@ncguy68 wrote:
I have decided to remove the built in antenna input and will buy a digital tuner to connect to an HDMI port. These tuners are cheap and they have a normal remote control with direct channel access. I will use a universal remote to control the tuner and TV.
I'm anticipating doing that too. I like the idea of the universal remote to control both TV & external antenna-to-HDMI tuner. I saw this post yesterday, describing how to program a universal remote to use Roku features. (Another post in that thread emphasizes how the universal remote's numeric keypad won't give access to channels. Roku's software doesn't recognize those keys. Thus, one of a few reasons to use an external tuner as an HDMI input.).
What I dread is delving into each one's user-interface/menu/features. To me, that's the important part. You could make your own digital tuner and output to an HDMI connector. The interface to use it is the part that takes some thought about what would be intutitive, ease-of-use.
I had a Zenith (DTT900) & DigitalStream (DTX9950) analog-to-digital tuner (back when the DTV cutover happened, and we got "vouchers" to buy converters.). Those had very nice user interfaces (intuitive, ease-of-use features) -- especially for being made for a captive audience & a gravy-train of government subsidy. I didn't appreciate the way those were made until I owned a Roku TV. (Just to clarify for others: Those devices won't work for this intended purpose. Those converted digital signals for old analog tvs. We need the same receiver that outputs digital out an HDMI port. Hopefully with the same, considerate user interface.).
I remember one of them was slightly better. I forget which. One of them, you could press "4" and it would go to that channel after waiting a couple seconds for an additional ".1" or ".2". You didn't have to press enter. It would just "do the right thing." It would go, letting you easily get close to where you'd like to be. If there was no signal, it said so. You could up/down arrow to where you wanted to be. If it was a hidden channel, it you could pull up the menu to unhide it (without having to circumnavigate 4-5 menus, leaving the channel you so easily accessed). You could scan for new channels without losing your existing previously-discovered set of channels, already hid/faved. It just updated your existing set with what was newly discovered (previously-discovered channels with no signal were removed. New channels added in. Anything that didn't change was left alone. You could do a full scan too, replacing everything, starting over.).
I think it speaks volumes about Roku that they don't care about elegance like this. It shows in so many ways (the lack of beta testing; the lack of response from "the appropriate teams" after customers caring enough to provide feedback is "passed along." Making an already clunky interface more unfriendly by removing Favorites, or making the channel-change remote button a single-operation instead of continuous. Years of ignoring customers asking for numeric keypad remotes. Everything sends the same msg to customers.).
Anyway, I'd love to see detailed reviews of those external tuners (their features). I'm worried they might be clunky like Roku's. I wish I could find something like those Zenith or DigitalStream boxes (with similar consideration put into the functionality, ease of use, elegance). They're so cheap, maybe I'll buy a couple and review their elegance factor.
"People are often amazed at how much we’ve done with the number of engineers we’ve got." (Roku CEO Anthony Wood, Austin Statesman, Oct 4, 2019). "Amazed" is one way of putting it.
