Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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33 of 34 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
XP - 4 Stars, Vista 2 Stars - Broken FM with Vista, June 23, 2007
=== Pros ===
Works well with Windows XP MCE, providing dual outboard TV tuners, FM tuners,and MCE remote that all work well under XP MCE. TV tuners also work well under Vista (but not FM).
=== Cons ===
No Adaptec support, support page, or drivers to download. Almost no 3rd party "geek forum" support, either. Drivers can be difficult to load in XP and Vista. FM sound completely unusable under Vista (possible driver problem). Product is like the once-famous Intel Pocket Concert music player: Excellent, ahead of its time, then mysteriously not supported shortly after its release.
=== Under XP ===
I bought the Adaptec AVC 3610 (Dual TV Tuner w/FM) 18 month ago from Dell in Jan-2006 to go with my then new XPS600 with XP MCE. The FM tuner was an added bonus. Though skeptical of the video quality capable from an external USB device, I was pleasantly surprised.
The TV picture quality was excellent and there was no discernable distortion, hesitation, or jerkiness on my Dell 24" wide screen LCD main monitor nor on my 17" CRT 2nd monitor. Loading the drivers was a little problematic at first but a few un-installs and automatic reloads seemed to fix it.
=== Under Vista ===
Problems occurred when I loaded the XPS 600 with Vista Ultimate a few months ago as a 2nd partition using dual boot. As with XP the 3610's drivers didn't load right at first and I had to uninstall them, let Vista find them again, and so on.
HOWEVER, although the TV tuners seem to work just as well as they did under XP, the FM radio terribly distorted - like a weak or very badly tuned station with lots of noise and distortion. I thought I lost my FM antenna connection. I rebooted XP and all was fine. I boot back to Vista and still terrible!
Contrary to reports I've seen from others, the remote control that came with it works fine for me under both XP MCE and Vista MCE. Obviously, you have have the 3610 situated in line-of-sight and point the remote at it for it to work. I initially was guilty of that DUH! when I mounted the unit on a shelf so my remote could not receive its IR signal.
=== Other things ===
I was a little disappointed in that the package does not come with much but, then again, not much else is needed. You get the main unit, the remote, some cables, and a CD. But the CD doesn't seem to have much other than documentation. The drivers are provided by Windows. I expected at least some kind of utility to test the unit and/or tune the TV/radio stations for fun or testing outside of Windows MCE.
Thus, it is important to note that you MUST have already Windows Media Center or some other compatible tuner software to use the unit at all. Some graphics and video editor programs that an import from Windows drivers might also be able to capture images from it but that's not a method usable for normal TV viewing or Radio listening.
Lastly, although the product is listed here as "PVR 3610", it's chassis label states the model number as "AVC 3610". Stranger still, Adaptec doesn't use model numbers to refer to it in the rare places it shows up on its web site. It states the model simply as "Dual TV Tuner". Did Adaptec move to China?
All fog aside, it is simply a dual TV tuner with FM radio tuner that does NOT intrinsically provide any PVR (personal video recorder) functionality. PVR functions are provided solely by Windows Media Center or other software that you must already have.
I give it 4 stars for XP because Adaptec does not seem to support the product even though it is one of their models and otherwise works great!
I give it 2 stars for Vista since the FM radio doesn't work, there are no drivers available, and there is no support.
I give it 3 stars as an total rating, to average the above findings.
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Works as described, November 26, 2007
The Adaptec Dual TV Tuner 3610 Kit has turned out to be a great purchase. I bought it to replace a PCI TV Tuner card for two reasons: to receive a digital signal, and to allow simultaneous viewing and recording of two independent channels. Although my only HDTV source is over-the-air, this tuner does a fine job. Pairing it with a good HDTV antenna makes a beautiful picture.
Pros:
* Works great on Windows Media Centre 2005. (I've not tried on other OSs)
* Easy setup
* Several connection options
Cons:
* Relies on Windows MCE for digital tv signal strength; would be really nice to have a separate tool.
* FM radio reception is less than stellar, though it may just be my antenna placement.
* Support seems somewhat limited, not that I've had any need to use it.
As a special note, I think Adaptec marketing folks were over-zealous in slapping the acronym "PVR" on this device; it has no inherent capabilities to do this, or any additional software to do this. It relies solely on Windows MCE for this function. MCE does a fine job of that, but that's beside the point.
