What Is USB HDTV Tuners?

SASEM Co., Ltd., a greatest developer and manufacturer of analog and digital TV tuner cards for desktop personal computer and laptops in Republic of Korea launched the external USB high-definition television TV tuner device named OnAir USB HDTV.

OnAir USB HDTV is a external software-decoding type of USB HDTV TV tuner device that interfaces with desktop PCs or laptops thru USB 2.0.
It's meant to play live analog and digital TV hassle-free and record them in PVR format. OnAir USB HDTV tuners were brought in to the American and Canadian markets in Jan 2004 and were initially priced at United States $249.99.

An evident advantage of using USB HDTV tuners is that it's easy to set up with PCs or laptops. The originally PCI cards are limited to run just on desktop PCs. Breaking up and reassembling the computer to connect PCI tuner cards on CPU board is also high-risk.

Some PCI cards fail to install on certain desktop PCs because they strike other hardware devices. USB HDTV tuners provide better analog and digital TV signal response than PCI HDTV tuner cards.

USB HDTV tuners need at least a 2.4Ghz for just viewing although, it usually is a high-power USB device that draws as much as 500mA 2.5Wo from a USB port. USB HDTV tuners supporting full HDTV of 1920x1080 (ATSC). They provide Wallpaper TV Screen View.

Aside from real-time playing, file playback of analog and digital TV recording is also possible. An MPEG2 Encoder chip perhaps embedded to immediately convert live analog TV recording to MPEG2 DVD format (720x480).

USB high-definition television tuners also allow zooming-in certain parts of live TV or replay file images. What’s more, they provide HD editor program for easy editing of recorded HD streams files.

USB HDTV tuners consume the lowest CPU resource use to decode the HD Stream by using InterVideo’s software system HFTV Decoder. Auto power on/off is operated by plugging in or out of USB cable. USB HDTV tuners provide remote. Bundling with InterVideo Win DVD4 is also possible.

Using DVD-RW it's easy for the user to produce DVD titles for taped live analog TV. For Windows XP, D-VHS HD Stream playback on real-time recording is granted. Users can also playback HD Stream File format (ATSC and Japan BS).

Microsoft WHQL logotype for Windows XP are already provided to USB HDTV tuners like OnAir. This proves that they're well-matched with Microsoft OSs. Furthermore, OnAir HDTV tuner, and some of its replacements, is registered in Microsoft Catalogs. Information of USB HDTV tuners and their accessibility are now easy to look for in United States and Canada.

Check out my other guide HDTV Projector Overview