I was able to get this tuner during a 24 sale the weekend after Thanksgiving at a VERY good price (over 50% off) and I have been very happy that I did. To be honest, this model was on my short list to start with but the price made it a no brainer. I've been using this tuner daily since the first week of December when I first installed it and have had very few issues with it.
For the record, I have used this on two different software installs: Windows Vista Ultimate 32-bit and the Windows 7 32-bit Beta.
Pros:
Easy integration with Media Center both under Vista and Windows 7. In fact, it's been better under the Windows 7 Beta Media Center than under Vista!
Easy hardware set up. Plug it into your computer, install drivers, and plug in a TV and radio antenna and you're set. No needs to worry about the hardware aspect (minus turning the antenna in some cases).
Onboard MPEG-2 decoding that takes some of the pressure off of your CPU and other components.
Not very steep hardware requirements for your PC.
Can be used with other Media PC DVR software suites.
Great HD picture!
Cons:
The included Catalyst Media software is very buggy.
Cannot get the included remote to work.
As alluded to under cons the Catalyst Media software is more than a little buggy, both under Vista and Windows 7. It will work, most of the time. However, if you're like me "most of the time" just won't cut it if you're counting on it to record shows when you're away from your PC. Further, the Catalyst software does not seem to be able to display on a 16:10 ration display such as my LG LCD 22 incher. The upside is that if you play the recorded content back in another application such as Windows Media Player the aspect ratios are correct. It's just very distracting, to me at least, when watching live TV.
After two days of trying to get used to Catalyst I decided to seek out alternatives and settled on two. The first was Beyond TV and then Windows Media Center (Vista). Beyond TV works much better than the included software, produces a better picture quality, and has the correct aspect ratios. Windows Media Center under Vista has just a tad under the quality of Beyond TV. To me it was worth it to rely on Media Center after the trial period of Beyond TV was over as I wasn't ready to pay $40 more than I paid for the tuner for a software package.
My only complaint using under Media Center with Vista was the lack of the digital sub channels that many station simulcast. This is a problem with Vista and not the tuner so I do not ding the tuner for it.
The tuner really started to shine though under Windows 7 Beta, of all things! Media Center under 7 is more feature complete than it is under Vista and displays all the digital sub-channels and records in better quality (max quality under settings) than under any of the previously used software packages. In fact, even though the Catalyst software is installed under Windows 7 I have only used it once in the last month and rely totally on Media Center for my TV recording.
Now on to some of the issues some may have with this tuner.
I do not have cable so I rely on over-the-air broadcasts for my TV viewing. At first I was using my old trusty rabbit ear antenna figuring that I live less than 8 miles from the three main broadcast antennas for my television market. This was a mixed bag of results. The three main stations came in fine but I had "issues" picking up others such as the local PBS station. A quick run to the store to pick up an amplified antenna (RCA ANT1450B Multi-Directional Digital Flat Amplified Home Theater Antenna (Black)) and I was in business on all my local stations.
One other issues is my inability to get the included remote control to work. The poor documentation that comes with the tuner offers no help in this regard and I've given up. I don't really listen to FM radio so other than testing it to make sure it works once I've not used that feature.
Overall, this is an excellent choice for someone looking to setup HDTV recording on their computer in either a home media center setup or on their desktop machine for casual watching. VisionTek TV Wonder HD 650 USB TV Dual Tuner/Recorder
There are numerous complaints in various forums about the ATI HD 650 Combo loosing signal, hanging or panicking the system while trying to handle/switch between digital and analog signals. I'm on my second pair from Visiontek and have had nothing but problems with them under Vista and Windows 7. Avoid this product.
I am running Windows 7 RC1 and with media center, when you plug-in this to the USB port, the drivers will automatically download from Windows Update and you are ready to go! The video quality is excellent and the remote control make it a pleasure to use. Highly recommended.
This would have been a good USB digital TV tuner if the included software and drivers weren't so unusably horrible!
(1) The included TV tuner software is unusably buggy. The system often crashes and loses audio/video sync when changing channels. The recorded video stutters. No closed captioning or other advanced features.
(2) Due to the buggy Windows Vista drivers, you cannot use any 3rd-party PVR software to watch digital TV. (Only the analog DirectShow drivers are installed correctly!)
(3) 3rd-party PVR software does work with Windows XP, but even when everything is working, the drivers are crash-prone. I would often get a bluescreen when connecting or disconnecting the device when the computer is on. Rarely, the driver will go into an infinite loop while recording, causing the SYSTEM process to consume 100% CPU until reboot.
(4) The device does not have proper power management support, and the tv tuner consumes a lot of electricity and feels hot to the touch, even when the computer is turned off.
I do not recommend this product to anyone, unless it's on sale and you have a high threshold for frustration. - Hdtv Tuner - Tv Tuner - Hdtv - Mac'
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