Thursday, June 18, 2009

USB digital TV receiver

During the Tech Tuesday segment on KOLD News 13 Live This Morning, Andy showed: a personalized coffee mug from RocketLife.Com, a World of Warcraft Battle Chest, Pinnacle Studio 12 for Video Editing and Creation, and an Encore Electronics USB DTV Tuner...



The Encore Electronics ENUTV-DAT USB ATSC Digital TV Tuner is powered by the USB port. An infrared remote control, and antenna, is included.

The HDTV resolution goes to 1920 x 1080i. You can schedule for a program to be recorded. And time-shifting allows for the recording, and playback, of live television broadcasts...at the same time! Files are recorded in iPOD, PSP MPEG-4, and Windows CE-WMV formats. Images can be captured in JPEG and BMP formats...

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Encore sent the unit to us months ago, and I tried it, but decided to withhold posting a review because of all of the changes in the final date for digital conversion.

A CD is included that has the software needed for the unit. When I inserted the CD into my computer, the Drivers & Utilities Installation menu appeared. The first item on the menu is Setup Utility...the second item is Setup Driver. The handbook states to install the driver, then the utility...

After doing so, I connected the device and an error message appeared: "The device cannot be detected or is not supported." After restarting the computer, and connecting the device, it was recongized.

When I tested it I was in the northwest area of Tucson (Marana), inside of a coffee shop. The signals from the stations could not be expected to be very strong. One of the reasons I was trying to wait as long as possible about posting this review is because some will be increasing their power, but I don't know when that will be and if there are stations in my area that will be.

I was able to get KVOA (Channel 4), and KHRR (Channel 40)...and our local PBS affliate, KUAT. KUAT impressed me the most:

KUAT6/HD
http://tv.azpm.org/kuat/
"271" (channel 27.1)

KUAT 6-Kids-HD.
http://tv.azpm.org/kids/
"272" (channel 27.2)

PBS-World
http://tv.azpm.org/world/
"273" (channel 27.3)

If you look at their website, there appear to be at least two more channels available.

Andy and I have tried other digital television receivers, and feel that...based on our experiences...outdoor amplified antennae should seriously be considered when at all possible.

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