Zinwell HD receiver $249 at DSE - do you think that'll be the best pre xmas price?

Forums › Freeview (DVB-T/DVB-S) › Zinwell HD receiver $249 at DSE - do you think that'll be the best pre xmas price?

RickD

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#27997 13-Nov-2008 19:36

The Zinwell HD receiver (Zinwell branded one not the DSE one) is on sale for $249 this week, do you think that'll be the best pre xmas price? Anyone got any insider knowledge on what stores are having sales?

Want to get a HD box but in no hurry so I might as well wait for the best deal... hate buying something and seeing it $50 cheaper the next week.

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#177870 13-Nov-2008 21:05

WIth the freeview PVR coming out very soon (few weeks) id expect to see all non PVR STB drop in price quite a bit.

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sbiddle

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#177871 13-Nov-2008 21:12

I believe the Zinwell's at DSE are a clearance item. My understanding was they ran out of DSE badged boxes (since DSE were selling so many compared to other retailers) and had to buy in some Zinwell's so they had a Freeview|HD receiver. They then had too many of these and have struggled to sell them since their own boxes are cheaper and have a HDMI cable included.

It's a pretty good deal and I don't think you'll get much cheaper this side of xmas but certainly expect boxes to drop a lot more next year.

cyril7

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#177878 13-Nov-2008 21:30

My comment would be that they are ok boxs, nothing flash nothing really bad. My only concern is that they run a bit warm, that said 12-18months on and I dont see any signs of mass failure due to heat, but best keep them well ventilated. There are recent issues with ARC, but I suspect this is a firmware glitch between these boxs and encoder setup, so nothing permanent.

Prices are dropping and as noted with PVRs just around the corner maybe baseline boxs like this will drop also.

At $250 not a bad present for the inlaws especially if they have a HD display to make the most of it. If you want reliable well priced FTA digital TV its still hard to go past the DTH (Sat) FreeView service, if they have an old sky dish on the house then for just over $130 you can get them a good quality sat box, ala Topfield or Strong.

My 2c

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nemoZ

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#177969 14-Nov-2008 13:01

i see that the Extra terrestrial HD is also now $248.95 at Freeviewshop:
http://www.freeviewshop.co.nz/extra-terrestrial-digital-terrestrial-receiver-freeview-p-497.html

RickD

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#178021 14-Nov-2008 17:08

I'm going to stay away from unapproved boxes, especially after reading people's complaints about the flickering and Freeview
s response. Somebody on dtvforum mentioned the RRP of the Zinwell PVR is going to be $1149, a lot more than I was expecting, so maybe the non-PVR boxes won't drop in price that much when it is released.

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#178029 14-Nov-2008 17:34

Do don't think they will be selling too many at that price.

If it is true it is significantly above the target pricepoint I'd heard.

mentalinc

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#178041 14-Nov-2008 18:22

Thats insaen price point
Box = $399 max for current version
add another $100 for the RETAIL price of a 250GB hard drive
maybe an extra $100 for extra circutry etc.

I calculate that to $599 with generous pricing allowances. Some crazy profit is being made here, you can get a decent HTPC for that sort of mopney with far more capabilities and larger hard drive.

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#178044 14-Nov-2008 18:25

$599 was the target pricepoint.

cyril7

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#178047 14-Nov-2008 18:56

Makes $300 for a DTH microPVR look very attractive.

Cyril

openmedia

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#178057 14-Nov-2008 19:53

Missing the fact that it is dual tuner, and also the first PVR to market.

Closest product in the UK is probably the Foxsat-HDR which is 300 quid

http://www.joinfreesat.co.uk/index.php/digital-boxes/humax-foxsat-hdr

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#178544 18-Nov-2008 11:56

$1149 sounds about right to start with. There would have been a lot up front development costs and then there is the approval cost which is about $10K. You have two choices really, you start out a lower price point which then takes longer to recover the fixed costs or you go expensive and recover your costs sooner. Given that Zinwell are first in the market they are not under any competitive pricing pressure. Wait for the price drop when the second and third products arrive on the market!

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#178556 18-Nov-2008 12:53

RickD: I'm going to stay away from unapproved boxes, especially after reading people's complaints about the flickering and Freeview
s response. Somebody on dtvforum mentioned the RRP of the Zinwell PVR is going to be $1149, a lot more than I was expecting, so maybe the non-PVR boxes won't drop in price that much when it is released.

The big problem with the "approved" boxes is that they only work HD with HDMI and not component which is what allot of people want. I'm one of them..

Regards,

Old3eyes

lchiu7

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#178575 18-Nov-2008 13:45

I must admit, I am quite tempted. As a TCL cable customer I was holding off for the TCL box which would be a PVR also. And currently the only way I can view Freeview HD is to record it using gbpvr and play it back on my Popcorn Hour since I haven't had the chance to install a hardware assisted graphics card in my PC. Recording and watching later means no channel surfing but then again, there is so little HD content out there at the moment that's not a huge issue and the SD content is pretty much replicated on the DVB-S platform for which I do have a receiver.

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Jaxson

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#178584 18-Nov-2008 14:18

Yeah I actually don't think there was much wrong with the Zinwell box to be fair. It just didn't suit my needs at the time given it had limited component output and didn't have a setting to pass the actual broadcast resolution to the TV. You had to set 576, 720 or 1080 as the only output and it scaled everything to this. Yes it ran hot but that didn't seem to effect it too much. If this box is what you're after then $250 is a fair price as it includes the hdmi cable, it just wasn't for me.

Over $1000 for a PVR is really getting up there, lets be honest! I know it's comparible to the original prices of things, but really this just milks anyone who supports it early on. Even skys box is $599 to buy, albeit with ongoing costs to use the service. I'm liking the look of the Hyundai model with one UHF/HD tuner and one Sat tuner, because like lchiu7 says, the vast majority of free to air content in NZ is SD at the mo. But once (?!) prime is on freeview, then yeah the Zinwell PVR should be a good price!

lchiu7

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#178633 18-Nov-2008 18:59

Even if Prime is on Freeview, does anybody know if it will be broadcasting in HD?

Must admit I can't see the big deal about Prime - there is nothing on that channel I watch apart from delayed broadcasts of the rugby but of course, everybody has their own tastes.

More HD content would be good. TV1/TV2 are pretty poor in that respect which is why I am resisting purchasing a DVB-T box, even at $249.

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