Avertv Hybrid Volar Max Tv Tuner Kit for Windows MTVHVMXSK Review

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(More customer reviews)
I've been using Media Center on a WinXP tower since 2004. My HP unit came with a built in tuner which could only receive analog channels and the 2004 version of MC that came with it only supported standard def TV. As the years passed, I was eagerly anticipating for a release of Media center that supported HD programming. Once that happened on Windows 7 (and perhaps Vista), I needed to find a tuner card that would work with it.
Over the years I would check release info on new products and read about one sad experience after another regarding the failure of available HD tuner cards on the market and issues regarding firmware, drivers, configuration settings, etc.
Knowing that most new technology needs a few years to get the bugs out, I didn't buy and waited. The last few months had me itching to try and finally set up a HTPC (Home Theater PC) system. When it comes to video quality, my assumption was that I'd get better performance from a PCI internal tuner card in a tower. Thing is, I don't have a new Windows tower but I do have an inexpensive netbook running Windows 7 Home Premium. As there's no way to install an internal tuner card I'm limited to using an external USB tuner. After reading the reviews on Amazon, I decided the Volar Max was my best bet (and at $55 I figured I could only go so wrong).
I remember going through error and configuration issues with Vista and XP in the past, the idea that this little flashdrive-sized gizmo was going to allow me to tune in analog channels, digital channels as well as actual hi res HD seemed suspect at the very least. I was dreading the thought of experiencing the usual whole night investment of getting a new peripheral up and running on Windows only to have it not work well.
I plugged the Avertv in the USB slot and it found & installed its driver automatically and quickly. It then gave me the option of installing it's own tuner/viewer software. I declined in favor of Media Center.
Now I can't say how this thing works with any other OS's but, with Windows 7 Home Premium, the Avertv Volar Max blew my mind. My laptop is connected to an LCDTV- I fired up Media Center, which found the Avertv right away. I selected it, went through the channel scan (like any tv) and was watching great quality analog & digital HD tv within minutes. It WORKED! And not only that, it worked without my having to do any manual installations or configurations. Windows media center rocks (and IMHO blows away Apple in this particular area). The picture and sound seems as good as any HDTV tuner I've seen built into HD televisions. I hooked up my HP Media Center IR remote and can now flip through channels, set DVR recordings, play music, etc. from my couch.
Maybe this shows my age, but I thought any kind of decent resolution tuner hardware needed to be relatively big in size. That this tiny unit does so much, so well and so easily is immensely impressive.
The age of HTPC's is definitely here.

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Avertv Hybrid Volar Max Review

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(More customer reviews)I researched TV tuners by Avermedia, Hauppauge, and Pinnacle before choosing this product. The reviews narrowed the choice to the first two. Although hardware is a disposable commodity in today's marketplace, potentially superior service implied by personal e-mail responses to my questions by Avermedia's Product Manager sealed the deal. It is a great little gadget that I was easily able to set up for both our PC running Windows XP Pro SP3 connected to the cable; and for our laptop running Windows Vista Home Premium using the included antenna [a high gain antenna is included, but not listed as a part of package contents!]. The tuner is able to auto scan and pick up all analog and digital TV and radio channels available; although many digital TV and radio channels are locked by the cable company and hence cannot be accessed. Both the TV and radio programs can be recorded on the hard drive. An inexpensive solution to add a TV, radio, recorder - both for the home and for travel.

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ePVision PHD-205LE HDTV Tuner ATSC / QAM (HD) / NTSC (Pass-through Only) Tuner Receiver Box Review

