must use the add-channels scan to see if it can automatically find new ones. Can't remove channels unless you scan again without antenna attached, removing all. But it does allow you to easily lock out channels from the programming guide, they won't show up when using the UP/DOWN channel selector. One plus, nice customizable closed-captioning features, fonts, colors, transparencies, etc. But the rest of the features don't make it worth it, especially the rumble and hiss sound. Also, it misses syncing with the sound on some channels when going down in channel numbers. The only way to regain sound is by incrementing upward in channel number again. I also recall video and sound-track being out of sync quite a few times, by as much as 1/2 second or more. (Might be more of a problem with the broadcast than the converter, but it's something to watch for with digital video sources and poorly implemented video-codecs.)

GE 23333

Collapsible Gray-Hoverman (own design) 

ground level

55008 

$60 w/o coupon 

Fairly complete set of must-have features. Good sound quality. Advanced "smart antenna" setup-options. Can add and remove channels manually, but I can't seem to get it to latch onto them while in the menu itself. You have to know they exist before entering the right channel number, it seems. Can configure some extra "smart-antenna" options for channels, like direction, polarity, and gain. VERY nice programming guide, shows 7 days worth, but it seems most stations are only transmitting the present day and a truncated list of the next day. Problem, fonts are very small and might be difficult to read on a less than stellar older TV. No way to change the display font for the programming guide. 2 styles of programming-guide, one simple guide that overlays your show, another dedicated guide with the full 7-day listing. Decent remote features, the most useful being the "zoom" button that allows you to select the aspect display ratio on-the-fly without having to enter a menu. Makes it easy to set up recording a show without going into a menu too late and having to clip out part of the show and sound from your recording. Built-in volume and mute controls. Station-overlaid signal strength and quality meter. Extensive close-captioning and teletype(?) (CC & TT) customizing features (colors font-size, foreground/background colors, transparencies). With the quick access to important features on the remote and the extended programming-guide, this is the best of the bargain-bunch that I've found in the limited selection that were in stores where I live. Keep in mind that all menu, guide, and setup fonts are rather tiny, even the on-screen station indicator is difficult to read on an older TV set. If you can deal with that, the rest of the features are worth it.

Insignia NS-DXA1

Rabbit ears 

ground level

55105 

$40 coupon plus 

Insignia has terrible sound quality.