e1505 tv tuner

I ordered the external tv tuner with my e1505. What the heck- go for the gusto! Has anyone ordered this? Does it come with a remote control? what has been your experience with this. Something I can use? Or will I just throw it in the bag?

 

well if you are interested in watching TV on your laptop, then you'll probably use it. You should be able to record TV while you are watching it, and as far as I know it does come with a remote.

 

I think Dell's options are Neither, Remote Only, Tuner with Remote.

 

I too ordered this with my e1505, and got a chance to play with it extensively over the past couple days. Heres my 'not so' mini review.

Physical
Its a small box maybe 3"x4" uses a USB2 interface, has Cable, RCA Audio/Video, and SVideo ports. A separate box includes the nice Windows Media Center Remote Control also USB.

Installation
Installation is a snap, just plug them in... their autorecognized and ready to roll due to preinstalled drivers Im assuming.

Usage
It integrates completely with XP Media Center, after you bring up media center settings and go through the TV Settings (to configure for your cable system, etc) you get a new 'My Tv' option in media center.

My TV
This lets you watch live TV, change channels, pick shows from a free on screen Guide, etc. You can also pause/rewind/fastfoward live TV like a Tivo. Works pretty slick.

Recording
You can hit the record button to record a show, or select shows from the guide to record later. It has all the typical tivo options, record series or just one show, recording quality, how long to keep it, etc. You can even watch another previously recorded show while recording something new.

Smart Power Usage
You can use the remote control to 'turn off' your notebook... it will go into a low power state, but still recognize the remote to power itself back on, and will still record shows if scheduled to do so.

Cutting DVDs
Media Center has a pretty slick (read easy to use) option... you can be browsing your Recorded TV shows... and select an option to cut the show to DVD if you have a DVD/RW in your laptop.

Its kinda like having the bonus of a Tivo and Component DVDRW in your notebook.

Gotchas
When I first tried it out, I thought It wasnt going to be a good solution... video was choppy watching live TV. I realized I was on battery power so thought id try it again on AC... and it works great. So its definitely something you would want to do near an outlet. Of course to get a cable signal you probably are near an outlet.

Summary
All in all, its a great value... gonna have alot of fun with it... and its going to serve me well on nights when I have multiple shows id like to record and my Tivos busy.

On a side note... I like the way it works, and the interface so well that Im considering getting a media center PC to replace my aging Tivo device. Its interface is nearly as slick and theres no monthly fee. Just the boot time and noise of a computer that might be a problem.

 

Thanks Alchemist- after your review, many people will have wished they had ordered the TV tuner!

 

Thinking that already... thankfully when I get the $$ I can just buy another one. This sounds awesome... I may (hopefuly) grow to love MCE...

 

What's the part number for the tv tuner? Do you really need to have MCE installed in your computer in order to work? I had it installed when I first got my computer but it was incompatible with a software at work and I had to reformat and go XP pro And another question, I remember a user saying that he could play with a PS2 on his laptop via Tv tuner, have you tried it?

 

Im sure the 'tuner' itself could be used with any TV tuner software, but the only software included with the e1505 is XP Media center Edition. So if your wanting to use it with XP Pro there are alot of other over the counter products that are similar and include their own viewing software.

Theres one hangup with using the tuner + Media Center to play playstation2 games... The software allows time shifting (pause/rewind,etc) live TV... to do that It buffers the signal a bit... which is fine for viewing, but you get lag when its interactive... so you would have screen lag between when you hit the controls and when the figure moved for example. The way around this is to use other software instead of MCE for the viewing... something that doesnt have DVR capabilities and just passes the signal through straight.

 

I wonder if the tuner itself has any lag. I know my desktop tuner does, basically about .5 second but significant enough to not be able to play real time games.

Neb

 

Oh, interesting. I would have to research for a program then. Do you know the part # on Dell website?? I've seen a few but I don't know which one is the one they normally ship.