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(More customer reviews)I purchased this ePVision PHD-205LE HDTV Tuner ATSC / QAM (HD) / NTSC (Pass-through Only) Tuner Receiver Box directly from the company which designed it, ePBoard. It arrived four days after I placed the order (California to New Jersey; see the first comment to this review).
I have a home theater in which I sometimes wish to watch television. My AV receiver, a Yamaha RX-Z9 - AV receiver - 7.1 channel, is able to output an HD image (made in 2004, it scales up to 1080i) and my PT-AE4000U LCD XGA 16:9 1600 Lumens HDmi Svid 16.1LBS Hdtv is able to project it.
This tuner is an excellent complement to my system.
It is very well-designed and operates practically intuitively. It is very sensitive and, as long as your antenna is properly installed and aimed, it will receive every HD Over-thr-Air broadcast available to you. The majority of the TV signals available to me have their transmitters located about forty miles or so from my house. To find what is available to you at your location, see the second comment.
It will allow an analog TV broadcast to "pass through" it should such broadcasts be available at your location. In addition it will accept a QAM (clear - not encrypted) cable connection.
The picture quality it produces on HD Over-the-Air broadcasts is nothing short of amazing. And its sound quality, both Dolby 5.1 and "standard," via its TOSlink (optical) audio connection is first-rate. I also tried, just as an experiment, its standard analog audio connection, The sound produced is equally fine though not, of course, "surround."
I do have three VERY small "nits" to pick. First, as some others have commented, its remote control is not the best; it must be aimed precisely and once in a while you must press a button more than once (especially, I have found, when changing channels).
Second, I think that there should be two input connections, one for an antenna and one for cable/satellite; if a user were to wish to use one or the other, he/she must physically disconnect one cable (F-connector) and physically connect the other one. I would also wish that a front-panel switch were incorporated to effect changing the source. (For us this is not a problem as we do not have cable/satellite television, but it might be a concern to some others.)
And finally, I wish that this unit had a coaxial audio connection in addition to the optical one. This is my biggest complaint. Frankly, I detest the TOSlink connection as it does not have a robust positive connection. The coaxial audio connector on this type of cable, which is able to carry the same audio information as the optical one, does indeed produce a good connection, just like any other RCA-type. (Today I have ordered this Cables to Go 40019 Optical to Coaxial Digital Audio Converter which should solve my "problem." I'll report, in an update to this review, my experiences with it.)
But all of these "nits" are VERY minor in a unit as well-designed as this one.
I believe that any purchaser will be very pleased with this unit - as I am.
I'm glad I bought it - I would buy it again! - and I give it my highest recommendation.
==================================================================================================================================
Update: January 14, 2010
Here is a suggestion which may be of interest to some people. DROP your expensive cable/satellite subscription. Buy this unit and buy a Roku XDS Streaming Player 1080p. Then, if you don't already have one, establish a Netflix subscription (streaming-only, the least costly option, will do; so will the one-disc-at-a-time option, which is also very low in cost) as well as an Amazon Prime account (which allows free streaming of movies in addition to the free two-day shipping which has always been a part of Amazon Prime).
You will be able to watch just about any movie you might want to see and you'll still be able to watch network television transmitted over-the-air. Netflix's monthly charge is but a fraction of cable/satellite charges and Amazon's Prime charge is even lower than Netflix's.
You'll also be able, with the Roku unit (buy only the XDS model I recommend as the lesser models omit some useful features), to also view many free public-domain movies and TV shows. Plus you can also listen to thousands of free Internet Radio stations.
What will you miss? Cable channels, of course, and this COULD be a deal-breaker for some people, but you'll ALSO miss those ridiculously high monthly bills (will you really miss paying them?). You'll still be able to see local sports, news, and so forth. Don't forget that with the new digital broadcasting system, many channels now have two or more subchannels with completely different (and often very interesting) programs - all at no charge.
Plus, when you watch HDTV via this ePVision PHD-205LE HDTV Tuner ATSC / QAM (HD) / NTSC (Pass-through Only) Tuner Receiver Box you'll REALLY be seeing the full 1080i broadcast (if your local station actually transmits it - and more and more are doing so) rather than the SO-CALLED "HD" video, the highly compressed video actually supplied by most cable/satellite companies (and the difference in a side-by-side comparison is quite noticeable).
It's something to think about ...
==================================================================================================================================
Update: January 17, 2010
I should mention that even 480i images, which are generally seen on the subchannels (for example, Channel 12.2 or 12.3), look VERY good via this tuner. A nice touch is that you can see the actual type of image (and the type of sound) being supplied by any individual broadcast station.
When this tuner is used with my PT-AE4000U LCD XGA 16:9 1600 Lumens HDmi Svid 16.1LBS Hdtv projector (I recommend that anyone interested read my review of it), the combination makes for absolutely fantastic images, far better than anything I have seen on either LCD and Plasma flat-screen televisions.
==================================================================================================================================
Update: January 24, 2010
I received the Cables to Go 40019 Optical to Coaxial Digital Audio Converter the other day and I immediately inserted it into my system. It works perfectly. The Dolby surround sound is exactly the same whether I use the TOSlink cable alone or I use this converter to supply the sound to my receiver through a coaxial cable. As the only digital audio output from this ePVision PHD-205LE HDTV Tuner ATSC / QAM (HD) / NTSC (Pass-through Only) Tuner Receiver Box (Amazon itself should really sell this!) is an optical one (and, as I mentioned, I do not like TOSlink connections), if you want a coaxial (RCA-type plug) connection to your receiver, as I do, you need an optical to coaxial converter. This very inexpensive one fills the bill perfectly and I highly recommend it.
==================================================================================================================================
Update: February 8, 2010
Last night, at the urging of my son, I watched the Super Bowl for about three minutes just to see what a totally uncompressed 1080i HD live feed looked like. (My son had told me that he had seen an article stating this was the first time this has been done, at least for the Super Bowl, though I do not know if regular television shows or local news broadcasts are compressed in any way: they don't look as though they are.)
(Why only three minutes? I am not a sports fan and I have absolutely no interest in the Super Bowl! After assessing the picture quality, my wife and I "reverted" to a 480p image and watched the DVD of "It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World.")
Obviously, if one were watching this broadcast via a cable or satellite hookup, the video would of necessity be compressed. And even fairly uncritical viewer can easily see this compression. Using this unit with a good antenna I was able to see how uncompressed video appears - while knowing for a fact that it WAS uncompressed.
Let me tell you - it looked VERY good! As a matter of fact, I have NEVER seen a television image look AS good. My home theater screen is 108" in diagonal (16:9 ratio) and the projected picture was quite amazing. (The sound, Dolby Digital, was also amazing.)
This is just another reason to buy this tuner. Even if you have cable in your home theater, if something like the Super Bowl is being broadcast on a local channel and you wish to view it with the best possible picture quality, the only way to do that currently is to obtain your television signal over-the-air with an antenna. As this tuner produces the very best picture (and sound) I have ever seen - period - you could temporarily disconnect your cable and connect an antenna to this tuner. (As this tuner passes unencrypted QAM cable signals, you can always leave it connected to your system; all you'd need to do is to swap...Read more›

