Artec mini usb hdtv tuner= best tv tuner ever!

All I have plugged up is a antenna, and look!

 

nice, i'm assuming tv plays in 1280 x 720 on your laptop?

how many channels can you pull in with it??
Also, does it pull in standard analog stations?
i'm very intersted in this.

good post

 

Well You need a good antenna with it.

And yeah, supports standard def too.

But you need alot of power to draw the hd channels.

 

ohh, so it doesn't support HD over cable? Just over the air?

 

how much does one run you?

 

Well, it could support over cable, I haven't tried.

But it's more fun over the air, as it looks just as good

$60.

 

Which model did you get? I can't find an Artec that has both digital and analog television reception.

 

I second that question, I want to know because I want a better tuner that works in Vista. How is their software? How is its software compatibility?

 

It's perfect, except when it gets hot and stops receiving signals.

After you use it, you gotta unplug it :-X

http://www.pricegrabber.com/search_techspecs_full.php/masterid=21660546

Video Standard Supported: ATSC (Digital),
NTSC (analog)

 

Pricegrabber's page is wrong. The T14A is a digital tuner only.

http://www.artec.com.tw/ehtm/be124.htm

Thinking of getting the Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-950.

 

not bad at all...it could be purchased here
w/remote
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=324901

w/o remote
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=324900&prodlist=pricegrabber

http://www.pcworld.com/product/userreviews/prtprdid,21660546/userreviews.html

 

Hmm, with TV tuners, is it possible to use a Windows Media Center 2005 remote? I got the remote'd edition for movies, music, and most especially, TV. I'ma buy a TV tuner next week, and I'd sure like to know if my remote would work. It came with an infrared somethingorother which has something that looks like an audio jack-Male. Do tuners have somehwere where I plug it in?

Thread hijacked with a semi-messy message. It'll take a couple of reads to make sense of what I'm asking.

 

How compatible is it with Vista home premium features?
I don't have my laptop to really know what the media center features of vista premium are, but I'm guessing it's a lot like media center...?

 

You say it is the best USB tuner. But based on what comparison? I have reviewed Pinnacle USB stick, ATI Wonder USB 600 stick, FusionHDTV and WinTV HVR 950. All of them USB TV tuner sticks.

The absolute and total winner is FusionHDTV. I believe this is a Korean manufacturer. One thing you can see when you compare the sticks is how they are similar. They are most likely using same technology and same outsourced and subcontracted manufacturer and supplier.

FusionHDTV is very different in design from the other pack. It is from aluminium, so it cools better and even if it gets hot it doen't shut down as Artec.

I would wonder whether someone could actually compare Artec with FusionHDTV.

WinTV - old software (didn't change since 10 years), but OK. Picture poor. Setup just so so. No remote included. Cumbersome setup.

Wonder Visiontek TV - the software is poorly designed. They tried to preplicate the Media Centre. But looks too bad. Setup OK, but configuration is annoying. Listening to Radio and Watchin TV. But the whole process is annoying. Picture OK but few channels. Remote include, thin, but pretty usable.

Pinnacle - good picture but software sucks. Installation problem. Starting problem. Tried on different computers. Always problem with some error messages. Software use OK but nothing great. Small remote, handy but very difficult to use.

FusionHDTV - total winner. Software fantastic. Nice, good looking, good picture, stable. Very nice and good remote. The only thing Fusion doesn't have is it doesn' come with an antenna (I believe, but perhaps it did came with antenna, I am not sure since received all 4 packages the same time and I mixed up the antennas).

Anyway I would recommend Fusion HDTV.

---
I am not familiar with Artec but I would like to challenge calling it the best USB TV stick before it actually is compared to others. Just my 5 cents. But thanks for review, I didn't know about Artec TV stick.

Hope this helps someone.

 

Polocanada... you like reviving dead threads, huh?

 

Actually I didn't check the date, I don't care. Who google it, thy find it ;-)

 

bump......

OK not only to put this thread on top again but also to finish a most complete review on USB Stick TV receivers (ATSC Compliant at least, so this is not review for their European standard counterpart models)....

I bought and tested this Artec TV tuner (Artec T18AR Mini USB 2.0 Digital TV Tuner ATSC/QAM)... http://www.artec.com.tw/

The result is astounding, really. Not only has this tuner the best antenna. The antenna has kind of cheap looking, flat surface style, but to my surprise, seems to be very functional. I could receive 2-3 more digital channels with this antenna than with the antennas that came with the other USB TV receivers as discussed in my previous post above. If using the antenna with my Fusion TV even the analog TV got better and sharper picture. You can also buy the antenna separately.
http://www.artec.com.tw/ehtm/products/an2.htm

The installation went fabulous. 2 minor glitches: There were 2 CDs in the package. Both look same. One is newer one is older version of software. Not sure why they include both. After install, I couldn't find the software. I had to search computer to find it.

Windows Media Center did recognise the tuner however it complained the hardware is not compatible with Canada. Perhaps I don't have the setting set up properly in MCE.

So switching back to the application that came with the Artec TV tuner. The application is very straightforward, easy to use. I would say equaly good is Fusion TV in this aspect. However, Artec doesn't receive Analog TV, only digital. That's not ideal, since I watch 2 or 3 programs with Fusion TV that aren't yet digital.

Altogether I have 9-10 digital channels for free. That's pretty decent for the place I live. Today is bad weather (we have snow flurry today). I wonder how many more I can catch when there is a nice...

This review should give it full marks, I don't understand why only 2.5:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2064795,00.asp

ooops... this guy was unhappy...
http://discuss.pcmag.com/forums/1004353404/ShowPost.aspx

Artec also offers a version of the same stick with Digital, Analog and QAM and FM Tuner. With remote... Wow. For sure I am going to try that one as well.

Cheers.

 

i like this one pinac le 880e, but the software does not compare to avermedia or leadtek . also where i live no free to air HD channels. it gets hd and anolog and interweb radio plus it stores shows on the usb stick to take with me and share if need be .
where in canda do they have 9-10 free to air hd channels ?
http://www.pinnaclesys.com/PublicSi...rs/PCTV+Flash_TV+Stick/PCTV+HD+Ultimate+Stick