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Television Media Hardware

ATI TV Wonder USB 2.0 Reviewed 193

Posted by michael from the boob-tube dept.
An anonymous reader writes "ViperLair reviews the ATI TV Wonder USB 2.0, a sort of low-rent option for those you want to add a TV tuner or video-in to their machines, but would prefer an outboard piece of equipment instead of cracking open their case and dropping in a daughter board."
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ATI TV Wonder USB 2.0 Reviewed More

ATI TV Wonder USB 2.0 Reviewed

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  • The problem with external TV tuners... (Score:5, Informative)

    by francismacomber ( 315308 ) on Sunday September 05, 2004 @05:14AM (#10161444) Homepage
    My roommates constantly want to borrow it. I was so much happier with my BT878 internal card.

    Sometimes portability isn't such a good thing.

    • Re:The problem with external TV tuners... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by boaworm ( 180781 ) <boaworm@gmail.com> on Sunday September 05, 2004 @05:19AM (#10161459) Homepage Journal
      Agreed. I mean.. look at this quote:

      prefer an outboard piece of equipment instead of cracking open their case and dropping in a daughter board.

      Ok, exactly _how_ hard is it to open your case. Compared to all the trouble involved in getting new devices to work, setup programs etc. A really bad argument. I guess there might be a percentage or two of the population that cannot, and have noone to help them "cracking open their case...", but are those people likely to buy a TV-tuner anyway ? I have a BT878, just as the parent, and it works great.

      • Re:The problem with external TV tuners... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Hank Chinaski ( 257573 ) on Sunday September 05, 2004 @05:24AM (#10161475) Homepage
        Well, you forget all the notebook users. They just "crack open their case" when it falls from the starbucks cafe table on the marble floor.

        So for them external tv is nice of course.
        • Ok, i didn't mention laptop owners, because i dont think there are that many laptop owners that plugs their TV tuner in when they are at starbucks anyway...
          But sure, there are probably a couple of people who'd like to watch tv on their laptops, point taken.
        • Especially the ones without a television, like me. I don't own a TV and don't want one, but there are times (e.g. winter Olympics, hockey playoffs, major events like crucial elections) when I would like to be able to watch a broadcast on my only home computer - my notebook. If the event lasts long enough, I might even consider paying for cable for a couple of months.

          Thank you, ATI - I think I'll be getting one of these babies before too long.

      • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

        by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Sunday September 05, 2004 @05:32AM (#10161488)
        Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • A percentage or two?! There are LOADS more

          I think you missed the "AND" in my statement. AND means that you have two statemens, and that that both should be fulfilled. In my case, I said that i think there are few people who cannot do this, and have noone around doing it for them (friend, gf/bf, parent, child, neighbour etc).

          Sure there are people going to "CompUSA" and pays for it, but i'd say they are around a percent or two of all total PC owners. Dont you ?
        • So they THINK it's hard, but that doesn't actually make it complicated. I though building a computer would be hard, but I didn't have any trouble.
        • It is a horrible process... it kills your uptime!
        • Most people think that the inside of a computer case is horribly complicated. The first thing and the second thing they say when you upgrade a computer is "Is that all?". The first is when you open the case and they see that big empty space. The second time is when you install the card.

          Note that I have just recently bought an internal card, and wish I hadn't for the following reasons:
          - the coax cable connector does not fit really well in the slots for the PCI cards.
          - with my (Hauppauge WinTV) card came an
        • "Most people think it's some horrible complicated process that they need to pay the people at CompUSA $50 to do."

          If you buy it there, you don't have to pay them anything to install it - they will do so for free.

          I can't find anything on the website that specifically outlines the free installation guidelines, but trust me, they will install most stuff purchased there for no charge in store. I know because I work there.

          Yes.. i know.. shut up, it pays the bills.

