Statistics have
shown that the average American watches at least 10-20 hours of TV a
week (give or take a few hours). However, ever since the
introduction of computers, the average computer users probably
watches less TV and surfs the net more. That's where the USB WinTV
comes in to play. Starring at the computer screen all day and night
can be boring and static, so let me introduce you to a device that
will turn you back into a spud and into a chair potato.
Hauppauge the
company is well known for their TV cards. Their use of the BT48
chipset has pretty much made them a standard for PC users of many
OS's. Their PCI TV cards can be found at the local Office Max, Best
Buy, Computer store, etc. I used to have one, and Used it quite a
bit. There's nothing like sitting in front of your computer surfing
the web, doing homework and still having the ability to watch TV in
a small corner. Actually there is. How about being able to be out
with your laptop outside or away from the office and still being
able to watch the game?
This device lets
you do that and more. The first thing you will notice is the color.
Yes, it's that infamous iMac "bondi" blue color. If your
blue-green color blind then it's probably a "bondi"
green... heh. The unit itself is compact and and built tough. The
USB cable is about 4 ft long and an Svideo to RCA input cable is
included.
This Tuner will
allow you to hook up and capture from just about any Coaxial, Svideo,
RCA, video source. This is a cool feature if you need to take your
laptop on the road and capture video from your camcorder to your
laptop via the WinTV USB. My next outing will probably include my
laptop, DSS satellite system DC/AC inverter and the USB Tuner....oh
ya and a compass to point the dish properly.
Features:
-
WinTV-USB
with 125 channel cable-ready TV tuner (mono audio)
-
Audio
cable for connection to sound card
-
WinTV
CD-Rom with software
Software:
WinTV
application - for TV in a window
WinTV-snapshot for high resolution image captures
Microsoft Netmeeting and Internet Explorer 4 for video conferencing
The software
that is included, WinTV2000 has a very nice looking interface. (see
screen shots below). Video capturing with the software is pretty
easy and even lets you save capture images as BMP, TGA, GIF, and JPG
formats. Video is captured as AVI. The video compression is using a
4:2:2 sampling rate. The software even gives you the option of
watching up to 16 channels at the same time. Now that's what I would
call Picture in, Picture in, Picture in ... blah blah blah.
So if you can
spare a little desktop space or want a tuner you can take anywhere,
you should look into this USB tv tuner. Most new computers now have
USB so it can be installed within 5 minutes on any Win98 machine
equipped with USB.
Test
Machine:
Laptop
K6-2 380 MHz
12.1" Active TFT screen
96 MB memory
2 MB Trident 2D video card
2.2 GB Hard Drive
Windows 98
Direct X 7 beta
NOTE: On a desktop system the performance is more than likely going
to be better with a better video card.
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