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USB ATSC/QAM Digital Cable HDTV Tuner For Laptop and Desktop/Digital Video Recorder Review

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(More customer reviews)USB ATSC/QAM Digital Cable HDTV Tuner For Laptop and Desktop/Digital Video Recorder
Good idea with this product, decent design, the software is really slow and could use some work (computer is brand new and does everything else very fast) the remote that came with it does not work at all, but you can use the on-screen buttons just as easily. The antenna that comes with it seems to work ok but i tried a larger self powered antenna on it and all i got was static on every tv station, havent tried the cable settings yet, the FM radio works, just be sure you close the program out completely before unplugging this unit from the USB port, or it will cause ur system to crash about 1/4 of the time and freeze up the other 3/4 of the time.. all in all, i will continue to use it until it no longer works but i wont buy another one or recomend it to friends

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Pinnacle Systems 8230-10023-51 PCTV HD Card - PCI Review

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(More customer reviews)I got this item off of Woot a few weeks ago, and it's been sitting in the box/clear plastic casing until today. So far (after 3 hours or so), it looks good. The card initially did not like scanning for over-the-air channels without an external antenna, but when I ran out to Best Buy to get one, it was appeased. I've since disconnected the antenna and returned it to Best Buy, and everything seems to be OK. I guess it just wanted an antenna to be present at the get-go, and then it doesn't bother checking again? Maybe I just did a mis-configuration during the initial install; I can't blame the manual on this one, as it was (shockingly enough) well-written and easy to understand. One thing I noted is that scanning for channels is definitely worth the wait for the Best Quality mode. It takes *forever* (especially scanning for over-the-air HD), but you will only get the channels that look good (no fuzzies, for example). If you don't care much, then Quick and Normal are both fast, but Quick obviously won't search as "hard" as the Best Quality and Normal modes will.
The software that comes with the card is OK. It's a bit confusing at first, but a little bit of looking around and playing with it has sufficed for me to learn it. I have managed to get some strange errors when trying to set Favorite Channels; I think a developer somewhere needs to check his code. I had to uninstall/reinstall to fix it (hence the 4-star rating). Recording is good (I've not seen the lack of sound/picture mentioned in a previous review), but it is highly system-dependent. I believe the minimum requirements for HD recording/viewing are a gig of RAM and 2.8 GHz on the processor; I meet the RAM requirements but only have a 2.4 GHz proc, but it still works fine.
The remote is sound...after you connect the receiver to the card. Don't do what I did and expect the remote to work right out of the box (well, after you put in the batteries); it won't do anything, and you might think it's broken. Once the sensor is installed, though, it works great. Being able to channel-surf from the comfort of my computer chair is hard to beat ;)
It's also got a built-in radio tuner for both Internet radio and radio-radio. I know that this isn't a hard thing to do, but it's nice. Sometimes you just want to listen to the radio instead of watch TV, especially when that game you want to follow isn't televised and you have to listen to it over the radio instead. It's a nice touch on the part of Pinnacle.
Overall, I'd recommend this card. I've used products from Pinnacle before and found them wanting, but they seem to have gotten this one right. Not a bad buy!

