For a few weeks now I've had my last $40 coupon sitting in an envelope on a table and I've had no idea what to buy with it until I saw two of these boxes sitting on a shelf in our local Rite Aid Drug Store. I came back with the coupon and bought one, thinking that the price would be about $50 and it wouldn't cost me much. As it turned out, the box cost $69.99 and I had to shell out over $30 for it. Was it worth it? Keep reading.

Let's state right now that this is one of the FEW set-top-boxes that has analog pass-through. Turn your television to channel 3 or 4 and watch SDTV. Turn the box off and watch regular analog television. I did not notice any attenuation of analog signals as they passed through the box. I had the same weak WCBS on ch2 that I had with without the box. That's the good news.

Now let's look at this box from a DXing view. We need a signal strength meter. This box has one. Press the Guide button (or press the up or down direction button or the center OK button) twice and you'll see it. It stays on the screen for 30 seconds before it disappears. It consists of seven vertical bars that turn green as the signal increases. This meter will show you signals too weak to decode. A minimum of five green bars are needed for a picture to decode.

One press of the guide button displays the station's call letters and a mini-description of program info. Two presses of any of the buttons I've mentioned above will also show you the signal meter, resolution (720p or 1080p), a more in depth description of program content, program rating and channel block.

Most of this information (one press and two presses) takes up most of the lower third of the screen and is semi transparant. If the calls are up against a white background, they will be hard to see. If they are up against a dark or background, they'll show up fine.

When a station initially decodes you will see the station's call letters on the upper left side of the screen in addition to the calls being on the lower left side of the screen. In this part of the screen you will also see a Channel Not Available or a No Picture message. On the upper right side of the screen is the date and time.

This is the first box I've seen that displays a message when you turn it on. This box displays the following message: "DTV Tuner Boot UP....loading...."

The Memorex Box has direct entry of RF channels. Punch in "39" in the remote and 39 will show in a little box in the lower left corner of the black screen. The message reads: "Tune to: 39." After a couple of seconds it disappears. Press the guide button twice to see the signal meter. If a station is there you'll notice green bars appearing and disappearing on the meter. In theory when you get five green bars, the station will decode. In actuality, that doesn't always happen. Sometimes you will get five bars but still have a black screen, but with the message "Channel Not Found". Or sometimes you'll see "No Picture" instead. Or sometimes the box will freeze with five green bars and you'll need to turn off the box and turn it back on (reboot). Occasionally the box will not decode video but it will decode the call letters and the program info. Once I tried to watch Ch29 in Worcester, MA. The meter showed five or six green bars but the picture would not decode. There were no error messages, just five green bars and a black screen. I unplugged the Memorex box and hooked up the Insignia NS DX-A1 and watched ch29 perfectly. This situation has happened more than once to me.

The remote itself is a little flaky. Sometimes a light press is all you need but sometimes you almost need to hit the thing with a hammer to make it work.

This is a decent box for TV watching, but when you get down to the weak signal stations and DTV DXing, it has enough problems that I would not recommend it for DXing purposes. Use the Zenith/Insignia boxes for DXing instead