Customer Reviews

Digital Atsc Tv Box Dvi Digital Tv Tuner Box HDtv

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

 

 

First, some disclaimers. I am not a professional tester for gadgets. I can only relate my personal experience using this product. As such, I have not tried or tested all options or connections.
I have used the tuner for over one month just to be sure of its quality and reliability and it does not disappoint. In fact it delivers better performance than expected. The picture quality is awesome when connected to my 4:3 ratio 19" lcd monitor with 0.28 mm dotch pitch, DVI input and built in speakers. And this is not even the latest tech lcd but one when 12 ms response was state of the art. The necessary cables come with the package so it is a very simple hook up. The QAM reception is even better than my latest lcd tv, a 47" Vizio. This tuner will not receive analog signal which is still transmitted via cable. When changing channels either with the remote or the tuner buttons, an OSD will show the signal strength momentarily, something even my Vizio TV cannot do. The green bars from 1 to 10 appear on the lower right corner. The tuner is capable of more cable channel reception than my Vizio (full reception will come on when the bars are 5 or more). There is a choice of 1280 x 1080 or 1024 x 720 display selection using the remote so it works well with either the aforementioned 4:3 lcd or my other wide screen lcd. The volume control with the remote is very handy since adjusting volume on the lcd involves tedious operation of the lcd buttons otherwise. There is even a mute button on the remote in addition to the station number, menu, PC/tuner switches, etc.
Here is what I have not tested or used: the PC pass through, the over the air 'terrestial' input and the additional component output. This is because I have purchased this tuner solely for cable reception to be used with my left over lcd monitors, such that I don't have to turn on my PC or laptop just because I want to watch TV unlike those other USB tuners. I have looked around online and in stores for a while to find what I really want and what Kworld can and has delivered.

For those of us who adopted an HDTV-ready set and were dismayed that the component inputs were replaced by DVI, and later by HDMI - this is a reasonable solution for any "early-adopter" set that can do 1080i has analog and/or DVI inputs and lacks an ATSC tuner.

For those with sets that max out at 720P, there is another lesser-expensive model that looks like this one but is silver.

Let's get the one negative point out of the way:
One thing the box does not make clear, and is a huge disappointment - is that it has a DVI input. This is not a problem in itself, but unlike what the back of the box and the diagrams on it imply - this does not in any way convert or play DVI input to component at all. In other words, this is ideal for a set or computer monitor with DVI inputs and you want to share such a monitor with a PC and also use it as an terrestrial HDTV receiver.

That aside, it is ideal to use this to add ATSC capability to an analog HDTV set (in my case a 480i/480p/1080i capable 36" Sony XBR CRT). But if you have an analog-only set, you are out of luck using this box for hooking up a computer - like for HTPC use - it's a tuner only.

The tuner itself is quite capable and I have no complaints about it. I've seen worse on some TV's with built in tuners. It is reasonably sensitive - it gets good performance off the little antenna it comes with and puts out really good images. The remote, while capable, is a bit cheap feeling.

But as a tuner, this thing is great!

Last year I bought a Kworld usb HD tuner for my laptop computer. I really liked it, so I was eager to try Kworld's stand alone HD tuners.
The box is very good at picking up stations. I can get more than 40 digital channels just by putting the included pole antenna in an upstairs window that faces most of the tranmitters. Downstairs I receive 27 solid channels with an Philips amplified set top antenna aimed at a window that faces the hill that is my back yard. By the way, the included antenna has a magnetic base that is capable of defying gravity and it is really handy. For the upstairs unit, I placed the included antenna horizontally near the top of my window. My channels all lock in solid, and the picture is fabulous. The menu is easy to follow. For example, I easily made the picture brighter than the factory default setting. The instructions and the remote could be better. The remote has a couple buttons that reset the output; you can make your picture disappear if you hit them by accident. I am using the dvi output. The picture is slightly off center, which causes the first digit of the channel to be off screen. I could adjust that on a computer monitor, but I haven't found a fix for that on my television set. This unit is set up to allow you to share a dvi monitor with a computer. I also bought the vga version of this box. [I have to wonder why these units are not eligible for the $40 government coupons. I have 2 older hdtvs with no built in ATSC digital tuner. The eligible conversion boxes only put out 480i, which is not real high definition.] If you need an HDTV tuner for an older hdtv, try Kworld's units first.

