Customer Reviews

Diamond XtremeTV PVR660 USB TV Tuner with Remote Control ( PVR660RCUSB )

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I've been using this for about a month and am quite happy with it. I don't have a 'real' TV, however I subscrib to Comcast in order to have Broadband. I'm not a regular TV watcher either (kinda hard to be without a TV :->) and was looking for an inexpensive solution which didn't take up much room. Adding a USB tuner to my laptop was an attractive thought.

If you aren't expecting high definition video and just want to watch TV on your PC, this works just fine. I have it hooked up without a cable box, so I can't get any of the scrambled channels, but it does the other 99 channels. I can view it full screen, about 2/3 screen (which shows the menu selections on the left) or as a small picture in the lower left of the screen (not picture-in-picture, though). When you first install the software it goes out and figures out which channels are available. At first I thought it wasn't finding any channels, but several hours later all the channels were there. Very strange. It's been fine ever since and that was the only glitch I experienced.

The PVR (recorder) is handy. I can set it to record based on time/date/channel. Watch out for the file sizes, though! It makes MPG files which are about 3GB for each hour of video. At least it calculates how much space it needs to record what you want, so it will tell you if you are going to fill up your hard drive.

My only complaint so far is the software didn't allow me to choose where the MPG files are recorded. I would really like to put them on my external HD instead of in the default location. Maybe if I reinstalled the SW I could change it. (Haven't tried, though.) For now, I just move files off to the external HD as needed. In a whole month I think I've recorded 4 or 5 shows. Not much, but I've been able to watch stuff that I otherwise might have missed or forgotten to watch.

Sept 2006: I have only owned this product for a week. The hardware seems to work fine. The bundled Arcsoft TotalMedia 2 software (that manages the recording and playback) SEEMS like good software as well - except for one big problem. On my system, it thinks it's a day later than it actually is (for instance, on Wednesday, it thinks it's Thursday). My PC's date/time is set correctly -- yet the software thinks it's the next day. This ruins all my scheduled recordings. And sadly, Arcsoft offers ZERO supprt on its website for this software, because it's "bundled software" -- they apparently only support software purchased directly from them or boxed retail versions. So, I'm up a creek without a paddle. My saving grace is that I'm on a Windows XP Media Center Edition OS, which has its own recording and playback sofware, so I do not have to rely on the faulty Arcsoft software.

So, if you're not relying on this unsupported software that may or may not work properly (because you have Media Center Edition), this package is otherwise a good product. Had the sotware worked, I would have given it 5 stars.

March 2007 Update: I have been using this tuner for six months now, using Windows Media Center as the DVR recording software. It really has worked great. I record an average of about 5 scheduled TV programs daily, so it's seen a LOT of use. The only problem I've encountered is that once in a while, the hardware (or software, I've not figured ot which) records the scheduled progam, but all I get is the audio, but no video.

I am using this product with a HP Pavilion dv2000t laptop, running Windows Media Center OS.

Here's my setup:

Toshiba Satellite Notebook. 512MB Ram, 80 gig HD, basic boring PC. TV is basic cable.

I bought this to digitize my VHS tapes and "time shift" my TV watching without having to pay the cable company for service and to rent a set top box / DVR. Actually, I don't even pay for cable TV (just internet) but just use their co-ax hook up to get the dozen or so free broadcast channels they must provide by law for free (in New York City at least).

HARDWARE

Nice, tight and attractive little piece of hardware. The fact that it is powered by the USB port is great as I am very short of power outlets in my apartment. I hate power bricks! The fact that it comes with every single cable you will ever need is also fantastic. One bizarre thing: the LED indicator lights up green when the device is not ready and red when the device is ready. Isn't green = go and red = stop an international standard in every country in the world?

The packaged remote has about 30 buttons on it. Nice, slim design but it takes a while to find what you need.

SOFTWARE

ArcSoft TotalMedia is super simple to use and has a wonderful basic interface. If you're a settings tweaker you might be disappointed. Average Joes will be very pleased. Everything worked for me without a hitch. It does load slowly. If you click "back" or "home" or any navigation for that matter there's a 3 second delay.

