Customer Reviews

ATSC NTSC Hybrid HDTV PCI TV Tuner /Digital Video Recorder

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

Hi, this package is great. I've used TV tuner cards for several years and seen them develop. This card is by far more mature than anything I've used. It's very easy to use, the interface is like a TIVO and the functions are fairly intuitive. Overall, I give it high marks and am satisfied with my purchase.

Ordered this on March 20th, arrived the following Monday (23rd) with expedited shipping. The product works very nicely with Windows 7 x64 beta.

I'm a bit more familiar with Windows Media Center so I generally use it instead of what software was included. The included software works fine too, no hiccups at all with the Windows beta.

I purchased this to replace my analog only tuner card that came included with my HP Media Center PC. I'm glad I did.

I got this product a few days ago, installed it, and found it to work fairly well using the software it came with. I did have a few computer lock ups, because I was trying to change the NTSC settings to see about getting a better looking full screen picture. Analog TV on this card is OK at best, using the software that comes with the card. Windows Media Center software only sees the digital side of the card.
If I hook up my OTA antenna I get great picture on all digital channels in my area. I was amazed at the way it looked.

If looking to do both digital and analog, you're gonna be stuck with the software that came with the card.

I've been using this tuner for about 3 weeks now and so far I've had no problems or issues with it. When I got it I was able to put it into my PC, install the drivers from the CD and it was ready to go. This tuner works great with Windows Media Center as you can record TV and also rewind, fast forward and pause and play a program you're currently watching or one that you've recorded. The remote works great for me and it's still going strong even after I managed to accidentally drop it on the floor on a few occasions. For the price you really can't beat it. I feel like I definitely got my money's worth with this item and I'm glad I purchased it. I'd definitely recommend picking one of these up if you're looking for something at a decent price and want good value from it.

I had to rebuild my computer after a hard disk crash, and decided to upgrade to Windows 7, which includes the new Media Center with TV support. I have Comcast digital cable, and all I needed was the tuner card out of the box.

Plugged it in, ran a cable to the coax connector, turned on the computer, which found and configured the new device right away. I ran Media Center, and selected "TV" and it found my card, investigated my cable system, and in a couple of minutes I was watching TV on my computer. Left everything else in the box.

I will say that the picture is just a little grainy, (I'll have to check the cable connections) but I can overlook that, and it's not my main TV source anyway. I'm glad I have cable, because the "antenna" provided is one of those T-wire type usually used for FM reception. If I had to pick up over the air, I would immediately get a decent rooftop aerial.

This product works well although it took a bit of a workaround to get Vista Media Center to recognized the analog card (this being a hybrid) it recognized the digital card right away.

The included software looks sort of lame. I prefer using media center. But you can record live tv, pause, rewind, fast forward & also schedule record all with the included software, there is a built in radio tuner, you can slide show your photos, watch dvd's.

It's works great for the price.

This item is excellent. I have to say I was a little sceptical due to so many of these cards not pulling the signal, but if you want free over the air tv this works great. It did very well with the cable hook up but I have my PC in my office and get up to 38 free channels with this.

This is great if storms may knock out cable or something, you still have a way to watch television. I have not tried the radio yet but dont really see me using it. If you want a item that works this does, the digital picture is excellent and sound quality is very clear....dont forget to buy an antenna to pull the signal.

Easy installation into the PCI slot. If you are connected to the internet, Windows should automatically download your driver (I have Windows 7). I didn't need to install the packaged software since I'm using Windows Media Center. That product works great! It's nice not to have one of those USB dongles taking up space on my USB ports (espcially since those USB ports are so wide, they take up a large portion of your USB ports).

I had the one with the additional QAM feature but did not use it for cable, just OTA.

OTA reception with the card alone left a lot to be desired, I added an atsc digital-to-analog converter box with a silicon tuner and then used either the composite or coaxial output of the box inputting analog to this card. It does not seem to record through the composites, only the coax. We can watch TV (not recording) with no problems if we use the atsc converter box with analog input on this card.

With or without the remote there is a very nice feature that brings up a menu making it easy to switch from A/V composite cables to coaxial, and back again. Without the help of the converter, the signal indicator for the card tells me I'm getting enough power, so I don't know if maybe my computer isn't powerful enough (if it relies on the CPU for reception or just the receiver in this card is working). We are running it on a 2800 AMD Althon CPU (about 2 GHz) with plenty of memory, 2 Gigs on XP Home. But it should be the equivalent of the manufacturer's minimum requirement (2.4 GHz P4.) We also have a 2.66 P4 in the house with the same memory, but the AMD is faster. I haven't tried the card on that yet. I'll edit this review if I do.

The included Arc Soft software (which includes Total Media 3.5, a $79.99 value) is very good - a good idea to overhaul/defrag your hard drive before installing - And be patient. There are about three separate installations it must do. I thought it was finished on the first one. The software looks like it is finished but it is not. I had to re-install the software suite to get the remote to work. The first time it somehow skipped over it. The software setup does have a "repair" option which is nice, if the software has already been installed, but doesn't work correctly.

With the help of a converter box doing the reception, we were able to watch TV smoothly and record, but chase recording got too buggy and didn't work. It may be the power of my computer. If you aren't doing a lot of computing when it records, it plays back fine. The scheduler works fine too, if the computer is on during the scheduled recording.

My daughter liked the software, which has many movie and photo features. Her favorite seems to be the frame capture, that allows her to pick out still pictures from TV shows she's watching or records, and create them into things to send her friends. The Total Media software comes with DVD decoder software that will even work without the card installed. We had a DVD drive in the computer that we never used before to play DVDs, because we did not have a decoder. It worked great playing DVDs with this software. It's pretty seamless going to the DVD player to any input/mode of the TV, with a button on the remote.

Other than that, I had to get some self-stick velcro to make the remote receiver stay on the monitor frame. The little sticky disc that came with it doesn't stick very well.

The documentation and guidance, even the pdf on the CD installation disk, leaves a lot to be desired. Unless you get real lucky, you might have to be a bit computer nerdy to figure it all out. There is a user manual on the disk that might be helpful. I didn't use it.

I tried the ATI 650 PCI card , and found this Geniatech to be a better product. ATI's "catalyst" software suite is useless but will waste hours and drive you crazy before you realize it. The ATI also has separate Analog and Digital input coax connectors, and requires you to change the coax connectors for analog to digital coax inputs. The FM radio will only pick up on the digital coax input. I bought a used ATI card, and the digital receiver didn't even work. So I used a digital-to-analog converter box for OTA reception, and used the analog coax input, and ended up using the Arcsoft software from this Geniatech. The catalyst software would not record at all.

And, oh yes, happy to say, there are no real toxic vapor residues coming off the geniatech card, from its plastics or materials. As a severely chemically sensitive person, that's a real plus for me.

This card was terrible all around in my experience. I am on Analog cable. The picture looked worse than my Avermedia and Vixs(HP installs these) tuners. Whenever I went to their website to contact support I found that this company does not even have a US phone number. When I asked about it I was told to deal with the seller, which by now I was already passed their return period. I told the company this and since then have not received a reply.(This was several weeks ago) So pretty much if you need a warranty replacement you are gonna be SOL. My recommendation is to go with a tuner made by Vixs, or go with an Avermedia tuner because they have both been great!(The Avermedia that I have is the Hybrid Volar Max USB 2.0)