I too was faced with the decision of a HD-HTL or a Sammy 360. I struggled for days with the choice. I read all of the info on
www.avsforum.com about both units. both units had their fans and both units had their faults. I only was expecting to use my unit for the NFL ticket, since I have E* for my regular programing. I would have purchased the New RCA unit, but I did not want to pay $370 plus shipping for a unit that I would only use during football season.
Anyway, after all the research I did, I chose the Sammy b/c of the extra inputs on the back, the fact that I could change formats from the remote, (have to do this on the box itself for the HD-HTL), Since I use a receiver, I did not want to deal with the constant audio drop out that have become prevelant with the HTL.
I have had the unit for 2 weeks. The PQ for the HD channels is very good, but on my 55" Mitsu, the SD picture looks worst than my E* 508 or 811. In fact, when placed in PIP with my 811, the HD PQ is softer on the 360. The colors are not as rich and deep as they are on my 811. (my Mitsu is ISF Calibrated for the best PQ available out of the set) I used all 3 type os inputs, DVI, Component, and S-video. DVI is definitely the best of the 3. The sammy does not allow you to output both DVI and component at the same time. You need to select your input to either component or RGB/DVI.
I do like the various resolutions it give you, 1080i, 1080i/720p/480P, 480i, Native 1, and Native 2- Selecting one of these resolutions tells your receiver which resolution level you want all the time. For instance, if you select 1080i, your receiver will upconvert anything that is not in 1080i, if you select one of the native modes, for instance Native 2, the receiver will play 1080i, upconvert 720p to 1080i and pass 480i or p as 480p. (I find this to be the best one since my tv cannot accept 720p signals) 480i can only be used with an S-Video cable
As for the guide speed, I find the scrolling speed to be fine, what I do find slow is the channel changing. You enter your channel and it takes several seconds to change. Furthermore, you can not enter an off air channel #, for instance 005.1 (my local NBC)
Aside of that, I do not like the way the sammy handles aspect ratios. if you have a 16:9 tv and the station is playing a show in 4:3, your choices are 16:9 full (stretched), 16:9 Zoom 1 (very bad PQ), 16:9 zoom 2 (better than zoom 1), 16:9 Panaramic, (haven't played with it much) and the one which puts the gray or black boxes up around a 4:3 picture. It could be the way these ratios work that truely makes the SD picture very grainy in my opinion.
Other than that, I have not had any problems with the sammy 360, but I really wish I had some other units I could test and compare with it right next to each other.
So bottom line, if you are looking for strictly HD viewing, the sammy is fine, but if you are going to be using it for SD on a big screen CRT, may not be the best option.
