Just picked up a MagicTV 3600 this afternoon as my wife is getting sicked of me keep telling her we should wait "just a few more days" for some reviews.


So here's my quick little report/review of this machine after using it for a few hours..


My first impression..  the unit's design looks very nice. Definitely one of the best looking and high quality freeview device i've seen.  It definitely looks a lot better than the DSE/Zinwell FreeviewHD decoder that i've been using since last year.

Installation is quick and easy. And only takes a few steps and less than 5 mins.

Remote doesn't look fancy or anything special. But the button layouts is quite good. It also has backlight
and i believe it can learn your TV remote as well but i haven't try that yet.
It feels good when you hold it and doesn't feel cheap.

The user interface is very nice. The MagicTV comes with a reasonably good user manual but i find that i don't even need to read the user manual as the user interface design is very good. The front LCD panel is quite informative and one nice touch is that it also shows you the current option you are selecting when you are browsing thru the user menus. The user interface response is very fast as well (10 times faster than my zinwell).
EPG works (as expected) and recording a program (or a series) is very easy. If a program is splitted into two halves (like there is a news in the middle of the movie), it automatically record the whole program for you when you record the first half. Setup delay/extend start/end time is very easy as well.
Overall, the unit is defintiely very wife friendly.

now.. everything seems as good as or even exceed my expectation. Unfortunately after using it for about 2 hours, i suddenly can't get any live picture :/ The unit seems to be working perfectly fine (user menu...etc all working normally) but i just can't get any live TV picture. Restarting the unit a few times (including unplug and resetup the unit) doesn't seem to help. I checked the antenna connection which seems to be fine. Then i find that i can check the RF signal strength from one of the setup menu.. and it says the signal strength is onmly 25-27% and signal quality is around 60%.  So maybe i just got a temporary weak signal? i waited for another hour and still can't get any picture. Ocassionally i can see part of picture and some sound but i just can't get any good signal at all. It seems quite strange as i never have any problem with signal with the zinwell decoder. So i quickly reconnect my zinwell and guess what? i got perfect picture/sound from the zinwell. Switch back to MagicTV and no picture again...



[update] the problem appears to come from the antenna cable. One of the connector is a bit loose. I got perfect TV reception now!