Was in Michigan for the Thanksgiving sale this past weekend and picked up a VisionTek HD600 usb, will come in handy to pass the time when the family taking their time in the malls.

BestBuy had this VisionTek HD600 usb digital/analog tuner for $60.00.
http://pic20.picturetrail.com/VOL83/536944/4741575/290181362.jpg

Sitting in a parking lot with the supplied whip antenna is pulled in all of Detroit HD stations. Was watching Nfl. Great

http://pic20.picturetrail.com/VOL83/536944/4741575/290175351.jpg

It was sunny and warm today Sunday the 25th.
http://pic20.picturetrail.com/VOL83/536944/4741575/290175354.jpg

Ryan,
I've purchased the OnAir Creator. After patiently wait for 12 days. paid much with canadian taxes. I got a lemon unit. It will not power on, no matter what. What should I do? I am going out of town like right after I receive my product. I am out for entire 4 days. Is there anything I should do or I should exchange one from copperbox.com?Hi N418,
I seemed to have missed your post, and I just now found it while reviewing this thread (9 months later.) Did you resolve the issue? The OnAir Creator needs both the USB and power supply plugged in for the LEDs to turn on. If it indeed was defective, did you get it replaced by CopperBox?

Sorry for the really really long response. I don't know how I missed your reply! I'd be happy to assist you if you still have problems with your unit.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

hugh,
I know a number of people here were looking forward to your take on the OnAir GT that you received. Did you have a chance to review it?

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Happy Holidays to everyone!

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

-- Ryan Pertusio

AutumnWave Technical Support
OnAir Solution North America
http://www.AutumnWave.com

Hi,

I was looking into setting up my PC as a TV. I wanted to know whether or not TV tuner external units would allow me to watch higher channels? I am in the Toronto area and have Rogers Cable, I receive higher channels such as the Fight Network which is channel 427 in my area. Do all tuners allow you to go up to such a high channel?

thanks in advance

Rogers Cable Channel numbers have nothing to do with the real channel numbers. They can map a channel to any single or multiple numbers.

thanks for the response. I still am not sure whether or not that means I would be able to view these channels with a PC tuner? I've emailed tuner makers including the Sling Box company, and I still haven't gotten a direct answer from them. Basically I want to know whether I would be able to watch these channels on my computer with an external tuner.

thanks again

Cable channel numbers are virtual. It has no bearing on how and where the actual channel is sent in the cable stream.

That said, chances are the channel will be digital, and encrypted, which means no USB or PCI digital tune card will get that or other digital channels.

The only way to get digital channels from Rogers, isto use their box connected to an analog SD input (for now, HD later when that Hauppauge component capture card is launched.)

I picked up a Hauppauge HVR-950 USB stick on sale at Best Buy for $70. I installed the drivers but quickly uninstalled their horrible software (which wasn't able to even scan for ATSC channels), and immediately started looking for something else.

There's this tiny viewer program called EasyHDTV (it's a single .exe file, about 380k) that does almost everything I want. Using it, and the tiny antenna that comes in the box, I could get 5-6 ATSC channels. I live in North York.

HDTV quality is quite amazing, and especially good when true HD broadcasts are being delivered (like CityNews). I watched a movie on SunTV last night and it was like having a DVD streamed to me. Of course, it's higher than DVD quality, but on a 17" CRT monitor I can't really take advantage of 1080i in its fullest.

For those of you who are not using your manufacturer's included viewer software, which 3rd-party (and preferably free) ones would you recommend? I've been having a surprisingly hard time finding something that's not some giant bloated all-inclusive PVR suite with 50000 features that I don't need. EasyHDTV is nice, but doesn't have an EPG and won't let me zoom/crop away the black bars when SD content is broadcast at 1920x1080, and also costs $.

A lot of the programs I've tried also installed their own crappy AC3/MPEG2 codecs and didn't let me customize my own (PureVideo for MPEG2 and ffdshow for the audio).

Also, has anyone found out yet if there's a difference between the HVR-950 and HVR-980 (which is what the USB device claims to be when located by Windows)?

Have you tried WatchHDTV (http://watchhdtv.net/)? It works nicely with the HVR-950.

Yep, I've tried WatchHDTV. I had trouble scanning for channels so I had to input them manually. My problem with it is that it lacks an EPG feature. Otherwise it works pretty well.

I think the only program I've tried that successfully managed to get a working EPG is TSReader, but that program is more of a debugging tool than a program for watching TV (it can stream to VLC though, apparently). On the bright side, I've learned quite a bit about MPEG2 transport streams and ATSC using that program!

