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Digital TV USB Dongle


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I recently bought a Digital TV USB Dongle from DealExtreme for $33.

http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.7656

 

I was a little worried that it wouldn't work in Aus but for the price it seemed worth the risk.

 

I just received it, and I can't believe how easily this installed, and how perfectly its working let alone for the price!

 

Its picked up ALL of my Digital TV stations (including HD channels which my SD set top box wont let me see), with perfect signal.

 

I plugged it in, attached my external antenna (bonus: the USB allows a standard coax antenna connector unlike most which take some propriatary plug). The tiny supplied antenna didn't pick up anything but I plugged in my outdoors antenna and I've got perfect picture on every channel.

 

To top it off it comes with a remote, EPG and schedule recording and comes with a remote control (with batteries supplied). Even the software is intuative and is in English not 'Chinglish'.

 

Awesome.

 

http://www.dealextreme.com/productimages/sku_7656_1.jpg

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Not sure what you mean by how its associated...

 

It took less than a week to arrive and that was with free standard shipping.

 

I've attache some screenshots of the SW (you cant see the picture in them, for some reason the screen grab didn't capture that because it was a moving picture???)

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Sorry about a message in my version of 'chinglish' - I meant does the software allow you to easily record programs? From the attached pics it appears that the record function appears reasonably intiative.... through either the EPG or the Schedule buttons I presume.

 

Have you tried to record (and play back) anything yet with the USB DTV dongle and software? Is it stable and does it produce a file which is usable say on a personal media player (eg avi, mp4 etc etc)?

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out of interest what are the minimum hardware requirements

 

Good question, it doesn't say... but I'm running a Core Duo 1.83ghz laptop I think...

 

A review on the site did say this though:

There seems to be a relationship between CPU power and reception. For instance a fast CPU machine works well with both a proper antenna and with rabbit ears, but a slower CPU machine will not work with rabbit ears, but works fine with a proper antenna (an external one on my house)- the same combinations also seem to affect the LED in the device. ie. FAST CPU - any antenna, LED lights up, Slow CPU, Good Antenna, LED lights up, but Slow CPU and poor Antenna, no LED.

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I've been using this for a few days now and I'm very impressed with the software. I've recorded a few programs, then I've opened them up and its piss-easy to edit down to the second... I cut out all the ads and bit of the next show that was captured in just a few clicks/couple of minutes.

 

The scheduler seems to take all of 2mb RAM to stay resident and wake up the recorder when you've got a recording scheduled.

 

It also supports time shift/pause live TV but I've turned it off (as its constant use of memory/HDD otherwise).

 

No complaints here!

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Bonus points for the software...

 

Not only does the software allow you to do all the DTV/scheduled recording and editing stuff but its also a album manager for videos, photos and music.

 

I just found a 'to go' section of the menu which allows me to automatically or manually syncronise video/music/photos to a portable device, and in doing so select the resolution, frames per second, video/audio quality and codec.

 

Within a couple of minutes I've optimised the right setting to pull across AVIs and TV recordings into 640x480 resolution for the little GPS unit I recently bought (from dealextreme too). So now I've got my movies and TV recordings on the go.

 

Man I've been missing out on technology for too long :)

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