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Diamond TV Wonder HD 750 Review

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(More customer reviews)I have spent about a month evaluating the ATI TV Wonder HD 750, and I have to recommend that you do not buy it. It is not ready for prime time.
The device, first, consistently fails to be recognized at system start-up. I mean it does not even appear in the device manager. You have to yank it out of its USB port and plug it back in, each and every time you start your computer up. The boy at tech support with whom I spoke about this issue with the first of these I received was clueless as to the cause. He told me it must be defective device. Well, the second one Amazon sent me behaved in exactly the same way, so this is not a unit defect, but a design defect. This device is simply not compliant with the plug and play specification under Windows XP SP 3. I have to wonder how many times I can yank this out of the USB port to reinsert it before the port will begin to break down.
Then, even when the device is recognized under Windows, it completely fails to work with the Windows Media Center, which will not recognize it as a device designed to work in the United States. Nothing you do with the Windows Media Center will thereafter enable this device to be used there, even though Windows Media Center is supposed to be able to work with a TV tuner plugged into the system.
Now, on to the software they send with this device, ArcSoft Total Media 3.5.
This software is, in a word, garbage. It is the most inanely written piece of code I have ever encountered.
First, when initiated, it completely locks up your system, such that you cannot do anything in any other window when it is loading, which takes the better part of a minute or more.
The software always opens full screen, even if not desired. You cannot get it to open a nice, civilized window. It also always starts not with a TV screen, but with a menu of services, most of which you will never use. There is no way to set program run parameters to bypass any of this to go straight to your TV, even though that's what you want to do 99.9% of the time. (After all, if you had a TV on the wall, that's what you'd be doing, right?) So, each time you want to watch TV, you have to go through a series of steps to get to the right place in the software, to maximize the actual TV image within the software, and to size the software's window to your preferred size and location on your screen. You have to do this each and every time you watch TV. The software remembers almost nothing.
The little remote that comes with the device does not communicate effectively with the tuner half the time. It won't communicate with it at all if the software is not the active window on the desktop. Instead, whatever you put into the remote will start appearing in whatever application is the active window, including your browser. Try that with a TV remote!
The software's means of scanning and enrolling channels is extremely slow and cumbersome. When it finally stops, the channels found are not in numeric order, but are all jumbled up, so you have to go through a long process of reordering them manually, moving them up and down as ArcSoft requires of you. (Who would write software that doesn't automatically sort the scan results by channel number? Who would write software that doesn't at least have a "sort" function?)
Then you have go back and delete, one by one, all the foreign language channels, the home shopping channels, and the religious channels.
Then you realize that the scanner missed one or two of your favorite channels, so you think you'll reorient the antenna, and just manually add it.
WRONG! There is no manual adding of channels. The only way to try to add the channel(s) missed is to run through the entire scanning process all over again, which produces an unsorted channel listing, and adds back in all the channels you spent minutes deleting.
Who writes software which does not permit the manual addition of missed channels? These people at ArcSoft are complete amateurs. And remember that this is version 3.5. They've had more than enough time to get things right.
Also, when running, TotalMedia 3.5 takes up a huge amount of system resources, even with a fast CPU and 4 Gb of RAM. At least 160Mb RAM, and it will not run properly unless I go into Task Manager and increase its CPU priority to at least "Above Average."
This product and the software bundled with it are most definitely not ready for the market. I only bought it because I didn't want to have to spend the money on a TV to have in my office, which would take up more power and produce more heat, but given the piss-poor performance of the ATI TV Wonder HD 750 and ArcSoft Total Media 3.5, I may well return it and do just that.