      • Re:The problem with external TV tuners... (Score:5, Informative)

        by Curtman ( 556920 ) on Sunday September 05, 2004 @05:38AM (#10161494)
        I'm curious about the picture quality of this thing. I own a Hauppauge WinTV, and two ATI All In Wonder cards, and I have to say the AIW cards blow the Hauppauge out of the water when it comes to picture quality. The Hauppauge has a pretty grainy picture, and when CPU usage is high, it drops frames big time.

        Of course being a Linux user, my primary concern is driver support. On that front, the Hauppauge wins easily. The driver is part of the standard Linux kernel, and capture support is fantastic. In order to watch TV on the All In Wonder I have to compile my X server with Gatos [sf.net] which takes about 3 hours to do, and there is sometimes quite a bit of lag between a XFree/Xorg release, and support from Gatos. I've never been able to capture video with it, but I'm not really interested in doing that, so I'll blame myself for that. Others seem to be doing it just fine. There is some pretty exciting talk about merging Gatos into Xorg on the mailing list, and I'm hoping all goes well with that effort.

        I'll admit to not having read TFA, but I searched it for Linux, and didn't find it mentioned. Anyone have one of these things, and is it useable?

        • Re:The problem with external TV tuners... (Score:5, Informative)

          by PhotoGuy ( 189467 ) on Sunday September 05, 2004 @07:18AM (#10161666) Homepage
          There are differences between Hauppage cards, too. The PVR-250/350 line have hardware encoding, very high quality. There are two different versions of their USB product, one spits out direct MPEG, and I suspect is better than the one that doesn't (I had the latter, and it was disappointing.)

          After being a MythTV user for a year or so, I'm amazed this type of thing isn't pretty much ubiquitous among Linux geeks such as muchself.


          • A problem with Hauppauge is product confusion. The model number PVR-250 is just a trick number. The real number is 975 or some 3-digit number beginning with 9, and the PVR-250 [hauppauge.com] datasheet doesn't say anything about the real number. A 975 PVR-250 costs maybe $70, and a 980 PVR-250 costs perhaps $120, and there are other numbers, too, apparently.

            One of the nastiest aspects of working in technical fields is bored marketing people who don't want to learn about their own products, and don't want to burden thei
            • THere is some product confusion... but it's not too hard to decypher (but one could argue that if it exists at all, then the marketing isn't so hot)

              THere's the PVR250 retail, that comes with a remote and shiny box and is around 120 beans. It also has 1/8" stereo jacks for audio input.

              The PVR250 MCE has RCA input jacks for audio and no remote since it's presumed that it'll be used in a MCE "class" machine with a separate remote. There are OEM and "retail" flavors.

              There's also the blackbird/rosyln oem on
        • Hi self. :)

          Word just came in on the Gatos mailing list that Vladimir has been given CVS write access to Xorg! This should mean that some day soon, we should see TV tuner and capture support for ATI All In Wonder cards being part of the standard Xorg distribution. Congratulations to everyone working on the project.

      • Re:The problem with external TV tuners... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Tlosk ( 761023 ) on Sunday September 05, 2004 @06:42AM (#10161616)
        I have a couple of machines, and while opening up the case and installing a PCI card is rather trivial, I don't want to buy cards for every single machine, nor do I want to open two cases and switch a card everytime I want to do some video work on a different machine than where the card currently is.

        The one machine household is becoming a rarity these days.

      • Re:The problem with external TV tuners... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by LiquidCoooled ( 634315 ) on Sunday September 05, 2004 @06:42AM (#10161618) Homepage Journal
        I saw something quite remarkable the other day.

        A set of jump leads for a car.
        Nothing special there you might think, but these were jump leads from cig lighter to cig lighter.
        The claimed benefits included not having to get under the hood, and not getting dirty.

        Thinking outside the box is not always a bad idea, I can think of many many people who wouldn't know what the battery in their car even looked like. Sure this isn't for everyone, and purists would shudder at the thought, but its a product that has a market.

        With usb2, and firewire as standards for moving video data around, why should we worry about having to risk damaging the computer by opening it up?

        One other aspect to it, how can I crack open my computer and put in a tv card if I bought a tiny silent desktop, or a laptop computer that has no room for expansion?

