Customer Reviews

Sabrent TV-USBHD Dual ATSC & Digital HDTV and Analog TV Tuner / Video Capture USB 2.0 Pendrive with Remote Control and Antenna Vista Ready

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(22)
3 star:		(13)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(28)

 

 

This worked for me quite well, and I'm glad I chose this tuner. The picture and sound, especially with HD, are perfect. You have to have good reception though. I hooked mine up to an old, outdoor analogue antenna and got fairly good results. Better reception than on my analogue TV with converter box. I then tried the included antenna outside, stuck to the side of my house. I get all 14 of my local channels and the reception on digital channels is great. Of course, analogue will be useless in a few months. I strongly recommend a good, outdoor digital antenna with this. Without good reception, you'll have a host of problems, including video and audio getting out of sync (which can be corrected by reloading the channel) and poor picture/sound quality, etc.. It's fairly resource intensive on HD channels, and multitasking can sometimes be a problem, albeit very little. This is the cheapest, and I think, the best way to get HDTV, though, because of the DVR functions and the convenience of it.

The included software (Blaze HDTV Player 3.5) is adequate, and has some nice features, but is rather buggy and leaves a lot to be desired. There are other software solutions, like the great freeware The KMPlayer and Cyberlink Powercinema (not worth your trouble). VLC also supports ATSC in a new, beta version. None of which, of course, will work with the remote. After trying about four other programs, I'm back to Blaze though. It's actually pretty good, comparatively. Its included Electronic Program Guide is a bit of a joke, and necessary to schedule recordings, but there's a good, online guide at[...]. And, so far, I haven't been able to get Blaze to work on multiple monitors.

To summarize, I highly recommend it *if* you can get good reception. I recommend "Antennas Direct DB2 Multi Directional HDTV Antenna," if the included antenna doesn't work for you. Digital reception should get better in June though, when stations make the full conversion to DTV.

[update] My Sierra 881 aircard causes this tuner to not work. I can go from having all channels, to only a few, when the aircard is inserted in the expresscard slot, suggesting that the wireless signal interferes with the TV signal.

1- What I don't like:
I basically buy it because of the price and because it came with the little antenna and the remote control, but both are useless, with the remote you have to be so close to the laptop that at the end is easier with the keyboard to change the channels or turn on the volume and the antenna does not help at all to get air channels, as a workaround you can try one of those rabbit ears antenna.
2-The good part:
The device itself works fine with cable and it is easy to install, the software is nice too and easy to record and set it up to record a program while you're gone.

A good option for traveling or record something that you don't want to miss

The TV-USBHD tuner is very easy to install; in order to tune Analog or HDTV channels you might have to do several attempts (by try and error) to select Analog or HDTV source, but when you figure out that you are done (Right click over display area...). The scanning of the channels could take a lot of time, just make sure your antena is placed well and you don't live in a basement he he, otherwise good.

Bottom line: For me at least, this TV tuner works.

Note my user name, "Q1User." A Q1 is a "UMPC" that dates back to around 2006. Mine is one of the original versions, no longer offered on Amazon. It has 1 GB of memory and a 1 Ghz processor.
I note this because this TV tuner works on my Q1. The takeaway here is that the computer is WELL below the specs recommended for the TV tuner. The TV tuner also works on a 4-5 year-old Gateway laptop with a 1.6 Ghz processor. A slight bit of "jerky" reception occurs every so often. This is to be expected for my underpowered test computers (I am actually surprised that the tuner does not tax the computers more).

Reading previous reviews, I was wary of this TV tuner. However, because it is priced on the low end of the spectrum for TV tuners, I decided to give it a try. I already have a Hauppage WinTV 950Q TV tuner working satisfactorily on my main computer, a modern Toshiba desktop replacement laptop.

I purchased this TV tuner on a lark, a whim. It has become one of my most pleasantly surprising Amazon purchases. It found ALL of the over-the-air and QAM channels that my primary tuner (the Hauppage WinTV 950Q) does. I watch a movie on one channel , a live football game on another, and a Spanish-language QAM broadcast on another.

