Woot : One Day, One Deal (SM)

waacodemon wrote:One final question.. :P

So your sayin basically, if the football games on sunday, are on the normal "free" channels, i should be able to pick them up anywhere in town with this? and is this thing easy to set up/use?

Thanks for the help so much!

yes, and yes.

I've been watching the world series on my laptop with an HD stick very similar this one that i bought on a previous wootl.

For all you (us?) Mac users: You'd probably be better off spending $90 for a refurb eyetv hybrid that comes with eyetv 3 than getting this and hoping (this is most certainly NOT the ATI Wonder USB 2 that they say is compatible, but I honestly don't know if this would work with eyetv or not) that the $80 eyetv software will work with it.

I like my eyetv hybrid a lot (especially with CBS's recent crackdown sending out DMCA notices like crazy to those torrenting tv shows).

Looks like other people got these working in Linux, so I'm in for 2. One for my tower, and one for the carputer (not to be used while driving).

YouCantWootThis wrote:yes, and yes.

I've been watching the world series on my laptop with an HD stick very similar this one that i bought on a previous wootl.

Your amazing. lol So stinkin helpful. Thanks!

keiichi626 wrote:Remote with IR receiver for PC

Dude, that costs $22.99 plus shipping! This ATI was $24.99 out the door. Plus I'm using my setup at work on the weekends (shhh... don't tell 'em) so the less components and cables, the better.

In for one. If this works as well as im hoping, i'll actually make more money because of it.. awesome... just awesome.

YouCantWootThis wrote:USB is fast enough. Uncompressed HD is about 20 mbps. USB 2 is 480 mbps.

HA HA HA HA HA...

Heavily compressed HD might be 20 mbps, but uncompressed HD is, at minimum, 3 bytes per pixel x 1280 x 720 x 24 frames per second, or 66,355,200 bytes per second. Full 1080 HD would be 149,299,200 bytes per second, or 1.194 gigabits per second.

I have a quick question. I live in a loft in an apartment without a tv. i would like to watch local channels on my computer. should i buy this in order to do this? i dont really know what this thing does. thanks for your help!

You all (Sorry I have some southern blood in me) Should head over to Kids.Woot! and buy an NFL guy to operate the remote for this thing they are the perfect sizefor it. Don't get Favre, I heard he's retiring....

mcelotto wrote:>>>>Anyone got an answer for this guy??

I too, get raped every month for cable, and I was actually planning on turning my cable off anyway this month. If I were to turn off the TV side of my cable phone bill... and keep my cable internet connection, would this device allow me to pick up HDTV channels? or TV channels at all?

I have a 1080p TV and a laptop with a HDMI port, so; if this works I could just plug the HDTV into my laptop that will now pick up internet??? please help and clarify guys... I am a noob for sure

yes, although comcast charges more for internet if you dont also have cable tv...

bakerzdosen wrote:For all you (us?) Mac users: You'd probably be better off spending $90 for a refurb eyetv hybrid that comes with eyetv 3 than getting this and hoping (this is most certainly NOT the ATI Wonder USB 2 that they say is compatible, but I honestly don't know if this would work with eyetv or not) that the $80 eyetv software will work with it.

I like my eyetv hybrid a lot (especially with CBS's recent crackdown sending out DMCA notices like crazy to those torrenting tv shows).

I am also trying to figure out whether this will work or not with EyeTV3. I have the software from a Hybrid that I accidentally broke. I figure this might be a cheap replacement solution. I am not sure if it will work. Help please!

crazed wrote:If you plug in your composite cables (yellow, red, white) into your TV, and then run cables from your TV's output to the included adapters into the tuner, you should be able to accomplish what you want to do. Mind you, you'll need to watch the TV to see the real-time action while your PC records with a small lag.

You will have input lag with the device (when watching on the computer), regardless of the source. This doesn't matter with a TV signal, but its obviously important for gaming because what you do with the controller won't be reflected by the picture until later.

Sweet. Im pretty much sold then. Thanks!

YouCantWootThis wrote:In for one. I have several Pinnacle HD sticks from Woot that have worked great. I've had especially good experience with ATI TV cards previously, so this is an easy decision.

