Customer Reviews

Avertv MTVHDDUWB HD Duet (White Box)

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

I just installed my AverTV Duet on Windows 7 Release Candidate. The install took about 2 minutes total using the included driver disk. There were no updates yet on the AverMedia website, so I just used the CD.

I am using this with Windows Media Center. I ran the TV setup and Media Center detected all ClearQAM (unecrypted digital and High Definition) channels on my Comcast cable feed properly and even mapped every single one of them to the correct guide channel with no intervention on my part. This was a much different experience than I previously had with Vista Media Center with the TV Pack using a Hauppauge 1600 card where I had to manually assign about 80% of the QAM channels to the correct guide number so they would show up with the proper TV program listings.

Picture quality using the Duet is superb. The Duet was even able to clearly display one QAM channel that the 1600 under Vista would only show with very blocky artifacts. The dual tuners work properly as well. I can record 2 high-def stations at the same time with no problems, or record one and watch another one live.

For someone looking for a pure ClearQAM/ATSC dual tuner solution, I would highly recommend this card so far. If anything changes, I'll post an update.

Excellent card, as the previous reviewer mentioned. It is important to note that ClearQAM support works with Windows 7 only; in Vista the card is recognized only as an antenna dual tuner.

I put this card into my new hp Pavilion, connected to my Comcast Limited Cable, installed Windows 7 RC, and ran through the Media Center setup wizard. It found all of the unencrypted digital channels, and after Googling I found how to edit each channel so the proper information would display in the Guide.

The card works flawlessly and I am so glad that I skipped the more expensive factory installed single tuner for this dual tuner.

Note that this package does not include a remote, but any Media Center remote should suffice (I got this one).

I installed this card into my media PC running Win 7 RC 64bit and it has been running flawlessly for a couple of months. I have it paired with an Avermedia 780 so I have a total of 3 digital tuners. (I send TV to my Xbox 360 and a media center extender hooked to other TV's in my house.)
If you are running Win7 or Vista Media Center with the TV pack, you should be good to go to receive unencrypted digital QAM cable. If you are using Vista without the TV pack or XP MCE you need to install a plug in from Avermedia for the card to detect QAM cable signals,
[...]
user name: beta
password: betatest
If you are a noob to tuner cards, QAM cable, and Media Center please don't flame these cards, they work just fine. Media Center does not automatically configure all QAM channels, yet. Took me about 6 months of reading and tinkering before I mastered how to use these tuners in Media Center. TheGreenButton.xxx is a good place to start.
My rig: AMD 5000+ cpu, MSI 790 CF mobo, MSI 3870 graphics, 4 gig ddr800 ram, Avermedia Duet & Avermedia Combo 770, WIN 7 64bit.

Update: Since C***ast encrypyted all the expanded basic cable channels, all you will receive with these cards are the local stations. I still use my Duet to tune the locals but now I am using an analog tuner in addition to capture exapanded basic cable channels tv from a C***ast digital set tob box (digital transport adaptor). It is just low-def, but will suffice until Ceton cable card tuner is available so I can get HD cable channels in Media Center again..

DO NOT BUY THIS UNLESS YOU'RE WILLING TO DEAL WITH AVERMEDIA'S TECH SUPPORT AND PAY ADDITIONAL SHIPPING.

I bought one, and it broke. It would completely disappear from Device Manager after a while. I returned it to the place of purchase and got the second one. After about a week it had the same issue. After chatting with AverMedia's tech support I found that this is a known issue with this part, and AverMedia has a replacement that corrects the issue. While I think it's not cool to continue stocking a known defective part, the worst came when I tried to RMA through AverMedia. They actually expect me to pay to ship the device back to them. They sold me an admittedly known defective product, they already charged me shipping once, and now they expect me to pay again to make it right. I am incensed to say the least.

I've owned multiple AverMedia products over the years, and until now I've recommended them when people asked me about tuner products. It's too bad that now I have to tell those people to go with the more expensive brand now because AverMedia is foisting known defective hardware onto people, and then expecting them to cough up more when it doesn't work.

UPDATE: This is unbelievable. Now, not only do they expect me to pick up the tab for shipping (again, they sold me a known defective product), but they won't even cross ship me the replacement so I can enjoy the limited use I do have out of this POS. I can't wait to bad mouth this company in person to people who ask me how to do TV on their PC.