Notes:
At least one previous reviewer here said their nonworking tuner did not have Sabrent branding on it. Mine does. The packaging also looks professional and "legit."

My tuner is not a small black "pendrive." My tuner is silver, and much larger than a usb flash drive. It is also larger than the more expensive and better-reviewed Hauppage WinTV 950Q that I own.

I initially could not install the Sabrent TV tuner. But, rather than just attribute the failure to my underpowered computer, I started over and followed the installation instructions to the letter. The instructions are quite simple, actually, and presented on a brief "leaflet." I now believe that is is POSSIBLE (not being accusatory) that SOME failures reported here may be due to the user not doing every step in the brief installation procedure *in the exact order* as stated on the installation leaflet.

Is this a glowing review? Am I saying everyone should order one immediately? No, quite frankly. The Sabrent TV tuner works me, but I will not totally discount the negative experiences of others. I may have just gotten lucky.

I got this thing to work with a roof antenna and 3 low noise amplifiers to boost the signal, and this is in the Washington DC metro area. The supplied antenna is a complete joke

The drivers provided were not valid. After downloading from the webpage, the device has never worked properly, and the waranty has never answered to my mails or phonecalls

Dell latitude D610, 2Megs RAM. It took several tries and about 5 hours to get this device to work. Once you get it working it is just ok. Analog reception is as good as any analog tuner I have (5). Digital reception is sub-par, less than any of the (4) DTV tuners I have.
My best digital receiver gets 10 channels (I live in the sticks) the best I can get is 3 with this tuner.

Am I going to send it back, NO. Would I get another NO.
Seems to have a problem with the software recording past midnight. keeps recording but screen freezes.

If just for casual use, and you don't rely on it to record than you can get by.

I have no problem with the remote, I taught my RF-20 all the commands and it works great. The original remote will not let you change from analog to digital (which sucks)(or from one source to another) so you will still need to mouse around to get what you want.

OK for casual use. If you want more, pay more, I wish I had.

With the proper computer and sofware, like a HP Pavilion 2 GHz Dual Core processor and windows vista home premium, the tuner hardware will function, especially after the drivers are installed. However the locality and type of antenna affect how much performance. The provided antenna brought in one channel which was a vhf band. I am testing with a more directional uhf antenna, and I was able to get some more local channels. So a directional antenna is an important part of the system, and if possible, an antenna signal booster.

The instructions are for Windows XP. It says that when you plug in the tuner into the usb, that you should press the cancel button for the automatic driver installer. Windows 7 does not have this option. After days of frustration with the program crashing and crashing. I finally got it to work really well. In order for this device to work in Windows 7 you first have to plug in the turner. Go to your device manager. Under sounds, video and game controller, you will see 3 Microtune devices. If you don't then go to the cd that it came with and do the autorun to install the drivers. Okay we are not done. Then right click each one and click update driver software. When it asks to look on-line, don't. Instead have it browse your cd player drive. The first two might say that it is up to date - good. Now the audio driver is what has been making mine crash so much. Once it finds the updated driver on the cd it will say that it has an invalided signature on it. Don't worry, install it anyway. Now this device will work a hell of a lot better. It will sometimes crash on you but I find that it does that only after I turn it off - something I can certainly live with. Besides that, omg the quality of the picture of faboulos (HDTV), and the sound is in stereo. The antenna that it comes with extends out, but don't go on the highway with it on the roof of your car. The magnet isn't strong enough for anything over 55mph.I know this from experience. Once you get past all the driver issues, you're going to love this little thing, and certainly impress your friends.

This tuner card is a GREAT VALUE. But you have to be ready for a bit of troubleshooting during the installation. Long story short, you need for forget about the software that comes included in the package and instead go to the manufacturer's web site, go to support and download the latest drivers and software by the model #.

When I made the mistake of trying to install the included software, the installation failed multiple times. Ultimately, I was able to get it installed with that software, but was only able to use the BlazeDTV PVR software, Windows Media Center, MediaPortal and MeediOS would not recognize the Tuner existed. Once I completely uninstalled the bundled software and drivers, and installed the software from the manufacturer's web site, everything ran perfectly. The tuner is recognized perfectly in WMC.