The product has a relatively nice interface compared to a few others I have tried (I have tried quite a few). It is the only one I have found that acts not only as an LCD monitor to TV converter, but also as a standalone TV reciever with YPbPr outputs. Unfortunately (and this is the deal killer for me) has a digital tuner only, so the QAM signal it recieves are my local channels and Public access channels over cable, but it is unable to pull in the 'standard' or analog unencrypted channels (Sci-Fi, Cartoon Netork, History Channel, Discovery, TLC, basically anything a 'Cable ready' VCR tuner could pull in.) I wanted to replace my bulky VCR for a standalone tuner (for PIP on my Dell monitor), but given it's inablility to tune in standard cable, it's useless.

First of all let me just say that this product does the job it's supposed to and it does it well. I'm using it with an Acer 26" monitor with DVI input and an over the air antenna and in the U.S. in north America. I noticed actually before the digital switch that it worked and after the switch still works fine. Any channels broadcasting in HD are received on the monitor up to 1080 depending on the station of course. I didn't realize this but it actually comes with a little magnetic coaxial antenna but i just use the one mounted on my roof. The USB port in the front is actually somewhat useful for displaying photos or playing certain audio file formats. Great overall product.

Cons:
1. The kinda long delay between changing channels and browsing through usb media ~1-2 seconds.
2. You are not able to "delete" channels from when you browse using the channel up and down buttons. For instance I get a bunch of spanish channels and some others with poor reception and browsing would be much faster if I didn't have to look through channels that there's no point in watching anyway.
3. The symbols on the remote don't match the ones displayed on screen like menu looks like a little house symbol on the remote but has an arrow or something in the setup menu. Takes a little getting used to at first but not really to big of a deal.
4. Lastly, now I'm just griping, but there's a blue status LED to the left of the IR sensor, that lets you know when the device is on. It's really REALLY bright. I had to put tape over it because it was such a distraction to me while watching television.

Overall great little product does what it's supposed to just fine and turned my LCD into a nice HD TV. I'm pleased with it and would buy another if I was in the market for one.

I use an old Sony P4 PC as the core a modest home theater system. Its WinTV HVR-1600 PCI card worked well for analog TV, but the computer is not fast enough to process an ATSC HD video stream. Last week, I bought a KWorld tuner to extend the useful life of my current system ($80 for this instead of $800 for a new computer or TV).

Good points:
The tuner works well. It receives at least 35 UHF digital channels and sub-channels with an indoor antenna here in NYC. This seems pretty good considering that my apartment faces away from most local broadcast sites. HD channels look great on my Samsung 24 inch LCD. SD channels look OK. DVI detail is very crisp. Component detail is acceptable but slightly softer.

A special feature of the SA290 allows the TV tuner to share a display with a computer. The device works like a KVM switch. DVI output from the PC's graphics card is connected to the back of the tuner. A second (included) DVI cable goes from the tuner to the LCD monitor. A button on the KWorld remote control then toggles the display between PC or TV. When the TV tuner is powered off, DVI from the PC passes through to the monitor ("off" really means "standby" - DVI pass-though is done with active switching and won't work if the tuner's power supply is disconnected). There is a similar feature for audio (2.0 stereo).

Bad points:
Programming the tuner is about as much fun as configuring BIOS on a PC. The tuner has an On Screen Display with a bare-bones VCR-type user interface. A MENU key on the remote activates a screen with 3 options - DISPLAY, CHANNEL or SETUP. Navigation through the menu tree uses the arrow keys on the remote. There are no setup controls on the box itself.

The OSD needs (but does not have) a menu for input and output preferences. These are toggled using 3 different buttons on the remote. Study the manual's illustrations carefully learn what the remote's buttons do. A button with a checkerboard icon cycles through 480p,720p or 1080i YPbPr. Another button with a half-black/half-white rectangle toggles TV or PC source. A third button with an arrow/circle icon toggles DVI or component video output. There is a brief on-screen acknowledgement of each new setting but it's easy to overlook the message while fiddling with the remote. Once the message disappears, an inexperienced user could spend an evening watching TV at 720p instead of 1080i. Another careless button-press could select component video output while using DVI input. The result is a black LCD screen and needless frustration to trace the cause of the signal loss.