I'm worried that I will ahve to use Media Center, though. The problem with media center is that it doesn't support sub-channels, which is the biggest product ommission in the history of Microshaft.

Not being able to play sub-channels means that I can play channel 2, but not channel 2.2. Or I can watch channel 14, but not 14.2 or 14.4...

That really vacuums the big one.

I have an ATI Wonder, WMC on Vista Home Premium DOES support subchannels and even has an option to add them manually.

what kind of adapter would we need for composite?

mcelotto wrote:>>>>Anyone got an answer for this guy??

I too, get raped every month for cable, and I was actually planning on turning my cable off anyway this month. If I were to turn off the TV side of my cable phone bill... and keep my cable internet connection, would this device allow me to pick up HDTV channels? or TV channels at all?

I have a 1080p TV and a laptop with a HDMI port, so; if this works I could just plug the HDTV into my laptop that will now pick up internet??? please help and clarify guys... I am a noob for sure

If you turn off the TV side of your cable, you would lose your HDTV channels. The most you'd get would be old standard def channels.

You'd have to hook up an antenna to get anything in HD, and you'd only get the locals.

LastApeMan wrote:here is my question:

If i shut off my TV part of cable and give them back all these dvr boxes and just keep my internet on - then i hook something like this to a connection that my internet is also hooked up to and get TV through my computer connection? and also be able to record and all that like I do now with DVR?

I gotta know this - see i am getting RAPEDEVERYMONTH just for basic expanded. and star gate is over now so what's the point?

if you're getting raped every month, then you should probably consider getting some pepper spray or taking some self-defense classes.

if you mean that you're paying more than you wish for cable or FIOS, then no - you need a DVR to record. your ability to record to a DVR means that the digital recording never left the cable company, as it's on your DVR and cannot be removed. if you have a hacked tivo that may not be the case, but generally speaking that's about it.

i don't see digital connectors in the pic, so even then it'll be analog quality. so you'll be ok if you get a QAM tuner and something to record with. they have aftermarket DVRs that do this these days if the signal is sent in the clear (not encrypted).

or you can try with this. i'm not sure what the quality would be, given some of the previous comments so far.

all i really care about is what is the maximum frame rate out put on this thing? i bought another tuner/capture for $15 and it out puts at 30 fps max not so good for recording video games but for the price it was good.

i see on youtube that this product seems pretty good for the folks that want to record their game play. it does look like this can out put more than 30 fps but i would just like to be sure. what is the maximum resolution this outputs when playing xbox 360 or watching tv?

also some people are saying the max resolution for recording is 720x480 and some saying it can record in hd. who is right?

i know im gonna be using composite connecting to my 360 but what is the highest resolution it can display and or record at? most importantly what is the frame rate output?

again this does seem like a product that would indeed work FINE for recording game play. i just want to be sure of what anyone has to say or help.

keiichi626 wrote:It has "ATI Catalyst Media Center™" which you could use if you had a version of Windows that doesn't include Windows Media Center. However, not sure if that software would work with Windows 7, or Windows Vista Basic/Home.

If I'm understanding the hype correctly, if it runs in XP it'll run in 7 from a virtual machine. YMMV, but I've never had a problem with legacy hardware support (even on that $5.00 webcam...), but I've also never run Vista.

chefbooyadee wrote:In regards to the "Can I hook this up to my Wii/PS2/PS3/Xbox/360/dog" questions, the answer is "yes, with some caveats*".

You will have to use composite or S-Video cables(no hi-def for you!), and there may be some slight lag. Solutions like this shoooooooould be okay for most gaming, but if you're looking for 0-lag console gaming, you really shouldn't be using a PC TV tuner at all. Lag with this solution would be most likely caused by the software moreso than the hardware. If the software is an issue, you can try downloading AMCap to view your TV tuner's direct preview stream with as little processing(read: lag) as possible.

The common knowledge of TV tuner solutions causing 1-2 seconds of lag comes from many tuners using hardware MPEG encoders, which makes for great image quality, but causes forced processing lag. I'm pretty sure this does not have such a hardware encoder, particularly because hardware encoders cost money.