        Using usb/firewire is much more expansive and practical than your closed view.
        I'm pleased your internal card works and your happy with it, but just because your happy/comfortable/able to install the card internally doesn't mean everyone else is.
        • Yeah, but those cigarette lighter jump leads aren't all that good. The starter motor of a car takes the largest current of all components within the vehicle, so much so that the usual path of cable in a car goes:

          Battery -> Starter motor & solenoid -> everything else.
          The cigarette lighters take very, very little current in comparison (you can power one from your PC's power pack! [frozencpu.com] ) and the circuitry leading to them is normally only of the guage required.

          It is therefore very easy to burn out a
          • They are for charging up a flat battery. Plug the leads in, start the car that *will* start, let it run at a fast idle for five minutes and you should have enough in the other battery to start the car.

            You'll probably find that the fag lighter socket is disconnected, along with all the other accessories, when you turn the ignition key.
          • That's because when you jump start a car, you're actually charging the flat battery enough for it to be able to start the car. You're not trying to start the car from the other battery.

            How much current do you think the croc clips on your standard jump leads are capable of? Certainly not the 300A or so that the starter motor needs.

            I'd guess that there's not much difference in the current capacity of the croc clips as compared to the cig lighter.
        • Why even have jum leads from car to car? They sell battery chargers you can just plug into the lighter and start the car. Much better if it's raining, or whatnot.

      • Ok, exactly _how_ hard is it to open your case.

        Okay, exactly how hard is it to write a stable driver for an internal PCI card -vs- how hard is it to write a stable driver for an external USB device?

        Or: How many times have you gotten a BSOD from an internal PCI card -vs- how many times have you gotten a BSOD from an external USB device?

        And if you don't get BSODs because you use Linux, then: How easy is it to port a driver for an internal PCI card -vs- how easy is it to port a driver for an external US

      • Ok, exactly _how_ hard is it to open your case.


        What if you're trying to add the functionality to a laptop, or more usefully, an iMac [apple.com]?

        Those nifty new widescreen iMacs don't come with video tuners, nor can you install a card in them, from what I can tell.

      • I would think most Slashdotters would have multiple PCs, and being able to move the device from box to box is why I love mine. laptops, desktops, work PCs, etc.
      • Don't forget that many people are tech-paranoid; the sight of a capacitor is enough to induce fainting spells. I've known a good many computer-literate persons who were still unwilling to install RAM without me being there. They're (along with laptop users) the target market for these plug-in-and-go devices.

  • So hard... (Score:1, Troll)

    by Justin205 ( 662116 )
    And putting in a PCI or AGP card is really so hard...

    I've been doing that sort of stuff since I was 9 or 10... It's really not terribly difficult, especially if it gives you simple directions (and all the needed screws - I hate it when I run out of screws).

    The only reason I see for USB TV tuners is for laptops or other machines without the ability to add something internally.

    • Re:So hard... (Score:3, Informative)

      by jellomizer ( 103300 ) *
      Well you are ass u meing that everyone has a good old PC box that that has pleanty of free spots to put cards in, and that you will only be using that box as your primary PC. These are the issues where it can be hard impossible, or unethical.
      1. Laptops: Yea thats right most laptops dont have much room to add stuff mabey 1 or 2 PMICA Slots which can be easily filled with a wireless card.
      2. Small form factor PC: Those small PCs that dont have free Slots to pug in.
      3. Your PC Is full: Some people just have all

  • USB 2 can give good video (Score:5, Insightful)

    by SalsaDot ( 772010 ) on Sunday September 05, 2004 @05:29AM (#10161484) Homepage
    I've got an AverMedia USB 2 external tv tuner. Its nicely made and does deliver good video over USB2 HOWEVER I'm disappointed with the fact that:
    - it uses the PC sound card for the audio
    meaning more cables, a little clipping as
    my laptop only has a mic level input and less
    than perfect sync. All that USB2 bandwidth and
    they dont use it for the audio???
    - All the PVR software I've tried (apart than
    the buggy software that comes with it) is unable
    to control the tuner, though if the card is
    alredy set to a channel it feeds the other PVRs
    OK.