Unlike most TVs and VCRs sold today, the KWorld OSD offers no option to delete unwanted channels. Auto-Scan found 35 channels here, but only a few are worth watching. I have to slog through lots of weather and home-shopping programs while channel-surfing. Manual selection with the remote requires entry of a specific channel AND sub-channel. I can't just enter channel number 13. I have to enter 13/1, 13/2 or 13/3 instead. That's up to 4 key-presses per channel (the slash character separates the main channel from its subchannels). Imagine doing that dozens of times a day with all your favorite stations just to see what's on TV.

Bottom line:

3 stars overall.
TV looks great (4-5 stars).
There is no way to customize the channel list obtained with auto-scan (1-2 stars).
Some buttons on the remote alter important video settings too easily (3 stars).

P.S.

A caveat for buyers with odd-sized monitors:

This TV box supports ONLY 4:3 or 16:9 aspect ratios using the DVI output. If your display has either of these as a native aspect ratio your TV picture should look great. If you have one of the other LCDs popular a few years ago you may be disappointed. My Samsung monitor has an aspect ratio of 16:10 (1920x1200 pixels). KWorld's TV picture has noticeable anamorphic compression on it. A DVI source with an aspect ratio of 16:9 mapped onto 1200 vertical pixels will need 2134 horizontal pixels for a geometrically correct display. Instead of cropping the width a bit, this tuner maps 2134 pixels onto the 1920 pixels available. The result is a picture only 90 percent as wide as it should be. The distortion really detracts from pleasure of watching HDTV. If I used this LCD only for TV, I could probably correct screen geometry in Samsung's monitor setup menu. But it is not practical to tweak the screen settings with every switch from PC to TV and back. It's a shame KWorld did not include output options for other commonly available types of LCD displays (the two I own are 16:10 and 5:4).

Bought the Kworld Digital Atsc Tv Dvi Digital Tv Tuner Box. The hookup was very simple, and initially it appeared to work fine. However, after using it, I discovered a few problems: the first was the subtitles would not turn off by the remote, they disappeared for a second or two only to return; the box would lock up requiring a power down/power up. I resolved this problem by going in by the menus and disabling it (I was prepared to live with this). The next problem was with the local channel 3: every time I surfed to this channel, the box would lock (again requiring the power down/power up). The other 25 channels were just fine. The work around was to disconnect the antenna from the box, prior to switching to channel 3 then reconnecting the antenna. I was prepared to live with this too.... the next problem: after operating for an hour or so, the screen would go blank for a few seconds every 15 minutes. This appeared to be a problem caused by heat, as mounting the box so that there was air flow on the top and beneath the box reduced this problem. Again, I was prepared to live with the box balanced with its edges on 2 boxes to allow air flow! Today, less than 2 weeks after purchase, the box quit completely, giving no output to the TV and leaving us without any television. There is no work around to this one, and I am not prepared to live with this last problem or give it any kind of positive endorsement. The best I can say is that when the box worked, the pictures were great - shame there was so few occasions to see them. As it is, I would prefer my old analog back! While I bought this from Amazon, it was shipped to me from TigerDirect, so now I my only remaining problem is who to return it to....

This is a great product ruined only by a dreadful remote control. The channel and volume control are on the opposite sides to most remote controls and all the remote buttons have strange and bizarre logos on that seem to bare no relation to the actual function. But so long as you've got the manual handy to work out which button on the remote to push it's great.

I use it on the DVI input of my 17" Samsung monitor/TV and it gives a great, 720p HD picture. A good STB to choose if you want HD.

Bought it at the end of August--not even 6 weeks later it only transmits black and white indistinct images on an otherwise great HDTV. One jack was defective (did not work) when we got it. Have to send it all the back to Taiwan to get an unwanted replacement. So we're stuck with it since it's past the original 30 days. Very disappointed with the product.

Pros:
-Works
-Clear channels
-up to 1080i as advertise

Con:
-Slow
-Locks up often, ignoring all commands from remote and unit. The only way to unlock is to disconnect power to unit.

Recommendation:
Spend more for a better unit.