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Pinnacle PCTV HD USB 2.0 Stick 23049 Review

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(More customer reviews)I have a pc with Win7 attached to a large screen TV. This device was easy to attach and set up. I have it connected to an outside antenna for input. The problem is that it's unreliable. I have it set up to record several shows regularly. Sometimes it works fine. Sometimes it records, but there's a problem - you can view the show, but can't fast forward or move backward. Occasionally, it doesn't record at all. I have no idea why, since the setup is exactly the same. If you have cable or a different version of Windows, it might work better or worse, but this has been my experience.

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AVerTV MTVEXMINI Express mini (Retail) Review

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(More customer reviews)So, I'm not sure what the other guy is talking about since I've had quite the opposite experience with this. You probably need to clean all that malware off your computer, or better yet, it's time to re-install Windows.
It was kind of a blind buy for me as I wanted something that looked integrated into the laptop. Fortunately, as long as your ExpressCard slot is the standard 75mm in length, it sits flush along the side of your laptop. I have it on my HP dv3t, but it sticks out 6mm since the Expresscard slot on the dv3t is 6mm short of the full 75mm standard length. Tried it with my old dv2000 and my friend's Dell and it really does sit flush.
Now, I refuse to use any third party program other than Media Center, simply because I'd rather not install any third party apps, and after trying Media Center for Windows 7, I can say that it's gonna be one heck of an act trying to write a program that'll out do it. Therefore, I only installed the drivers for the AverTV Express Mini, which went very smoothly. I loaded up Media Center, both in Vista 64-bit and Windows 7 RC 64-bit, and it recognized and configured it with very little interaction on my part. Best part is that it works with Windows 7 since that version of Media Center supports sub-channels whereas Vista Media Center does not. Media Center also recognized the radio reception with this thing.
With Live TV, over the air reception really depends on your location and you'll need to do some adjusting with the antenna. That, or you need to get an amplified antenna that'd boost the signal. I'm able to receive most, but not all channels. For the ones that I do receive, picture quality is AMAZING, especially with a 1080 signal. The best part is that my laptop has full functionality of a set top DVR!
There are other functions such as video input that this thing provides as well as connecting it to your cable box for unencrypted ClearQAM signals that I haven't tried personally simply because I don't have the need nor the resources to test it.
The only downside to this is that it gets HOT over time. That seems to be common among all TV tuners I've noticed. I've had the thing run for a few hours without issues. If you're experiencing video issues, it's most likely because you need better reception.
I have to say, this thing delivers! I'm very happy with it.

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Avertvhd VOLAR(A868R) Atsc USB Review

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(More customer reviews)I am using A868R on my Notebook (Intel Due Core 1.83Ghz, 2 GB Ram, and a Geforce Go 7400)
Pro:
-excellent for viewing HDTV or DTV!
-Even with the tiny antenna(come with the box), the reception is good!
-Easy to install!
-easy to carry!
-NO external power is needed (powered from USB)
Con:
- AverTV is a Super unstable software (high computer resources usage) lead to overheat!
- Don't know why cannot connect to high gain antenna for better reception.
Reminders:
-Before purchase check your TV Signal in your area to see what stations are available in your location (check with http://www.tvfool.com/)
-Personally recommend to use other software other than the Aver TV (I use KMplayer instead) to reduce computer usage.
-You may compare this product with Aver other product (AverTV Hybird Volar MAX H826) I purchased H826 after purchased of this one. H826 supports clear Qam (DTV on cable)and ATSC (DTV on air), analog signal in cable, analog signal on air. It can also captures video from your other device (TV game sets like Xbox, PS3, Wii)But more expensive.

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HP KS523AA USB TV Tuner Review

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(More customer reviews)This tuner has proven its value for me as a college student. The tuner allows you to connect a coaxial cable directly from the jack (supplied in most college dorms) to the tuner, allowing you to transform your laptop into a tv. Making this a good solution for not owning a tv. This was easy to install. Using the antenna (not cable) the tuner was able to recieve 9 local channels including abc, nbc, cbs, and fox. It is also useful for recording shows directly to the computers hard drive. I have also used it to connect my xbox 360 to the laptop(through s-video). Through quickplay the graphics weren't amazing, but lag was bearable (as long as the playback feature was disabled)...Definitely worth considering if you have access to cable, but no tv.