    I wanted to setup a TV server for a short while. I ended up connecting the AverMedia to a VCR to guarantee the channel would not lost when the PC rebooted (VERY likely with Windows Media Encoder :)
    • I had an internal avermedia card (which worked okay under linux) but it was an utter whore under windows. Caused alot of instability and the software was shit. Moral of the story: never buy Avermedia.
      • i agree completely, I have an AverMedia card in my machine but have not installed the drivers for it since my last re-format, the damned thing had bad windows drivers (crossbar driver would fail to install properly)
    • You don't even need USB2. I have a Hauppauge WinTV PVR USB, the one that does MPEG encoding, and use it on an old machine that only has USB1.1. I can watch live TV with Sage at up to the 2GB/hr setting with no problems at all, generally I use a 480x480 1.5GB/hr mode that I made and it's just fine, using about 15% of a Celeron 2.4GHz. It's really amazing how little horsepower you need for a PVR box if you have hardware encoding.

  • Mac/Linux? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Trurl's Machine ( 651488 ) on Sunday September 05, 2004 @05:32AM (#10161489) Journal
    I don't want to troll with obligatory "will it work with Linux" or "imagine a Bewulf cluster of these", I'm sincerely interested. As a long-time iMac/iBook user, I always in theory enjoyed the idea that I don't need to open the case of my machine just to get something done, but I was always frustrated that my only way to capture TV on my computer was a quite cumbersome setup involving a DV camera with video input. I was always interested in a device like this, but of course the PCI solutions were not for me, and USB 1.1 was just too slow for anything serious. Should this thingy be anyhow supported by MacOS X with USB 2.0, I'd purchase one right away. Hints, anyone?

    • Re:Mac/Linux? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Mr.G5 ( 722745 ) on Sunday September 05, 2004 @05:54AM (#10161524)
      You sould look at the Elgato EyeTV [elgato.com], it has a FireWire interface and a hardware-based MPEG2 encoder so it doesn't bog down your processor. The best thing is that the software is written exclusively for the Mac so it doesn't have that ported-at-the-last-second feel to it.
      • Lessee...
        1. Elgato is over twice the price of the ATI solution
        2. You can record in mpeg2, which means that you can't edit in any of the "big" Mac apps (iMovie, iDVD, etc) unless you convert the video to quicktime , DV, or some other compatible format (only to then have to convert back to mpeg for the actual DVD burning)
        3. There's no way for me to use this on a PC with firewire apparently, so I need something else if I want to make this portable between machines

        In short, it's as annoying of a solution for us

      • Additionally, it also has that wonderful exclusive Mac user price tag of USD$269.00 [elgato.com].

  • Drivers (Score:5, Insightful)

    by robpoe ( 578975 ) on Sunday September 05, 2004 @05:39AM (#10161496)
    So, the review shows screen shots. I think there should be a sentence at the end of EVERY review for us Linux users -

    "This device DOES/DOES NOT have drivers for Linux available/in the package/on the website".

    That way - we dont have to hunt it down, and we know right away which companies to support.

  • closed captioning support (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jaxdahl ( 227487 ) on Sunday September 05, 2004 @05:42AM (#10161504)
    Will it record closed captions and play them back when video is played back? Are other tv tuner hardware & software combos able to do this? This is why I still have a tv and vcr .. what about dvd recorders? Will these record captions too or not?
    • Will it record closed captions and play them back when video is played back? Are other tv tuner hardware & software combos able to do this?

      The Hauppauge PVR-250 and PVR-350 cards can do this, at least under Windows. It requires a few registry changes and recent versions of the drivers and WinTV2000. For details, see here [cask-of-amontillado.com].
    • These factors is what kept me from getting a "TV Tuner" and decided on just a video/audio input system.

