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Our team of dedicated Free To Air experts are here to help you decide on your next FTA satellite dish receiver. Offering unbiased reviews of the most popular satellite dish receivers such as Coolsat, Viewsat, Pansat, Fortec, Extremeview, Ivision, Neusat, Dreambox and many more we will keep you updated with our latest opinions on receiver testing. Check back often as we review the newest digital satellite dish receiver units emerging on the market today. Gain valuable insight and knowledge when selecting a new free to air unit for your home. From the dish novice to experienced user we have valuable information for you. Check our daily updated FTA newsfeeds and stay current with the latest in the world of free home television. The Viewsat 9000 HD FTA Receiver Once again one of the leading FTA manufacturers stuns the FTA community by releasing yet again another fine free to air receiver unit. With all of the hype and interest in HD High Definition Viewsat has seen the demand from loyal FTA users and has delivered yet again another fine product. Similar in size to other Viewsat units such as the Ultra and Extreme the 9000 HD is a somewhat larger unit with stunning good looks. Noted for its ease of operation we were anxious to see how this unit performed. In a nutshell we found that the 9000 HD is super simple to operate. The biggest thing we noticed was the striking similarity in all operating functions allowing users to upgrade from older units to this one seamlessly and without major headaches. Some of the more prominent features on the 9000 HD are 2 USB ports on the front and back of the unit. One port is allocated for upgrade purposes and the other for hard drive features. With a much larger case and a lighting fast CPU we were extremely impressed with its all around performance. Another noteable feature on the 9000HD is the ability to run dual tuners. With this unit you can run one tuner for satellite signals and the secong one for off air ATSC signals. This feature is a big plus for those living north of the border and wish to gain access to Canadian HD signals. Wile we were impressed by the overall picture quality we were dissapointed in the units inability to tell us what our resolution or input type was. Standard SD quality is average and we hope viewsat addresses this issue in the next version of this receiver. Viewsat 9000 HD Features and Highlights at a Glance: Enable to decode QPSK satellite and ATSC terrestrial transmissions. Mpeg2 and Mpeg4 support. HDTV, SDTV display support. Teletext close caption. Video : HDMI, S-Video, Ypbpr, Composite Audio : AC3, SPDIF (Optical) (Includes Bypass). Aspect ratio adjustment 4:3 (16/9 crop), 4:3 (16/9 letterbox), 16:9 (4/3 pillar box). Output format 1080i, 720P, 576P and 576i. (Europe@50hz) Simple Onscreen Display OSD and operation. Favorite channel selections. S/W upgrade through RS-232 and USB 2.0 ports. Parental Guide and rating control. Picture in Picture support.(Aux input/optional) Electronic Program Guide EPG. DiSEqC 1.0 & or DiSEqC 1.2 2 USB 2.0 ports. Audio quality is average for the basic user but we found that AC3 signals were sub par and no tweaking could be made on the signal. For most users this will be ok but audiophiles will definately be dissapointed by this big oversight on the manufacturers part. For the most part we were pretty happy with the overall performance and features of this unit. Big improvements such as simply picture upconverting, AC3 audio passing (although we had trouble), improved C-Band channel listings, improved 480i standard picture quality and simple remote were huge factors that we liked. Entering the market at roughly $500.00 CDN the Viewsat 9000 HD should be considered by existing Viewsat owners and even those just entering the HD FTA arena. With other similar units in the same price range many of the features and options are near identical in this price range. Definately a unit to check out.