Overall I think this is a very good product. Its biggest fault is that it's the first of a kind (usb dual tv tuner), and thus doesn't have much following in the market or good product documentation. If you're a bit of a tech nut, you can probably figure most of it out on your own anyway.
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Perfect for cable connected MCE (XP/VISTA), January 24, 2009
I have built many and have been using Home Theater PC's (HTPC) since 2002 and currently have 7 HTPC capable deployed throughout my house. I prefer dual tuners over single tuners and I've used many different types of TV tuners to include brands from Hauppauge, Adaptec, Aver Media, Nvidia, EVGA, ATI, etc... they all have their positive and negatives but I've pretty much given up on all products except for Hauppauge and Adaptec.
I have just recently retired 2 Hauppauge dual tuners for the moment. While Hauppauge is perfect for 32-bit Vista and XP, I recently upgraded to 64-bit Vista and the card recognition by MCE as well as recordings are very buggy. Also, my Hauppauge tuners seems to be picky as to the type of hardware combinations used in the HTPC build; finally they are tall as well as long boards and a small system cannot be built around it.
Although Adaptec is considered legacy equipment, I've fallen back in love with these dual tuners and plan to buy several more before they become extinct to purchase.
At first I didn't want to have anything external to my PC; I technically still don't. That's the main reasons why these tuners didn't grow on me at first. After a couple of years, of having several computers blow up on me due to heat issues or raising the noise Db level in the room due to additional case fans... I rediscovered the worth of these tuners. These tuners are actually my longest lasting tuners and I have never had a problem with heat or noise issues.
PRO's:
1. Currently less than 2/3 the price of what I originally paid for when they first came out.
2. Dual tuners allows multi-task capabilities:
a. Records using provided hardware, doesn't drain or slow down computer resources.
b. Able to flip through channels and watch tv while recording another channel.
c. Able to record 2 channels and watch recorded shows.
3. No degradation in recording based on settings. While the quality of BEST is fantastic, I set my recording to Good to save on disk space; still excellent recording quality.
4. I've strapped 2 Adaptec's using MCE Extender to one of my HTPC's and able to record 4 channels at once; never had an issue.
5. Comes with more cables than you will ever need.
6. MCE remote and stand included.
7. Automatically recognized by Vista 32 and 64-bit versions.
8. Decent FM Tuner
9. Can control converter/cable/satelite boxes.
10. Unlike internal cards, does not add heat or elevate temperature within PC.
11. Two tuners takes up one USB slot.
CONS:
1. External - but low footprint.
2. Requires line of site with remote so tuners cannot be hidden.
3. Although haven't tried anything else like MediaPortal, documentation states for MCE use only; which I prefer anyways so not really a con.
4. Not automatically recognized by XP; however, software is easily obtainable online or with provided disk.
My two cents worth: As far as HD or digital TV is concerned, AINOKEA!
I'm hooked up directly from cable (No converter box), to the Adaptec dual tuner, to the PC, and then to my LCD; I'm more than happy with the recording quality; approximately 1.7 - 2.4GB's per hour versus more than 5Gb's per Hour for HD.
Hawaii has already switched to HD or Digital OTA transmissions and they've stated in the mean time we don't have to do anything if we are connected to basic cable. Yes, eventually basic cable will transition to all digital... but I don't see it happening anytime soon... maybe wishful thinking.
Well, if you are geekier than I am and want to invest alot of money towards recording HD content, you may as well also invest in a lot more disk space as well. Don't get me wrong, I have a couple of hybrid cards stashed away that is capable of recieving digital signals, but today, tomorrow, next week, next month... I won't need them.
If you decide to go the economical way to build a dedicated HTPC then I whole heartedly recommend the Adaptec Dual TV tuner? I think $60.00 is good investment for today's current cable situation; it's definitely a good start to build your own experience without spending too much money.
In addition to tv tuners, other experiences has taught me to use a 500 - 750GB Hard drive (currently under $80) while setting the system to record in Good or Better quality. Don't forget to download a really good freeware TV commercial cutter but stay away from those software that converts it to a different file format because the naming convention is terrible and doesn't retain any of the TV shows underlying metadata.
I'm still looking for the perfect HTPC case. Stay far far away from built in monitor cases; especially MonCaso... ugh! So expensive and disappointing in the end; stick to something functional; the aesthetics will wear off sooner than you know. Once you upgrade to blu-ray, these types of cases become nightmares.
Hope this helps you Novice HTPC builders and I apologize for the rambling.
- ME
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