      I'm quite happy with my VSTREAM "Xpert" DVD Maker USB 2.0 [dealsonic.com]. It's external, small, and supports resolutions up to 720x480. Sure, there is not a "tuner" but that is what my cable box, VCR and other things are for. Simply hook up a DVD player, PS2 or anything else that has A/V cables, even S-Video.

      It's allowed me to copy VCR tapes (to XviD) and play console games on my PC. Since all it does is render the pic
      • The point of having "closed captions", though, is, they are encoded in the video signal, and can be turned on or off at will.

        Also, VCRs that can decode closed captions are extremely unusual..

        • My cheap ass RCA decodes them along with "SAP", that is spanish for most stations....

          You can get cool stuff when you buy from crackheads. Everything is 40 bucks(... even DVD's for some reason)
    • Many DVD Recorders (read: ones that don't suck) record the captions in proper DVD format, so the will play back on any DVD player. However, some don't record them at all.

      Grondu is right in that the PVR-250 and PVR-350 CAN capture closed captions, however they can not be played back without processing (to turn it into a text subtitle file, or to author to a DVD) or fiddling with GraphEdit. Also, it records it in a bastard not-entirely-compliant format. It might not work on some players. So, not easily

  • There are more (Score:5, Informative)

    by Teun ( 17872 ) on Sunday September 05, 2004 @05:44AM (#10161508)
    This is what I bought 3 weeks ago:
    Pinnacle PCTV USB2.0 [pinnaclesys.com]

    and am very happy with.
    Very small (pack of sgarettes)
    Powered through the USB port
    Comes with a remote
    Sensitive antenna input
    Important for the traveller it will do PAL, NTSC, SECAM.
    Good software

    But so far no luck on Linux...

    • Is the software any good? I had Pinnacle Studio 8 and it turned out to be the bane of most users because it was buggy and crash prone.
      • OT, I know. Try the absolute latest patch, I actually got it working with MPEG files this time. I'll never buy another Pinnacle Studio product though...
      • I've got PCTV USB2 Vision Build 1.00.057 and have not had it crash yet.
        When doing a lot of I/O I do get a noticeable lag between sound and picture, stopping and restarting fixes it.
  • At the moment I am planning on buying a TV-card for recording TV shows. Apart from a wish that this card should not be too expensive, my wishes would be:
    • Supported under Linux (2.6)
    • Interface: PCI or USB 1
    • Optionally: onboard encoding (my cpu is a Duron800)
    • Optionally: TV-out
    Which card would you recommend?

    • Re:A good TV-card under Linux (Score:5, Informative)

      by soccerisgod ( 585710 ) on Sunday September 05, 2004 @05:52AM (#10161520)

      Important question: Where do you live? Does the area have any kind of digital tv? If so, I'd go for a dvb solution - eliminates the need of encoding your recording, just gotta grab the mpeg stream and save it on the harddisk.

      To see what cards are supported in general (analog and digital), a visit to Gerd Knorr's website bytesex.org might be in order...

      I personally have two Hauppauge cards, one for normal analog cable and one for DVB-t. The windows drivers are a joke, but they work well in linux...

      • Note that I could not get my hauppauge card to work with the newest drivers and DirectX 9.0c. There seems to be a patch for 9.0b but with DirectX, there is no easy way to downgrade. Maybe I should deinstall first. But it is a pain indeed.

        It seems the driver or application has problems with the video overlay. Since I can tune the card and receive teletext, I'm pretty sure the card is in order. The only problem is the picture quality: pitch black.
    • Haupauge is probably the way to go.
      I've seen their USB1.1 box for 39 Euro at MediaMarkt in Germany and 75 on Kelkoo. But the video quality of USB1 is limited, noticeable artefacts especially in full screen mode.
  • I'm sorry, the quality of that review was appalling. Why on earth does the author suggest connecting it to a receiver box, when the whole point is to allow TV on the go? What sort of person carries a receiver unit to their hotel? This is, of course, ignoring the fact that the TV Wonder is actually a receiver unit anyway.