*your dog probably won't like it


edit: found some review of this unit that says "gaming is barely useable", but doesn't go into detail.
http://www.straferight.com/forums/game-hardware-reviews/175651-review-visiontek-tv-wonder-hd-600-usb.html

Thanks! still in for one for the TV capabilities. If gaming works; great. If not, oh well...at least I didn't pay like $80 for it.

YouCantWootThis wrote:USB is fast enough. Uncompressed HD is about 20 mbps. USB 2 is 480 mbps.

you're right it will work but USB but isn't really 480mps

"USB 2.0 has a raw data rate at 480Mbps, and it is rated 40 times faster than its predecessor interface, USB 1.1, which tops at 12Mbps. Originally, USB 2.0 was intended to go only as fast as 240Mbps, but in October 1999, USB 2.0 Promoter Group pumped up the speed to 480Mbps.

As far as we know, effective rate reaches at 40MBps or 320Mbps for bulk transfer on a USB 2.0 hard drive with no one else is sharing the bus. Flash Drives seem to be catching up too with the some hitting 30MB/s milestone. For all we know, USB interface could become become the bottleneck for flash drives as early as 2008.

Additional notes from Alex Esquenet - our engineer friend based in Belgium: "A fast usb host can achieve 40 MBytes/sec. The theorical 60 MB/sec cannot be achieved, because of the margin taken between the sof's (125 us), so if a packet cannot take place before the sof, the packet will be rescheduled after the next sof. On top of that, all the USB transactions are handled by software on the PC. For instance, a USB host on a PCI bus will send or receive the data via the PCI bus; the stack will prepare the next data in memory and receive interrupt from the host."
-EverythingUSB.com

But by these standards it should work just fine, and judging by fact of them selling the device it does work. What i wouldn't trust is the antenna, a better quality one will probably be more than the USB tuner itself.

In for one. Was gonna get a TV tuner but they were all $50+. $25 is a steal.

beex215 wrote:all i really care about is what is the maximum frame rate out put on this thing? i bought another tuner/capture for $15 and it out puts at 30 fps max not so good for recording video games but for the price it was good.

i see on youtube that this product seems pretty good for the folks that want to record their game play. it does look like this can out put more than 30 fps but i would just like to be sure. what is the maximum resolution this outputs when playing xbox 360 or watching tv?

also some people are saying the max resolution for recording is 720x480 and some saying it can record in hd. who is right?

i know im gonna be using composite connecting to my 360 but what is the highest resolution it can display and or record at? most importantly what is the frame rate output?

again this does seem like a product that would indeed work FINE for recording game play. i just want to be sure of what anyone has to say or help.

Not sure of the frame rate, but anything that records off of composite or s-video is going to be max out at 720x480-- there's no way to get an HD signal from any source into a composite or S-Video cable. This can record HD from an OTA HD signal it gets through the antenna jack but that's totally different.

I'd *assume* it'll do DVD standard video (480i, interlaced) but don't quote me on that. I have a feeling it'll be fine to do what you want it to do.

pickleman77 wrote:Can I use this to play my game consoles on my computer monitor, or will it be too laggy?

I tried this using the similar one Woot had that was made by Pinnacle, and it was a good bit off from what I was pressing on the controller. However, after I used a splitter on each of the cables to give them TWO outputs, one to the TV and one to the computer, it became easy enough to watch the TV screen while recording with the computer.

What I want to know though, is if this will run better on 64-bit Vista/Win 7 than the Pinnacle one does. Even with all the manufacturer's latest drivers and everything that refused to install on my Vista machine, but ran excellently on my dad's XP laptop.

miquonranger03 wrote:Nah, but if you want good USB TV for Mac, try an Elgato tuner; they're usually very well written, as they're specifically for Mac. They can get quite pricey, but if you own a Mac then you clearly don't care about that.

If you want something cheaper than the Elgato, the Pinnacle PCHD stick works with EyeTV.

ChadAllenMurphy wrote:If I'm understanding the hype correctly, if it runs in XP it'll run in 7 from a virtual machine. YMMV, but I've never had a problem with legacy hardware support (even on that $5.00 webcam...), but I've also never run Vista.

