Rating: Summary: Does what it claims Review: Good product and I would recommend it to anyone who really doesn't like to open up their computer case and hassle with cards. However, I mark two stars off because: 1. Software is OK, but sometimes doesn't initialize the device due to USB driver problem or if you are running Windows Media Player concurrently. 2. The quality degrades steeply for resolutions larger than 320x240. To remedy these two problems, the ViewSonic VB50HRTV allows to bypass your computer all together and use just your monitor. (RGB passthrough)
Rating: Summary: stripped-down software, good basic tv functionality Review: I bought this USB version because I liked the ALL-IN-RADEON card, but I'm disappointed that the software out of the box doesn't have an 'on-demand' feature that my Radeon does (pausing live tv), and no video compression available for tv recording (no mpeg or mpeg2). This makes recording on a laptop inflexible (HUGE files).PROS: It's pretty cool to have tv on a laptop! Basic tv functionality is good. Guide+ works well just as on my Radeon. Curiously, on my Radeon, it shows "ATI TV v.7.1" on my Radeon, and "ATI TV v.7.3" on my TV Wonder USB. I hope there's a previous version with the features I'm looking for (or a downloadable update).
Rating: Summary: Had to send it back Review: I could not get it to work properly under Windows XP, even after downloading XP drivers from ATI's website. On problem was that everytime I pluged it into my laptop, I had to reboot the comptuer, which it should not have had to do. However, the reason I sent it back was that the sound would go out after a few minuets, and I would have to change channels to get the sound back. The picture quality is also much worse than a tv tuner that goes into a PCI slot, which is expect because USB cables cannot transfer as much data as PCI cards. If you have a desktop, I would recomend a PCI tv tuner or one that directly connects to the monitor and does not need a computer to work. It is possible that the sound and USB problems were because of XP compatablity issues. However, I gave this two stars because ATI does advertise it as XP compatable, and the poor picture quality was because of the tuner, not the computer.
Rating: Summary: Had to send it back Review: I could not get it to work properly under Windows XP, even after downloading XP drivers from ATI's website. One problem was that everytime I pluged it into my laptop, I had to reboot the comptuer, which it should not have had to do. However, the reason I sent it back was that the sound would go out after a few minuets, and I would have to change channels to get the sound back. The picture quality is also much worse than a tv tuner that goes into a PCI slot, which is expect because USB cables cannot transfer as much data as PCI cards. If you have a desktop, I would recomend a PCI tv tuner or one that directly connects to the monitor and does not need a computer to work. It is possible that the sound and USB problems were because of XP compatablity issues. However, I gave this two stars because ATI does advertise it as XP compatable, and the poor picture quality was because of the tuner, not the computer.
Rating: Summary: ATI TV WONDER /Luv it ! Review: I installed the ATI TV WONDER on my Pentium III 750MHZ ,256RAM running WinMe O/S ! The installation went flawlessly, I connected the TV Wonder to my 4 port USB hub. I connected a cable line to it and whala TV on my PC ! I checked the always on top option . Now when Iam on the net or working on my PC I can watch and listen to TV in a box that I can resize to almost any size . I was not sure if I would really like the TV Wonder .Now that I have it , I dont know how I ever did without it . Great product.
Rating: Summary: Does what it claims Review: I recently bought this device to use on my laptop, but discovered it does not support Windows NT. I haven't used it yet as a result. The device is just the right size and I think it will work out well once I switch to Windows XP. I plan to use it on my sailboat, where space and power are prime concerns.
Rating: Summary: Does not support Windows NT! Review: I recently bought this device to use on my laptop, but discovered it does not support Windows NT. I haven't used it yet as a result. The device is just the right size and I think it will work out well once I switch to Windows XP. I plan to use it on my sailboat, where space and power are prime concerns.
Rating: Summary: Lots of trouble to install, still no sound Review: I tried to install this on my old computer running Win98 and it said that my graphics card was incompatible. When I got my new machine, running win2000, I tried again. The first problem was that I had to uninstall the multimedia drivers that were already installed for my ATI video card. There was no error message telling me this, the install just bombed and I had to take a guess. I finally got it to work with video but there is no sound. I wish I had researched this before I bought the card, because now I'm finding out that many others have had the same problem. To summarize, the card is garbage.
Rating: Summary: Lots of trouble to install, still no sound Review: I tried to install this on my old computer running Win98 and it said that my graphics card was incompatible. When I got my new machine, running win2000, I tried again. The first problem was that I had to uninstall the multimedia drivers that were already installed for my ATI video card. There was no error message telling me this, the install just bombed and I had to take a guess. I finally got it to work with video but there is no sound. I wish I had researched this before I bought the card, because now I'm finding out that many others have had the same problem. To summarize, the card is garbage.
Rating: Summary: Great way to get into video editing Review: I've had my TV Wonder for a couple of months now. FIrst I used it with a celeron 400MHZ laptop suing Windows 2000, and now I'm using it with my new Athlon 1.4Ghz desktop using Windows Me. Even on the laptop, it was great for TV watching (but no so great for video capturing). When I installed it in my desktop at first I had problems when I tried to capture video, but all that changed with a few configuration changes. The included ATI software is excellent for TV watching, but for video capturing I recommend getting Virtualdub, it's free and so far I'm only dropping about 7% of all the frames, which is pretty good for a USB device. ATI's software drops more frames and works better saving in uncompressed AVI (which only lets me capture a little more than 81 minutes in my 20GB second hard drive). If you can't afford a hardware encoder, buy this gadget, it'll let watch TV too. Just remember to use better software and try to capture to a separate hard drive.
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