USB 2.0 NTSC TV Tuner Stick - U718

Other products by Geniatech

Product Details

• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• ASIN: B001469ISY
• Item model number: U718
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #34,401 in Electronics (See Bestsellers in Electronics)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: February 16, 2008

Product Description

Product Description
U718 is Pen-size USB TV Stick which turns your PC into a multimedia center. The slim and compact design make it truly portable! Enjoy NTSC/PAL TV entertainment whenever you like and wherever you go. This device also acts as a PVR (personal video recorder) with scheduling capability and time shifting function. Features: Watch TV on your laptop or desktop. Worldwide support of NTSC, PAL, and SECAM. Supports up to 181 channels. Rewind and fast forward live TV shows with Time Shifting recording Auto-scan and full channel scan Schedule TV recording and save directly to your HDD Full function remote control USB bus power, no extra power adapter required Still image snapshot, save image to BMP file Support Windows XP/Vista Specification: Input Terminal: 75Ohm IEC (PAL) Connector Receiving Frequency: TV: 48.25~863.25MHz Fully PAL/NTSC/SECAM TV standard Compliant USB Interface Universal Serial Bus2.0 Standard B Type USB male Connector System Requirements: P4-1.4GHz CPU or above 128 MB RAM (minimum), 256 MB RAM recommended VGA card with 32MB. CD-ROM Microsoft DIRECTX9.0 or above Windows XP Service Pack 2/Vista 32bit OS One free USB2.0 interface Available 30M HDD (install driver and application), add 600M/h-3G/h for recording Package Contents: Geniatech U718 Remote control with battery USB Cable Quick Installation Guide Drivers and application CD

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent!, November 4, 2008

By	Zhiping Liu (CA, USA) - See all my reviews

Little cute pieces! works very fine in my notebook. The good price ($34 including shipment) and slim volume (a bit larger than your flashdisk) are the reason I choose. USB 2.0 is enough to watch TV fluently. Drivers on Vista (XP not tested) is also very easy. The only inconvenience is it can not suit to my TV output one the wall, I have to buy one convert adapter.
Provided by the software a full language support, seems support TV programs in Asia (not tested yet).

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Fun gadget, but problematic, January 5, 2009

By	Dr. Michael W. Ecker "PC expert critic" (Pennsylvania, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

After some exploration, I have reached the following conclusions:

PRO
1. It does work, but only if you have a cable connection or very good antenna and/or are near TV stations. When I connected my cable, I got very good reception.
2. The company I purchased from was very cooperative in helping me, and even sent an antenna after I complained about not getting one. I was told that future buyers would get at least some kind of antenna.
3. For the low price that I paid ($35?), it's a neat gadget.

CON
1. Documentation is very confusing and in very poor English. For instance, do you attach hardware first, or install software first?
2. Sometimes the program hangs and I have to force a reboot.
3. The little remote stopped working, although, with company help, I got it working again.
4. Antenna included is very weak, unless it's just that I'm too far away from a good source.
5. Overall, I don't feel really in control and the documentation is really no help.
6. Listed price of $72 seems high, and shipping/handling of $20 seems outrageous.

OVERALL
If the product is just, say, $30-$35, it's fun to play with it. But if it's over $90 net, as I think I saw, I am reluctant to endorse this, given all its problems. Note that I originally gave this one star and wanted to up rating to three stars, but Amazon doesn't seem to allow this.

3.0 out of 5 stars Great tuner..Horrible accompanying software., July 6, 2009

By	C. Watson (Colorado, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

First off do not pay more than $30 for this item. Although Amazon lists this item as $70+ the only sellers sell it for around $25-$30. With good reason.

The Good:

It works..but if you use Vista be aware the "Mygica" software required to run this tuner has to shut off Aero to run.

Direct cable connection produces a nice clear picture which effectively turns my laptop into a tv and you can resize and move the tv screen however you like.

Small and fairly unobtrusive.


The Bad:

The Mygica program sucks in just about every way possible. It's old and dated and barely Vista compatible. It adds 2 new and useless icons to the taskbar...and most infuriating is that this tuner apparently doesn't work without Mygica. If only this tuner worked with Windows Media Player or Media Center then it would rate alot higher.

The remote doesn't work but the Mygica adds a remote icon to the taskbar that can't be removed without manually stopping the process in task manager. It is still possible to easily change channels from within the program controls although only channel number are listed. Channel names however are not listed.

No antenna is included. If you plan to connect the cable directly to the tuner you'll have no problems otherwise plan on buying an antenna because one ISN'T included.

No option of custom install for the Mygica program, which installs alot of extra stuff you probably won't want or need...like FM radio which is completely useless with an antenna.

The included Mygica program adds 3 new programs to startup that are unnecessary like "scheduler" and "remote"..so i had manually stop them from running at startup.

Although this Tuner works it also runs hot. Hasn't affected performance yet though.


All in all this tuner is definitely worth exactly $20-$30. Is is a great cheap way to get tv on your pc. I consider it a ok temporary solution until i get a better tuner or a bedroom tv.