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Digital Atsc Tv Box Dvi Digital Tv Tuner Box HDtv Review

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(More customer reviews)First, some disclaimers. I am not a professional tester for gadgets. I can only relate my personal experience using this product. As such, I have not tried or tested all options or connections.
I have used the tuner for over one month just to be sure of its quality and reliability and it does not disappoint. In fact it delivers better performance than expected. The picture quality is awesome when connected to my 4:3 ratio 19" lcd monitor with 0.28 mm dotch pitch, DVI input and built in speakers. And this is not even the latest tech lcd but one when 12 ms response was state of the art. The necessary cables come with the package so it is a very simple hook up. The QAM reception is even better than my latest lcd tv, a 47" Vizio. This tuner will not receive analog signal which is still transmitted via cable. When changing channels either with the remote or the tuner buttons, an OSD will show the signal strength momentarily, something even my Vizio TV cannot do. The green bars from 1 to 10 appear on the lower right corner. The tuner is capable of more cable channel reception than my Vizio (full reception will come on when the bars are 5 or more). There is a choice of 1280 x 1080 or 1024 x 720 display selection using the remote so it works well with either the aforementioned 4:3 lcd or my other wide screen lcd. The volume control with the remote is very handy since adjusting volume on the lcd involves tedious operation of the lcd buttons otherwise. There is even a mute button on the remote in addition to the station number, menu, PC/tuner switches, etc.
Here is what I have not tested or used: the PC pass through, the over the air 'terrestial' input and the additional component output. This is because I have purchased this tuner solely for cable reception to be used with my left over lcd monitors, such that I don't have to turn on my PC or laptop just because I want to watch TV unlike those other USB tuners. I have looked around online and in stores for a while to find what I really want and what Kworld can and has delivered.

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Mygica USB QAM HDTV Tuner, Clear QAM and ATSC with Bonus Antenna Review

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(More customer reviews)I am using this on Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit.
You may hit one website where this is documented and where you can download the latest drivers, meritline...Here are some helpful hints and what I was able to get to work and what you may not want to try because it doesn't work. The only reason I am giving this one less star is because I had to compile information from everywhere and the remote is useless i.e. they should just send this product without remote, it doesn't work, DOA, bad design, well known problem. Of course don't expect tech support, well written manuals. If I am rating this as a novice user, I would give it 3 stars.
Connected the tuner to my usb port, driver failed to install. As suggested, do not use the enclosed DVD for anything except the Remote IR driver. If you can't find it, wait till you install the new Win7 driver from meritline. Do not use the driver from the DVD else it will default to antenna, no cable, and therefore no QAM.
Note, if you mess up, you will have to go into settings (tasks) in media center to further configure TV. Regardless, Media center will complain that signal or something could not determine (don't remember the exact message). Ignore it and choose configure manually; cable or antenna manually (in my case, comcast so I chose Cable). Wait a long time, could be 2-20 minutes while it scans the channels. If you find no channels, you may have a driver issue or bad cable.
You can install the drivers manually or extract the zipped file from meritline and run setup (32 or 64 bit depending on your os). In my case, the driver release date is 11/17/2009, version 11.20220.176.201. In device manager you should see HDTV Stick Digital Capture under Sould controllers. If any of this doesn't match your conviguration, deinstall all drivers associated with this and start over (maybe use the system restore so create a restore point as an option before you continue for the first time).
Just use the right driver and the rest is a breeze; expect 10-20 min the first time you scan. I am in Chicago and getting about 50 channels. Unfortunately, Comcast here just went encrypted so for all practical purposes, I am only getting OTA channels but they come in Dolby and clear with no stutter. As I said before the IR and remote are useless so time to get another remote or use the wireless mouse. I needed cheap to test, my next one will be a cablecard setup so to me this was money well spent.
I also tried to use the NTSC driver to see if I could setup ch. 3 or 4 and use the comcast box (which works on my ntsc tv and I get all channels because it's a digital set top box). For some reason, I couldn't get it to work. I have always wondered so now I know it's a no go unless I write the driver myself, ain't happening.
I also played with the ATSC driver for OTA digital channels. The included antenna is a joke. I tried the outdoor antenna and the picture was decent and I could get all local ota channels.
Summary, only good for the tuner, the rest is frivolous. For $25, why not. I'll wait for Ceton to come down a bit.