 

One thing to consider depending on what this thing costs, Dell used to ship the hauppauge tuner, that is what I got. My tuner has an fm radio in it too so the media center gets that too when it sees the hardware to support this. Kind of cool. I also have thoought about getting a MCE pc for my tv viewing. It really is nice.

On a side note I got a usb2 hub and connected all of the toys I use on here when I come home from work so if I plug in one wire they all plug in together. In my case at least there are 2 things for the tv the tuner and an IRDA unfortunately the one in the hauppauge tuner can't apparently be used.

 

can one order the tuner and remote only on the dell website?

 

I did not order the tv tuner with my E1505, but purchased the Hauppauge WinTV-PVR USB2 Media Center Kit at the local electronics store. Although this is apparently a different tuner than the one reviewed above, it works identically.

Someone above asked about needing to have MCE. Hauppauge makes different models of their USB tuners--the one I bought for MCE and one for other OSs. I think the biggest difference is that the one for MCE comes with a Media Center specific remote control. Since I've only had it a couple of days, I've only recorded a few hours of shows, but it does work great. Also, like mentioned in a previous post, the Hauppauge has an FM tuner so you can also listen to FM radio through your computer.

One last comment--someone mentioned something about the IRDA and the Hauppauge. The Hauppauge one I got did come with an IR receiver. In fact, here is a list of what's included in the box (notice they even include the USB2 cable):

- WinTV-PVR-USB2 device with 125 channel cable TV tuner, FM radio receiver, MPEG-2 hardware audio/video compressor plus audio/video inputs

- Media Center remote control transmitter and receiver (USB port required)

- Wall mounter power supply

- 1 meter USB2 cable

- FM radio antenna

- WinTV-PVR-USB2 CD-ROM includes: Media center drivers for the WinTV-PVR-USB2

 

I just got my E1505 and I'm still getting choppy video when I use the TV tuner, whether it's plugged in or on battery power. All other video seems to work fine...any ideas? Memory can't be a problem, I've got 2 GB of RAM.

 

Hi all,

I just got my E1505 with TV tuner, plugged it into my TV's cable and Windows Media recognized it right away. Is there any other way to use the TV function without being close to a TV cable box? Is it possible to work with a wireless internet connection? Thanks for any advice!

 

sunshine,

Here is how I watch tv on my 1505 wirelessly. Fortunately, I am a hardware junkie and have multiple computers. I have an older amd 2600+ desktop running xp. To this I added a dual tuner hapauge pci card. I then purchased beyondtv and a copy of beyondtv link. After installing BTV on the desktop, it acts as a television server / tivo type device. I can watch tv on the desktop, or more importantly send it over my network. The 1505 has the client BTV link and connects to my WAP. With this setup, I have full control over what station I watch, watching previous recordings, time shifting, and setting up future recordings. The quality is excellent over 802.11g. If you have an 802.11b only access point or router - don't even bother. There just isn't enough bandwidth in my tests. Here are some links:

Hardware:
Tuner Card: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16815116628
These can be found cheaper, but not by much.

Software:
Snapstream's BTV: http://www.snapstream.com/products/beyondtv/
Snapstream's BTV Link: http://www.snapstream.com/products/beyondtvlink/

Sagetv: http://www.sagetv.com/

* I tried sage tv with another computer on the network, but couldn't get the quality that I wanted. That doesn't mean that beyond is better than sage as many people prefer sage, just that I wasn't able to get it to work.

Both offer free trial versions and I would strongly recommend trying both before buying.

Hope this helps (unfortunately it doesn't use your laptops tuner),

Inc

 

Incog, I'm a little confused.

Does this set-up allow you to watch from anywhere with an internet connection or only within the range of your home WAP?

 

From what I understand, that is how tv tuners work. You aren't going to get perfect video from the tuner.