EXPERIENCES

Capturing video from the VHS tapes was super easy. The quality was slightly worse than the tapes themselves but over all pretty good. The file sizes are freaking huge. 15 minutes of video at best quality setting made a 600MB file. I tried using the burn to DVD feature and had one disappointment. It said I could burn 11 files to the disc and still have 2% free space left. When it was done burning it only burned 9 files. I've had similar problems with other CD DVD burners, just add 15% "empty" space to each DVD-R disc you burn.

Other reviews complain that you have to pay for Titan TV electronic programming guide (EPG). Not anymore. There were no "trial version" warnings that I came across. The EPG worked well too. I made one scheduled recording for 15 minutes. Another huge file (1.5 gig) resulted but quality was very good.

HAVEN'T TRIED IT YET

ArcSoft Total Media comes with picture and music organization modules. I don't need these. I wish I could turn them off. At least TotalMedia didn't hijack my application preferences for opening .mp3 and .jpg files. Lord, I hate that.

FM recording. I get crappy radio reception and I podcast most of my favorite radio shows anyway. Will never use this, but I could see others using it.

The unit also comes with "slingbox"-like features that allow you to access your laptop / cable connection from other computers on the internet. Pretty cool, but I haven't used it as I don't think I can get away with watching "The Office" at the office. But, I could see this being a good friend when I go away for the weekend away from NYC and want to watch the Jets game.

SUMMARY

I was expecting hassles. I was 40% sure I would be returning it. I was pleasantly suprised by both hardware and software even tho both have some shortcomings. Set up time was about 2 hours including messing around with the spaghetti dish of cables I have in my entertainment cabinet which was really most of the set up time. Interface is super duper intuitive. Kudos to ArcSoft. If the "slingbox"-like features work, I'm really impressed.

The picture quality is ok at most, but has a big lag with the sound. The manufacture customer rep was not helpful at all.

This product is excellent! It has allowed me to receive standard cable on my PC and also capture video from my digital cable box. The standard cable viewing is definitely inferior to a regular TV, but this is more than offset by the ability to record. The video quality using the capture interface is really good. While not able to handle HD, the tuner down-converts while retaining a very sharp picture. I recommend using the tuner with Microsoft MCE versus the bundled software. This is solely based on the MCE channel guide as opposed to having to register to receive this functionality from the other software. After much research, I believe this is the best external TV tuner/capture device on the market. Other reviews have indicated it also holds up well against PCI versions. It comes bundled with all cables needed for various setups. Overall, this product provides excellent performance at a reasonable price.

The primary purpose why I bought this device was to connect video game console (PS2). As soon as I had it ready, I found that it could not be used for that purpose due to a 1 second delay, which is not a big deal with television, but is not suitable for the gaming.

I also tried it out just to see how well the device performs.

Pluses

- Very easy to setup and install
- Very easy to use, record and play the recordings

Minuses

- The quality of the video was unsatisfactory, somewhat blurry and dark. OK to watch TV once in a while, but absolutely not for HD fans.
- Every time I exit the TV mode, it would return the settings to default, meaning that every time I run this, I have to go and change video standard
- Not compatible with satellite tuners
- No good for video game consoles due to a delay

I haven't really tested scheduling of recordings, so I cannot say anything for that. Overall, I say this device is not really a bad one, but I don't think it's worth the money it's being sold for.

Purchased this product to hook up to my computer to create a "faux TiVo". It was quite simple to install and works great. The remote is a bit finicky, but other than that I have absolutely no complaints and would recommend this product to anyone looking for an inexpensive way to get a TV signal to their computer. I did not install the program guide that came with the software - I just use the Windows Media Center guide and that's been working fine.

I wish I had never bought this USB TV Tuner. The signal strength of the cable is cut so substantially that I see more static than it is worth unless I disconnect my internet connection since they share the same cable line. Additionally when you use the remote to turn off the TV tuner it shuts down your whole computer without the opportunity to save anything so I lost a document I was working on but hadn't backed up yet (I know, should back up often but still an unexpected hastle). I would have been better off just doing a quick internet search for tv access online as there are several that you can use for little or no cost. Don't bother buying this.

I don't want to buy a discontinued product,the factory abandon this for a better line,I can not get full options and I dont have support because it is old and have many problems reason of discontinued.

I got it to transfer video from my VHS tape deck without too much trouble. A better instruction manual would have helped. I did not know that you could convert S-Video to Composit with just an adapter (which was provided).