USB Digital TV tuners

I've got the MSI Megasky one, and its absolutely junk.

It came with a little aerial so that you could use it for laptops, however unless you live approx 10-20ft away from the antenna its signal quality is so poor you wont get anything.

I plugged the aerial on top of the house onto it and the quality of the picture at first seemed great, however sometimes the aerial signal seems to go a bit crap and you end up with a second or not of picture freeze, this happens more than i would have hoped. The freeview box that we have and uses the same aerial detects a high quality signal and never ever jumps.

Also ive had problems with the megasky locking up the computer sometimes as little as 2-3 mins into viewing and sometimes after an hour. Again it seems to be when it thinks the signal is degrading (although again the freeview box never has these problems). For those interested i have tried this on 3 computers.

My A64 3700 - 2GB ram - windows xp
My Shuttle Athlon2100+ - 1GB Ram - windows media
My 2.5ghz P4 Celeron - 1GB ram - windows xp.

You would be better spending your money on a PCI version.
 
Toytown said:
I've got the MSI Megasky one, and its absolutely junk.

It came with a little aerial so that you could use it for laptops, however unless you live approx 10-20ft away from the antenna its signal quality is so poor you wont get anything.

I plugged the aerial on top of the house onto it and the quality of the picture at first seemed great, however sometimes the aerial signal seems to go a bit crap and you end up with a second or not of picture freeze, this happens more than i would have hoped. The freeview box that we have and uses the same aerial detects a high quality signal and never ever jumps.

Also ive had problems with the megasky locking up the computer sometimes as little as 2-3 mins into viewing and sometimes after an hour. Again it seems to be when it thinks the signal is degrading (although again the freeview box never has these problems). For those interested i have tried this on 3 computers.

My A64 3700 - 2GB ram - windows xp
My Shuttle Athlon2100+ - 1GB Ram - windows media
My 2.5ghz P4 Celeron - 1GB ram - windows xp.

You would be better spending your money on a PCI version.
Click to expand...

I thought that the Megasky usb tuner was ok I have used it a lot and it seems good the antenna is poo but other then that its ok

stelly
 
~J~ said:
I've got the AverMedia DVB-T one, very very good, does HDTV too.
Click to expand...

Same one here, can't fault it.

Its been said before but Signal quality is vital , and the supplied mini aerials are ( quote) "poo".

I always hook mine up to my external TV aerial.

Cheers,

Mark
 
I've got the Nebula DigiTV considered as the best tv cards around. Its top stuff and the software's features is what makes it so successful.
 
Using the megasky 580 - even get a decent even signal with the tiny ariel supplied - but I can see the local transmitter within 1/2 a mile from my house. Supplied software is good and bad - works well enough but a little inflexible - for example can't re order channels from that they are found in.
 
I've got the MSI USB tuner and am quite happy with it, I found the bundled software a bit rubbish and buggy so switched to Media Portal, its an open source media interface and does lots of cool stuff. It even seems to pick up more channels than using the bundled software and has lots more features.
 
ive got the freecom dvb-t thingy and its crap the signal drops out now and then using a loft ariel, the record function takes up masses of hdd space for example an hour of recording will take up just under 2gb, the picture quality is rubish and very blocky/pixelated, highly UNrecomended
 
Gots to disagree with you bbreezeuk, I find the Freecom stick mighty fine.

I do have the reception drop out problem occasionally, but only if the system is very busy coding DivX or similar.

And you should expect MPEG-2 of decent quality to be recorded at around 2Gb per hour...

As for picture blockiness, mine is every bit as good as my Nebula, Cinergy 2400 and Kworld freeeview receivers.
 
must just be my particular one then

what is the cinergy 2400 like, are the driver problems resolved now, did you have any problems with it as i have heard it is quite unreliable
 
Thought i would revive this thread as it is the closest to answering what i want to know. I recently bought a Kworld DVB-T 355U USB stick tuner (only £20 so thought why not) but it cant find several major channels when scanning, even when connected to the main house aerial. Im thinking the cheapo stick is just not very good but i like the idea of having freeview on my pc so want to buy a better one. Can anyone suggest a good USB freeview stick that finds the majority of the channels, i am willing to pay up to about £40. Also does anyone know any decent software for watching the tv on as i dont have Windows MCE and the bundled software is rubbish. Thanks in advance.
 
I'm not sure about pricing but have a look at the Cinergy range of sticks - failing that, the Freecom device is good but the software while fully functional doesn't look that inspiring...
 
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