Customer Reviews

Sabrent TV-LCDHR Stand Alone TV Tuner Box (NTSC) with Picture in Picture for TV/CRT/TFT and Plasma Monitor/Projectors

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(15)

 

 

While I was eager to try it, and the price was good... the first one failed to work altogether out of the box, and the 2nd failed after a week. I love small Chinese companies for their willingess to try and impersonate big corporate products... but the results is always the same. Poor quality and utter failure to deliver as the more illustrious counterparts. Maybe some day small chinese electronics will actually all work, but until then I'd recommend finding a VCR or DVDR-- spend the money for a tuner that works if you need one :) or a graphics card that has S-video or some other output that works with your tuner-less monitor.

Ordered this despite the bad reviews, which mostly read as if they were written by knuckledraggers. If you've got a desktop PC that you'd like to attach a cable feed to without involving the operating system, this is perfect. (A TV tuner card or USB tuner will allow you to record media and so forth, but it will almost certainly tax your PC and there may be problems with software and driver compatibility.) This isn't something you want to use for over-the-air TV unless you've got one of those converters for the new digital signals, and you wouldn't want to rely on the tiny embedded speaker for the audio, either.

But if you've got an existing PC monitor with speakers, this is damn near perfect. The picture-in-picture feature is not what I thought it was; it's better. It's not traditional PIP; it allows you to watch TV while you're using your computer. It's picture-in-computer-picture, which can be handy in lots of ways. The box itself is extremely compact, and the remote works well. I have not hooked up a DVD player or game system up to it, but the jacks are there to do so. Again, it does not have as sophisticated an audio card as your PC or DVD player or game system does, so if you hook them together, the sound quality you're used to will suffer somewhat; but not THAT much. (When you want superior audio quality from your PC or DVD player or game system, simply reconnect the speakers straight to it. For day-to-day tasks, however, leaving everything interconnected is perfectly fine.)

If there are too many asterisks in this review for you or you have exceptional requirements for audio and video quality, keep looking - and you'll have to spend more. But if I'd known I could've turned my PC into a perfect serviceable TV for just $40, I would've bought this years ago.

I couldn't make this tuner work. There were no directions included but it seemed pretty straight forward. I wrote the manufacturer they were no help at all. I hooked it up to a CRT monitor, it scanned for about 20 minutes and found 3 stations I think. My Tv gets six and my Tv converter box gets 26 with the same antenna. It's hard to tell since none were clear enough to watch. The sound was terrible. The reception was like UHF with no UHF antenna. While at the same time in the same spot my antenna reception for both my Tv and my converter box is excellent. When I wrote to the seller they answered and agreed to take it back. They also educated me to the difference between ATSC-non-digital broadcast, which this device is, and NTSC which is digital. I'm astonished they are still marketing a product that will be obsolete in a matter of weeks. Beware!

This product isa mess, this functions in display won't work properly and the image is not good, don't buy it even under 10 bucks !

Upgraded my PC's monitor from 19" to 23". Converted the 19" LCD into a TV
monitor in one of my workout rooms. Converter box is not fancy - but works well
and is easy enough to operate. I am running this with standard cable TV, coax hookup.
No idea if this would work with Direct TV or Dish Network.

**Note: do not use any power cord other than the one provided by the mfr. The first
one I bought fried when my wife used a different power cord that fit.

I was really skeptical when I got the product because of all the negative reviews, but I didn't really have any other choice, since this was one of the few that were eligible for Amazon Prime... I took a chance and I am extremely happy. It works perfectly, installation was a breeze and the box came with everything needed. Quite a few channels were scanned (not sure if all), and the quality was okay (Please don't expect HD quality, this is not an HD tuner)..

I bought this unit to cheaply convert an unused Acer LCD PC monitor into a TV. The picture quality isn't perfect, but for $40 I wasn't expecting perfect. The installation was simple. I hooked it up to the monitor, then to my DirecTV box and started watching TV in less than 5 minutes. I now have a TV in my spare room for $40 and also "recycled" my monitor. Definitely a win-win situation for me.

I bought 2 of these, one in each of my kids room, they don't have a computer hooked up to the monitors and this little guy lets them play cable tv to the monitors, they have dvd players hooked up as well, via s video and audio cable < not included >

they have them on all day, I have yet to see one get hot, or not work properly.

display image is pretty clear, about 90% quality compared to a normal flat screen tv. and from 10 feet away you really can't tell the difference.

I would buy another if the need was there. and I would recommend these to anyone wanting to use their computer monitor as a tv without sending the signal through their computer < no pc needed! >

and best of all,, the price is right!

minus one star because the speakers in the unit are pretty bad. make sure you grab some cheap desktop speakers and your good.

Purchased through Amazon, this product arrived in short order. It is a cheap alternative or addition to a first TV. You can hook it right up to your cable or satellite, and it is surprising to see the number of channels which do not require the cable box.

The TV picture on the monitor is not quite as good as a digital TV, but it is still very good. Be prepared to have the tuner box in your lap or no more than one foot away from the 'clicker'.

I went ahead and ordered this despite some of the other reviews. I had a 22" hi-res monitor that I really wanted to hook to the TV cable output (channel 3/4) of my satellite receiver so I could install extend it into another room. I hooked up the coax input and the VGA cable output, set the tuner to channel 3, and it worked immediately. A little fiddling with the monitor adjustments and the Mode switch on the tuner (wide range of hor/vert/refresh settings are available) and I had a full screen picture of pretty good quality. If you're expecting more, I don't think you're going to get it at this price. Some fuzziness caused by translation from a 480i signal to something higher is to be expected unless you spend a lot more money. On the other hand, if you set the sharpness and brightness/contrast on your monitor properly, the result is satisfying. I have used a VCR and a DVDR before to accomplish the same thing, and frankly neither did any better and they were more difficult to connect. I don't think I could give any product of this type 5 stars, so take that into account. Maybe you could do better if you actually had a VGA monitor, but I haven't seen one of those in ten years. The flexibility of input and output is really quite good and overall I thought the tuner was well worth the money I spent.