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Sabrent TV-USBHD Dual ATSC & Digital HDTV and Analog TV Tuner / Video Capture USB 2.0 Pendrive with Remote Control and Antenna Vista Ready Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)This worked for me quite well, and I'm glad I chose this tuner. The picture and sound, especially with HD, are perfect. You have to have good reception though. I hooked mine up to an old, outdoor analogue antenna and got fairly good results. Better reception than on my analogue TV with converter box. I then tried the included antenna outside, stuck to the side of my house. I get all 14 of my local channels and the reception on digital channels is great. Of course, analogue will be useless in a few months. I strongly recommend a good, outdoor digital antenna with this. Without good reception, you'll have a host of problems, including video and audio getting out of sync (which can be corrected by reloading the channel) and poor picture/sound quality, etc.. It's fairly resource intensive on HD channels, and multitasking can sometimes be a problem, albeit very little. This is the cheapest, and I think, the best way to get HDTV, though, because of the DVR functions and the convenience of it.
The included software (Blaze HDTV Player 3.5) is adequate, and has some nice features, but is rather buggy and leaves a lot to be desired. There are other software solutions, like the great freeware The KMPlayer and Cyberlink Powercinema (not worth your trouble). VLC also supports ATSC in a new, beta version. None of which, of course, will work with the remote. After trying about four other programs, I'm back to Blaze though. It's actually pretty good, comparatively. Its included Electronic Program Guide is a bit of a joke, and necessary to schedule recordings, but there's a good, online guide at[...]. And, so far, I haven't been able to get Blaze to work on multiple monitors.
To summarize, I highly recommend it *if* you can get good reception. I recommend "Antennas Direct DB2 Multi Directional HDTV Antenna," if the included antenna doesn't work for you. Digital reception should get better in June though, when stations make the full conversion to DTV.
[update] My Sierra 881 aircard causes this tuner to not work. I can go from having all channels, to only a few, when the aircard is inserted in the expresscard slot, suggesting that the wireless signal interferes with the TV signal.

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MyGica USB TV Tuner and FM Radio Stick with Schedule TV recording with Remote - Turns your PC into a multimedia Global TV (PAL, NTSC, SECAM) With Bonus Antenna Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)I prefere to use the TV input thru channel 3 and knowing I was sending a perfect picture the device gives the worst possible grainy picture. The only way to get a fair picture is by using composite video (red, yellow, white) and even then it is not perfect. S-Video is also grainy and not as good as composite video. It runs very hot so i use the extention to keep it away from my pc. the radio works fine if your in a good reception area. Just so everyone knows where I was getting my signal, I was getting it thru my satellite receiver.

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Sabrent TV-USBST Mini Stick USB 2.0 TV Tuner Video Capture with Remote Control Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)I tried this product on a lark. I thought that for 39.95 it wouldn't be a big risk. It worked fair for about two weeks and quit working. The remote only worked for about a day. I thought perhaps the battery was bad but hadn't yet gotten around to changing it until the whole unit died. The main unit itself gets super hot when plugged in and is perhaps the reason this unit failed. I couldn't recommend this product to anyone.

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HVR850 USB2 Tv Stick Tuner Review

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(More customer reviews)I bought this solely based on the fact that it is meant to be compatible with Windows Media Center 7. It IS compatible and works quite well, however it has the following faults:
- There is a very thin line at the top of the screen that looks like the encoded audio stream that is interfering with the video. You sometimes saw this line in VHS tapes that were not "tracked" correctly. This line does not appear if you use the Hauppauge provided TV software, only in WMC. I have not been able to find a way to eliminate this line.
- Changing channels is quite slow. It could take 3-4 seconds to change channel. Perhaps this is true for all PC TV tuners, I wouldn't know, but I find it fairly annoying.
Another point, which is mentioned fairly clearly in the feature list on the Hauppauge website, is that this tuner WILL NOT GIVE YOU CLEARQAM. This means you CANNOT view digital cable using this tuner, so no HD cable. It will only pick up analog cable. This tuner will also pick up ATSC, which is digital over-the-air signal using the provided small antenna. You can also plug in your own antenna if you wish. The provided antenna is not really powerful enough to pick up weaker signals, for me it could only really pick up the CBS HD signal.
That said, this is a good product that for the most part does what it says on the box and does it well. I get a decent picture from analog cable and a very nice picture from the ATSC antenna (when it picks something up). I don't regret buying it, but I was willing to pay a little extra to get a brand name product and am not sure whether it fully delivers. I would like Hauppauge to address the above mentioned WMC issues, especially since they make a big deal of advertising that this tuner is WMC7-compatible.

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