I've got one too, and it does have a lag. I connected my tv tuner to my cable box, while the box was still attached to my tv. I turned both my tv and laptop on, and there was a slight lag on the laptop

 

My system only allows me to watch tv when within the coverage of my WAP. Now I think I have heard that sagetv allows you to watch over the internet, but don't quote me on that.

Right now, I have the TV server, two wired (BTV link) clients, and my new E1505 with a BTV link client on it. I will be adding a second dual tuner card to the server soon. I thought that having two tuners would be enough, but lately we've been recording two things at once and then wanting to watch a third channel at the same time.

Like I said before, "I'm a hardware junkie" and a little strange

I really didn't do the homework like I should have when I picked which software that I went with. I tried sage for about 5 hrs and couldn't get it configured so that it would give me the quality that I wanted. A little more time in forums or on google and maybe I would have went with sage. Don't get me wrong, I love BTV, but I wish that I would have tried harder with sage and maybe even mythtv on a linux box before going with BTV. After trying sage, I then installed BTV and it was pretty much great right away. I've had to do some minor tweaks (like allowing Upnp on my router, setting the record quality so that 2 or more recordings can happen at the same time without over-taxing my processor, etc.). I have really enjoyed setting this system up and while it is more expensive than a tivo unit, it is much more versatile.

Inc

 

Inc - thanks so much for your response. I'm not very techie so it will take me a while to figure this all out! I'll check out the links you posted. Thank you again!

 

No way - if that were the case, it wouldn't work at all. Mine works fine in a window or with a graphic overlay, it's only choppy in full-screen.

 

My e1505 with TV tuner shipped today so I will see how it works.
With regard to those experiencing choppy playback/record, there are a couple of things that *could* be the problem. Let me know if any of the following help or not and I will do some tests myself.

1) Not enough system resources. If you don't have enough RAM free, or if other processes are hogging CPU or HD time then there just may not be enough resources for the software encoder to keep up. Take a look at the performance tab in Task manager and see how things look when you are encoding. Compare when you see problems to when you don't. Is your page file size increasing? Is the processor pegged? Try closing any open apps and temporarily disabling your antivirus scanner and see if that helps. If the AV or antispyware is what's killing you then you can add the tuner apps to the exclusions list so they don't get monitored. Another option is to buy a tuner with hardware encode/decode that will take the load off the machines CPU. Most tuners tell you if they use hardware or software. Guessing Dell's bundled one is software. Cheaper ones usually use software, more expensive use hardware, most will say which they use in spec. If you have an underpowered or older machine, or want to do a lot of stuff while tv records or plays in the background, something with hardware encoding is less likely to have performance probs.

Note1 - software like Skype or other file sharing software is constantly hitting your machine to route others' requests, so turn those off temprorarily as a test to see if they are bogging you down.

Note2 - A lot of others have complained that some of the bundled software Dell ships the e1505 with "slows the computer down" so uninstalling things you don't and won't ever use might also help. If I notice anything like that I will post again.

2) Badly fragmented HD. Since the pause/rewind features write to a cache somewhere (guessing partly on the HD since cacheing too much stuff to RAM would be a little irrational) then if the HD is really badly fragged it will slow down the writes and likely cause performance problems. A few runs of defrag should take care of that.

3) For laptops - processor throttling when running on batteries or in some power save modes. Check the power management options in Control Panels and make adjustments. Most laptops are set to automatically throttle down the processor when running on batteries to improve battery life. (e.g. Speedstep technology on Pentium M's etc) I have seen other notebooks where turning off speedstep has helped performance, but it will HURT battery life. There are instructions on the web, search in Google, and use at your won risk. I would likely not do this on my personal laptop.

4) Video Card - If you're running at a very high resolution and bit depth then maybe the card you have can't keep up with everything. Not sure if the load is on the card or not but turning down the bit depth and res. temporarily and seeing if the choppiness goes away would be a good test.

Hope these help, like I said I will have a go once my laptop comes in and see what I find.