Group test: Miniature USB TV tuners

Small computers and televisions have a close relationship. Early PCs commonly used a TV as the display screen and later models relied on CRT monitors, then they moved to LCD monitors. Both display technologies were developed for television.

Most of the components of a television receiver are already present in a PC as hardware, or can easily be simulated by software. The missing components are an aerial pre-amplifier, tuner and, for analogue transmissions, circuitry to convert the analogue signal into a digital format.

For digital terrestrial TV (DVB-T), although the programme signal must be demodulated, conversion isn’t necessary and a plug-in DVB-T adapter can feed the PC with the compressed mpeg2 picture stream.

Internal PCI TV tuner cards have been with us for some time, but USB1.1 with a maximum data rate of 12Mbits/sec wasn’t really fast enough for TV use. Only USB2 with its 480Mbits/sec data rate has ample bandwidth to handle the 12-20Mbits/sec of compressed high-definition TV (HDTV) or the 4-6Mbits/sec of compressed standard broadcast (Pal) TV.

The latest and smallest DVB-T adapters reviewed here look just like USB2 Flash drives (or ‘sticks’). Although they all ship with a miniature aerial, in many locations its low sensitivity and lack of directionality won’t be good enough and, as it says in the small print for most, a full-size, digital-compatible roof aerial will be needed.

This limits the promise of portablility these DVB-T tuners offer unless you’re in a strong signal area. But if you’re going to use them in your study or hotel room where you have access to an aerial, they’re a cheap way to get some free entertainment.

This article is part of a group test of miniature USB TV tuners. Others are: 
Freecom DVB-T USB Stick
Hauppauge WinTV-HVR 900
KWorld DVBT-350U
MSI Mega Sky 580
Pinnacle PCTV USB Stick
Terratec Cinergy Hybrid T USB XS

Editor's choice: page 2

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