To be fair. The tech seemed like a nice guy.

ADDITIONAL UPDATE: Avermedia contacted me after I posted this review, and offered to cross ship and pay for return shipping. Prepare to be the squeaky wheel if you want to get the support they should be giving you. Unfortunately the unit they sent as a replacement has the exact same problem. When I emailed tech support with this they literally told me that it's not possible that I'm having the issue I'm having, and then stopped responding to my emails.

I own this card and it is a huge pain. It disappears from time to time. It is painful to find out after a long day of work that my favorite show did not record because the card magically disappeared. The only way to get the card back up is reboot the PC. Sometimes multiple times. If you google "duet disappear", you will see a lot of reports about the problem.

Yes, I have been through RMA and got a replacement card. And it does not fix anything. I tried it on two of my PCs and seeing disappear problem in different frequencies. Now I am outside of my return period and I am stuck with it.

I believe most people buy this card to record their ATSC/QAM TV programs offline. Having the card spontaneously failing is simply NOT ACCEPTABLE.

My advice: return the card on the first sign of problem. Otherwise, you will be sorry.

I've been struggling with getting a stable signal from my rooftop OTA antenna through a HDHomeRun for over a year. I finally decided to try something else and got one of these cards back in July. I installed it in my Win 7 RC machine and it has worked flawlessly ever since. I have no problem getting all of the local OTA channels in HD on both tuners. No more tweaking the settings, no more dropped frames, blocky video, or choppy audio. This thing just works. What a relief. BTW, I do not have cable, so haven't used the ClearQAM features of this card. But for OTA it works perfectly. I may get another to add to this machine if I can get rid of my HDHR... HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

I bought this card regardless of the reviews about it disappearing from the device manager. I figured they must have fixed it by now, right? Nope. Today I got two notices when it tried to record stating that the tuner had been disconnected. I went to device manager and the tuner is nowhere to be found.

When it worked, the recording was grand. The picture was great, I could record on both channels, and it installed very easily into my windows 7 box. I had no problems with it integrating with my existing Avermedia A180 capture card and Hauppauge MCE 150. Windows 7 just did all the work and I had 3 HD tuners and 1 regular tuner. Now I have to deal with customer service, which, according to the reviews, isn't going to be all that much fun.

Similar results as many other reviewers. It's not reliable. Sometimes it's there, sometimes it's not recognized by my machine.

I was running it in a quad core AMD system, gigabyte board with another Aver tuner, A180 (works fine). Windows XP Pro SP2.

Mediaportal was so awesome when this thing worked.

EDIT: A forum suggests that the card goes into a hibernation state and doesn't wake back up. Try changing the power save states on your computer/motherboard/PCIE bus.

To find the forum, search the web for: aver duet fix

UPDATE: 03-30-2010

I RMA'd the card to Aver Media without any problem. I found the phone support helpful and pleasant. Aver must get lots of calls about the known power issue. The card they sent me back works great so far.

Works great with windows 7.Picks up all my digital clear qam and hd channels from comcast.Does not pick up hd or digital scrambled channels.Some channels come up with the wrong numbers but you can change them to whatever you want.Using windows media center with the remote that came with my hp m8330f desktop.Don`t bother with the provided software as it isn`t as good as windows media center.Great dvr with 2 clear qam tuners.Just to clarify,i`m picking up basic expanded cable channels without a cable box.I pick up the locals in hd and the rest like tnt,mtv,espn,yada yada yada,in digital.AverMedia has alot of different products.The one i`m using is called the "AVerTVHD Duet-OEM White Box".Update 1/21/10,Comcast have now scambled all there channels except the locals.So back to the comcast dvr i go.If your just looking for the locals it`s still great,but if you want more you may be disapointed depending on your cable company.

Excellent, excellent, excellent. It pulls in weaker channels much better than my older (3 years older) ATI, and way way way better than my 5-yr old HDTV Wonder. The ability of the card to split the signal inside the card for both of its tuners (preventing me from needing a splitter) prevents signal attenuation and adds tons of convenience. This feature alone would have sold me, but this card is very high quality, and its reliability with Windows Media Center is excellent.

The white-box version is a great value, as I don't need or want extra software, and the rebate was an added bonus.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.