Virtual machines aren't quite that cut and dried, especially something like this that taxes the host system... video processing is a pretty processor intensive, USB intensive, video-card intensive task.. I'd be very, very surprised if XP mode in 7 actually helps for this sort of thing. (just like it can't really run 3d games)

I have a quick question. I live in a loft in an apartment without a tv. i would like to watch local channels on my computer. should i buy this in order to do this? i dont really know what this thing does. thanks for your help!

So I live in an apartment building, we don't have a box or anything like that in our apartment at least, just plug the coax cable in the wall and go. The utilities are included so I don't have any details, but I know it's Comcast. Will I be able to plug the coax cable from the wall into this thing and make my computer a DVR?

uttc16 wrote:i can vouch for that.. i have this exact device, and all my "hd" recordings are at 704x480... dont get me wrong, they still look amazing... but ya, 720p they are not

There is a side benifit from being sub HD, an HD recording is like 8G/Hr. WMC doesn't provide for reducing the frame size. So at almost DVD quality and 1/4th the file size is fine for me.

eberin wrote:This is a TV tuner for a computer with Microsoft OS. It allows a computer to ACT like an HD TV receiver.

It is not a video signal converter for any game console.

Unless I'm missing something, this device has ZERO application with any video game console.

But hey, go ahead and buy one - Woot won't mind :-)

You apparently don't see the video inputs shown in the image...

Gendreavus wrote:I tried this using the similar one Woot had that was made by Pinnacle, and it was a good bit off from what I was pressing on the controller. However, after I used a splitter on each of the cables to give them TWO outputs, one to the TV and one to the computer, it became easy enough to watch the TV screen while recording with the computer.

What I want to know though, is if this will run better on 64-bit Vista/Win 7 than the Pinnacle one does. Even with all the manufacturer's latest drivers and everything that refused to install on my Vista machine, but ran excellently on my dad's XP laptop.

Probably not- a workaround was posted earlier (http://www.jerrytravis.com/?p=281).

I'm not sure what problems you were having with the Pinnacle, they work out of the box with W7 and Vista. I have two and they were detected and drivers automatically installed.

Swoosh13 wrote:Will I be able to plug the coax cable from the wall into this thing and make my computer a DVR?

Yep!

YouCantWootThis wrote:In the words of the immortal Johnny Carson - "you are wrong, moose breath".

There are supposed to be manual workarounds, but they never worked for me. Here are some links about the lack of sub-channel support in media center...

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080517131449AAn83cM

http://social.answers.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/vistamedia/thread/e4da3200-481f-4c90-a0e2-64ce0032b249

http://www.restonpaths.com/Technical/subchannel.htm

These subchannels showed up automatically. I must have some futuristic version of MCE!

(or just a current one.)

bcm1122 wrote:I have a quick question. I live in a loft in an apartment without a tv. i would like to watch local channels on my computer. should i buy this in order to do this? i dont really know what this thing does. thanks for your help!

What this thing does is put local channels on your computer. Go for it!

Be prepared to futz with an antenna just a bit. Go to antennaweb.org and put in your location to get an idea what to expect. The channels you're most likely to get with the included antenna will be color-coded yellow on the site.

justin42 wrote:Not sure of the frame rate, but anything that records off of composite or s-video is going to be max out at 720x480-- there's no way to get an HD signal from any source into a composite or S-Video cable. This can record HD from an OTA HD signal it gets through the antenna jack but that's totally different.

I'd *assume* it'll do DVD standard video (480i, interlaced) but don't quote me on that. I have a feeling it'll be fine to do what you want it to do.

that was helpful but the more important question goes unanswered. like i said for people that do want to record gameplay this device SEEMS like it can display over 30 fps, which is more important than video quality.

i still hope someone knows actual frame rate output on this thing.

buying 1 now!

I bought one after researching that Windows 7 Media Center supports sub-channels.

Hope everything works well!

ncontorno wrote:This device is supported by MythTV (Linux-based DVR software). I think I may give it a try, but it looks like there's a lot of tweaking involved. For $20.00, it's a nice start though.

MythTV List of supported cards
ATI TV Wonder Issues/Problems/FAQs

Sorry, but the "TV Wonder" is a series of products from ATI, and these links are referring to the ORIGINAL TV Wonder, a PCI card with analog tuner that came out somewhere between 1998 and 2001 (I remember playing with them on a windows 98 machine).