    And again, he criticises the quality of using co-ax cabling to get the TV signal to the box. Does he have any better suggestions? Wireless? ESP, perhaps. I think this reviewer needs
  • am I the only one who couldnt spot the difference in quality between the different cables? they make the claim s-video is best of the three, and from my own experiences connecting an xbox up to a big tv different ways, id say s-video does look better but those screnshots show no difference. is this something that would make a difference if i could see the moving pictures or are they just jackasses paying for more expensive cables when the bottleneck in quality is not the cables carrying the signal?

    • Re:different cables (Score:3, Informative)

      by BluhDeBluh ( 805090 )
      Just so happens I'm a bit thick, spend too much time on forums, put the wrong link in and messed up the last reply... so fixing it here. Sorry people! It's early here!

      It's not to do with bandwidth. It's more to do with the fact that within the cable the image can bleed (it's analogue, not digital remember). S-Video removes this by giving the major elements of a formable image their own cable each. RGB is technically better by splitting the image into only the parts you can see, but the US don't have a fo

    • Re:different cables (Score:2, Interesting)

      by gunpowder ( 614638 )
      am I the only one who couldnt spot the difference in quality between the different cables?

      Yes, it is difficult to tell, but if you really look closely, you'll see a difference in the quality of the pictures. A good way to find out it to open each picture ( 1 [viperlair.com], 2 [viperlair.com], 3 [viperlair.com]) in a browser-tab (not in a new window); then flip between the tabs and you'll notice the difference.

      In the coax picture [viperlair.com] you'll notice the 'color bleed' and distortions: on the face (cheek, mouth) of the referee, and on his left arm (especia

  • Poor review. No hardware encoding is a feature? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by tachyonflow ( 539926 ) on Sunday September 05, 2004 @06:48AM (#10161627) Homepage
    I agree with another poster that this is not a very good review.

    The author advises against the use of the coax input. I think it's obvious that anybody with a digital cable box or satellite recevier will be using s-video or composite inputs to this device. Those of us with analog cable or antenna (without a cable box) will use the coax input, of course.

    Referring to component video as "aka RCA" is a bit confusing. Component video may use RCA plugs (I've never had a component setup; I'm just guessing), but so does composite video.

    The device apparantly does not have video compression hardware onboard, and the reviewer regards this as a feature, because "most of today's PC video compression parts still need work." I, for one, would much rather have an onboard MPEG2 video encoder (an MPEG4 encoder would be even sweeter, but these don't seem to quite be commodity parts yet.) I'm not sure why the reviewer regards video encoding hardware to be sub-par, but I've had excellent results with my PVR350. Not perfect, but much better than dropping frames when my computer is too busy doing something else to service a capture interrupt (*). I was actually pretty disappointed to realize that the device's advertised "capture video in MPEG4 format" actually just meant that they would supply software for the encoding.

    (* I suppose that since this is a USB device, raw video would be captured as a stream instead of via capture framebuffer interrupts, but I could still think of better things to do with my CPU cycles and USB bandwidth.)

    This review of a review brought to you by: being awake at 4:30am!

    • it's not a review, it's a plug-fest.

      "With the exception of the composite connection, we'll be sticking with Monster Cable wires for testing. You pay a little more, but based on experience, we find these cables are of the best quality. Only reason we're not using Monster Cable composite cables is due to budget reasons. However, this will give us a chance to test the Theater 200's filtering."

      the review itself also doesn't raise any real points about the product..., like what's the image quality compared to
    • And when he says that "component video (...) separates the video across red, green and blue" he probably meant YCrCb luminance-chrominance signals (unless the device has a SCART interface as well, which doesn't seem to be the case).

