Well I was in best buy and had two choices an insignia and the Apex. The salesman said that only the Apex had analog pass through, though it appears that may have been false, so I grabbed the Apex. I admit that this is one of the first times I did not do much research on my purchase ahead of time, even though it was my excuse to my wife for putting this off as long as I did.

Our current setup uses a roof top antenna. We got all of analog broadcast stations, CW, CBS, NBC, ABC, My Network, PBS, Fox and Ion. Not bad and the reception was fairly decent, occasionally fuzzy (but I think that may have been one of my coaxial cables fault). I am not aware what kind of roof top antenna is, it came with the home.

So to the Apex. Set up, a piece of cake once I decided how to reconnect all of my devices. I chose a four piece switch for my DVD, The Box, Our VCR, and my Nintendo 64 (Old School). I'm using the S video for the box and I am quite pleased with the picture.

Programming was a piece of cake The scan took around five minutes. It pulled in all channels, except for our ABC and initially, it showed our NBC, but no picture, signal too weak. An amplifier changed that, still no ABC signal but our affiliate states they are transmitting "Low Power" and they say a very good chance we will receive the station once they go full power on the 17th.

Pros: Easy set up, high quality picture, in my experience pulled in the "important" channels to us. Programming guide a plus, I'm fine with it's limited span, I mean we didn't have it before!

Cons: the Remote is a joke as people will say across the internet. It can be very unresponsive, occasionally an apparent single keystroke will cause two channels to move. Occasionally pressing one button will change the channel when it is really supposed to bring up the signal or menu. The remote can not turn off the TV, but can control volume if you find the right balance with your TV remote. Another major con is a lack of channel controls on the box.

Can't set channels manually is probably the biggest problem with this box.

So my overall experience with this is positive so far. I am considering getting a second box (not an Apex), to connect to our VCR so we can continue to record from there, not that we every really do that, but may give me the opportunity to try a different box and possibly swap them out. I would downgrade to the yellow video cable in exchange for a better remote and maybe a better channel guide.

I hope this helps. My only real complaints about my digital reception so far is some channels have a barely noticeable digital "seam" to the picture. This is mostly on multicast stations. Not sure if this is a converter box issues, TV issue, connections/cables, or reception.

Cheers and a stress free transition to you all. I'll take a little bit of stress and some one time costs to upgrade my equipment (even after the coupons I've invest $93 in cables, the switch, amp, and final cost of the box), instead of giving a cable company my money every month.

Cheers.