The specific model Woot is selling today is a "TV Wonder HD 600 USB".

peach73 wrote:ehh, why not, in for one.

Anyone know of good (free) software to quickly convert my xp machine (no media center) into a programmable DVR so that I can finally stop watching The Office on hulu?

someone mentioned mythtv above, is there something similar that would run on XP?

Look up GBPVR. Unfortunately, GBPVR doesn't support analog capture devices without an onboard encoder, so you could only use it with over the air HD channels.

crazed wrote:This device utilizes software-encoding.

If you have a low-end system or plan on running this on a portable machine this is important. Because it lacks a hardware encoder, this device relies on the CPU to process the video.

This means that if your system is old/slow, you may not get the best performance out of this product. This may mean that you cannot record 720p or that when you are watching TV, other programs may slow down or the video may studder.

If you're using this device on a portable laptop, your CPU will consume more power, thus draining your battery at an accelerated rate.

This is mostly wrong. If you're recording an HD signal, it's ALREADY digital. The device just has to grab the digital signal and record it to disk, there's no need to encode, and therefore VERY LOW processor load. That's the great thing about a digital signal- you just need a tuner, because the data is already encoded. It's like the broadcaster is sending you an MPEG-2 of the video over a wireless connection (which, in essence, they are).

If you're recording analog cable, then yes encoding will be done in software. But it's not going to be at 720p- it'll be encoded from a standard def cable signal.

This yields a strange result- it actually takes a stronger processor to record SD video than it does to record HD video.

bcm1122 wrote:I have a quick question. I live in a loft in an apartment without a tv. i would like to watch local channels on my computer. should i buy this in order to do this? i dont really know what this thing does. thanks for your help!

This is exactly what you want, assuming your computer runs Windows XP or Vista. No guarantees on Windows 7. You'll also need an antenna, the size of which depends on where you live. Check out Antennaweb for advice on what size antenna you'll need.

I purchased one of these puppies about a year ago and tried running it with the ati media center and was dissapointed. A year later i tried it out again except this time i used windows media center and it works like a charm. so im going to try to answer as many questions as i can:

1)yes, it works on windows 7. just use the vista driver as they do not currently have a 7 driver. I run it in 7 64-bit. a cauting though, when you run the setup it wont actually install the driver but it will create the directory (C:/ati/......) that will have the setup file in it. you just have to run it manually afterwards.

2)if you have a slower computer it may stutter to watch it in a program, but as another person said, you can set somthing to record and then watch it later. (itll record even if windows media center isn't running)

3)ive never used the attachment to connect other devices but the manual states that it is for connecting devices such as camcorders, vcr's and such so you can copy video onto your computer. i can't say for sure, but composite cables don't really care whats connected to it, just as long as it is a video signal it should pick it up.

4) ati software is scaffolding, but their hardware is pretty reliable IMO.

good luck. i think im gonna pick up another one so i can record and watch at the same time (yes, i have done the research and you can connect 2 as long as they have the same source) dual tuners for $45 is a great price. check newegg.com if you wanna compare

i know i've been looking for information on whether this will work definitively with mythtv, and haven't found much.

someone earlier posted a link to the mythtv wiki saying it should work, however, this was an older PCI model of the card. the USB may not use the same chipset.

After browsing said wiki and the net in general, i haven't found anything conclusive as to whether it will work, and if it even tunes, how well it comes in. this model is not on the wiki, anywhere, as far as i can tell, and there is limited information on the net for setting it up.

as someone who would be interested only for mythtv, i'm going to wait on this until someone finds me something that says otherwise... especially with the price of tuners dropping (see: hauppauge HVR-2250. dual ATSC/NTSC/QAM for under $120)

whoops i forgot. i record full HD from the antenna that came with the tuner. It will not be blu-ray quality, but more like 720p or 1080i.

I've been looking for a TV Tuner for some time. I just have a few questions. I'm not very skilled with the terms, but I just want to know if I have cable, such as Time Warner, will I be able to use that service? So I can watch my cable on my PC? Thanks.

EDIT- nvm just reread the post on page 5. I guess I won't be purchasing this.