  • These guys opinion went right in the toilet (Score:4, Informative)

    by ChadAmberg ( 460099 ) on Sunday September 05, 2004 @07:13AM (#10161658) Homepage
    Once they started the "monster cable is worth it" crap. While using something like 12 over 24 guage cable might make a difference, these guys are on serious crack if they think 40$ cable is better than 10$.
    They must have that psychological problem of paying more so they think it works better issue, even though independent tests show no difference.
    I think I'll want to sell them the 200$ penis enlarger instead of the 15$ one...
    • Although I believe along the same lines you do, I still use monster cable for some things.
      Even though I'm not an audio or videophile, the construction of Monster Cables does tend to hold up better then a 2$ cable.

      Granted, I don't buy the uber-expensive ones, I do buy their midline versions. The connectors just seem better to me. The cables are thicker and better shielded and the ends are hardier.

      It may not matter much, but I have read a lot about 'cross talk' when you get power, video, audio, etc cables a
  • I'll tell you. I have a Radeon 64MB DDR VIVO card. I love it, it does MPEG compression using the Theater chip, so I get NO dropped frames.

    However. It's also a Radeon "7200". I can't upgrade my video card without losing my capture card. Yeah I know, I could get an AIW. But why should I pay more to get exactly the same capture quality and ability? I think I would rather get a regular card, and an add-on capture card.

    I also used to have a AIMLab's VHX98 - It was pretty good, but compression added some

  • Incomplete review (Score:3, Informative)

    by Faeton ( 522316 ) on Sunday September 05, 2004 @08:39AM (#10161829) Homepage Journal
    So where's the part about the tuner aspect of the device? I mean, this IS a TV tuner right? Instead, he reviews it as a video-input device.

    He doesn't touch upon how good it grabs crappy signal from cable TV, nor how fast the channels change. He doesn't even review the TiVO-esque function.

    I think this is a 1/2 ass review that totally misses the point of having this device, which is being able to use your computer like a normal TV, which includes flipping through the channels. Just lazy!

  • Not USB powered? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Fubar411 ( 562908 ) on Sunday September 05, 2004 @10:06AM (#10162064)
    um, NEXT! But seriously, if this isn't USB powered, then it is absolutely no good for a notebook traveler. I can see wanting to catch some local tv while out of pocket, but to carry around this, an antenna, and a wall wart. Too much kit. I know Hauppauge has a USB one that is USB powered. Even if the quality is just ok, it would be a better solution.
    • I don't know how many quality local broadcast that you are looking at over there (I live in Europe). But here the number of stations that you can pick up with a low quality antenna is not that big. One of the reasons mini-tv's never lifted off. What are you going to watch (completely distorted)?

      I can already seeing people sitting in the train trying to focus their antenna. With an integrated digital receiver you could have something though.

  • I bought my father the TV Wonder VE PCI for Father's day, since he just wanted a simple way to record video off his analog camcorder.

    I never got it to work. He has a Dell 3.06 HT, and it just wasnt happening. I tried *everything*. Format, SP2, latest drivers, latest DX9, turning off HT (suggestion from support forum), a dozen display resolution / bit depth combos, capturing to different drivers, capturing to different filesystems (NTFS, Fat32, FAT), and probably a half dozen things I don't remember.

    Ever

  • Seems most people have missed a big reason to go external with a TV tuner. Like any RF equipment, these suckers can get serious interference when installed in a PC. I don't know, maybe you people haven't experienced this, but I have an old btX78-based card (I don't even remember which one it is exactly, haven't used it in ages), and I noticed a non-negligible amount of noise when it was installed in my SFF IDEQ 200N PC. I found it somewhat annoying to watch (the fact that it can only get basic cable chan
  • Yeah this would be ok for your desktop, or having something that you can bring to a friends house to watch stored videos on a pc on your tv, but what Im thinking this would be good for is laptops, most laptops lack this technology.
  • "For PC television fans, up until now the only viable choice for TV viewing on the computer has been with an addon PCI or AGP (in the case of the All-In-Wonders) card."
    what?! only if by "now" they mean circa 1998. I have had an Aver TV genie tuner with a VGA D-sub passthrough since then, and I love it for many of the same reasons people will like the external ATI device. However, my TV Genie uses no system resources whatsoever. I never understood why these didn't catch on - I have met dozens of peopl

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