Hi

I just bought an Hauppauge HVR 950 @ Futureshop. They didnt want to pricematch with NCIX LOL, finally they did so I got it for 73 + taxes.

I live in montreal, in a penthouse on the 20 th floor at 5 minutes from downtown Montreal. The antenna cables work just fine, but I dont care, I primarely bought it for the ATSC thing. So I opened wintv (the software that came with) and clicked on the sources TAB. Then chose ATSC source. I tried scanning with both tuning mode which are "All channels"(which took 4 hours...:o) and "Channels by country". Both scans didnt find an HD channel?
I'm suppose to be getting TQSHD, TVAHD,SRCHD atleast but I dont get any...

Is there another sotware which can scan for ATSC channels? Or am I doing something wrong?

Thanks for the help.
(Pardon me for my english, the grammar sucks I know)

TVA does not broadcast in ATSC yet. Only CBC, SRC & TQS in Montreal plus some american stations.

I never got the WinTV software to work with my HVR-950. I used WatchHDTV (free) but it doesnt have a scan feature as far as I know. You have to put the setting manually (click on image).
http://img362.imageshack.us/img362/7315/watchhdtvyz1.th.jpg (http://img362.imageshack.us/my.php?image=watchhdtvyz1.jpg)

Thanks alot for your reply, I really appreciate it!

But I tried every channel and no one works :( Isnt ATSC supposed to be like (-1) on subchannel?

Ah I dont know why it is not working. I live next to the "Oratoire St-Joseph"...maybe it can help.

I think I'll just bring it back at Futureshop:(

The "-1" as you mention would be the subchannel as in "19-1" or "2-1" depending if you are stating the actual frequency being broadcasted on (UHF19) or the remapped channel virtual number (same number as the current analog station to reduce the confusion of some people).

I took the screenshot with the configuration for SRC (RF19, Sub-Channel 1). The «Channel» in the setup of WatchHDTV is the Virtual channel number as mentioned previously.

Near the Oratoires St-Joseph (and in Cotes-des-Neiges), the Mt. Royal will most likely block the signal for DIGITAL version of SRC, CBC and TQS since they are broadcasting from their own building and not at the top of the Mt. Royal where the ANALOG version is currently located.

When using WatchHDTV in the setup screen I showed, after you have entered the values (SRC, 19, 1, 2) and clicked on «TUNE CH.», what does the «Signal Str» shows? You can click on it to have a continuously updated info since the box only refresh about 10 times then stays with a number. Here, with the HVR-950, my % bar goes from 0 to ~32000 and requires ~17000 to be able to decode the signal.

The provided antenna is not that great in the retail package.

Does anyone else have this tuner? Apart from the crappy software, it is very interesting. I have a Samsung T451 which has some difficulty with the three OTA stations in Vancouver (which is just across Burrard Inlet from me) but the ati 650 does not have any problem using the same antenna I was using on the T451. The ati has 2 Samsung tuners (analog and digital). Does this mean that the 650 has a newer generation of tuner?

The t451's are quite a bit older than the 650 stick - it's almost guaranteed to have a newer generation (650)
Your results are indicative of this as well.

Hi, I have some quick questions about laptop tv tuners. I'm looking to buy a USB tv tuner that I can plug into my laptop and I plan on using the antenna that comes with it to watch television channels. Can someone possibly tell me whether I would get any channels in Waterloo using the antenna that comes with the tv tuner? I'm moving to the University of Waterloo campus and I'm wondering whether I'll be able to get any channels using this device. Also, if its possible, can someone suggest the best device for me to use since Ive been looking into the Pinnacle PCTV HD Pro Stick but I'm not completely sure about it since I don't know a lot about this technology. Thanks.

Can't answer the Waterloo question, but I can answer the others. (See the OTA forum for info on waterloo reception.)

Basically, the USB stick tuners are all very very very similar.
The only differences you'll find are the included software, antenna, and/or remote. (not all have remotes)
I can tell you right now, the included antenna MAY work, but it will give you nowhere near the reception ability of a proper outdoor antenna (I speak from experience here :p)

Is the AutumnWave the best usb tv tuner or is there a newer, better device on the market?

I read the post on the Autumn Wave GT and it generally seems positive but is a bit old.

I want to use the device with a 2 year old Dell Laptop, over the air only.

Comments? Guidance?

Larry

We have an extensive discussion on USB TV Tuners here.

of the many discussed, the Autumn Wave is very good. It's the one I use. ;)

I've had an Autumnwave GT since the second software update. I use it with a Sony XP laptop. It has a great tuner (5th gen) but don't rely on the small supplied antenna, you won't get much with it. I attach it to a CM 4228 on a 30ft tower and get every channel but results will vary.