dom:
#diamond_tv_wonder_hd_750_usb I'm sure this device will work just fine if you're in close proximity to a TV transmitter. I've linked some sites where you can check your reception before you buy it, and you should really do that.
I happen to live 30 miles away from the nearest transmitter, and the included antenna doesn't pick up a single station, neither analog nor digital. This is despite positioning it in a window on the second floor in the correct unobstructed direction of the transmitter, so there's nothing else that I can do. Except, of course, put a large directional antenna with pre-amp on the roof, which would be an approximate $100 if you install it yourself ($400 if you pay someone).
If you want to use the TV Wonder HD 750 USB to tune into your digital cable network's TV channels, you MUST check first if your cable provider transmits anything in clearQAM. I can tune to digital clearQAM channels on my cable network (Cablevision); I think it was somewhere around 15 channels. I wasn't using Cablevision's set-top box for signal conversion to HDMI/Composite/etc. but plugged the cable directly into the Diamond TV Wonder HD 750 USB, which I find a much neater (and less power consuming) solution than using the set-top box. However, Cablevision has plans to encrypt all of their digital content soon, to reduce the number of trucks going around to disconnect one's service. This means, though, that any clearQAM tuner like the TV Wonder HD 750 USB wouldn't work any more and that you'd be required to use their set-top box, for which they also charge a montly rental fee.
My experiance with analog (NTSC) stations hasn't been good, though it could tune to many, I think around 50 of them in total. Both picture and sound were very choppy and the picture was otherwise quite pixelated, too. I'm not sure why this is - my hardware is a bit outdated with a Core 2 Duo at 1.6GHz and 2GB of RAM, but the clearQAM stuff looked and sounded impeccable. Hard to imagine that you'd need a better system for receiving analog if digital is coming in fine.
Finally, the software side of things. The ArcSoft TotalMedia 3.5 looks and feels nice at first, much like Windows Media Center. It's used for recording from the TV signal and from the other video inputs. You can also view your pictures and videos, and it pulls those from your existing Windows libraries ("My Pictures" and "My Videos"). I don't know what the "To Go" feature is, but whenever I press that button, the application crashes. Also, during the initial channel scan, TotalMedia totally crashed. From that point on I only used Windows Media Center, which can also record TV. But if you want to use the auxiliary video inputs, then you'll be out of luck with Windows Media Center, you do need TotalMedia for that.
I was also curious if I could connect a digital camera or a cellphone to the aux video-in and use the video/sound for video-calling with Skype. But the Windows driver is only written to handle TV video input, so the answer is no. It's a bit of a bummer as in the driver options there's a radio button that selects the input signal, but it is stuck on TV and the two lower ones (presumably S-Video and Composite) are greyed out. This would have been a really nice addition, as everyone has a digicam, but few people have a webcam - so you'd also get a "free webcam" by buying the TV Wonder HD 750 USB. But Diamond/ATI don't think that far, apparently.
May 25, 10
