Product Description

WinTV-NOVA-T-Stick is a Plug & Play USB device which bringsdigital terrestrial broadcasts (TV and radio) to your PC. Digitalreception provides sharper TV pictures and near CD quality audio.And Free-to-View digital TV does not require a PayTV sub

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #10620 in Consumer Electronics
• Brand: Hauppauge
• Model: 294
• Released on: 2006-03-31
• Platform: Windows XP
• Dimensions: 1.68 pounds

Manufacturer's Description
WinTV-NOVA-T stick uses the latest high sensitivity digital DVB-T TV tuner, offering the best possible DVB-T digital reception. With this product you will be able to Watch, pause and record DVB-T digital TV in a window or full screen using high quality MPEG-2. Use the WinTV Scheduler to record you favourite digital TV shows. Play your TV recordings back to your screen any time. The WinTV-NOVA-T stick is easy to install. Just plug it into your notebook or PC's USB 2.0 port and connect to a digital TV antenna, Load the software from our installation CD and you’re ready to start watching digital TV on your PC or laptop screen. This product also includes a portable digital DVB-T antenna, so you can receive digital TV while you travel!

The NOVA-T stick uses the COFDM demodulator which utilizes the state of the art Signal Processing to provide high performance portable and fixed reception of DVB-T signal, TV to USB bridge which encapsulates MPEG2-TS packets (Digital TV reception) over USB. This product also benefits from Hauppauge's standard 2 year warrenty and they offer UK technical support.

Hauppauge has been a worldwide leading developer and manufacturer of analogue/digital video, TV and Data broadcast receiver products for the PC since 1982, with an estimated worldwide installed base of over 5 million.There flagship product the WinTV is the leading branded TV card in the retail market place and now they have come to market with this excellent compact lightweight USB device.

This new USB DVB-T device has the Latest COFDM demodulator which utilizes the state of the art Signal Processing to provide high performance portable and fixed reception of DVB-T signal, Therefore ensuring that you always get the best possible digital reception allowing you to watch, Pause and record Digital TV almost everywhere.

Customer Reviews

Good buy but beware.....
The truth is that if your buying a digital TV card (freeveiw), that the cards themselves have little influence on the overall quality of the TV you will watch. All the cards can pick up the same stations (E4, BBC news 24, Kerrang etc... whether its your 70£ terratec all singing all dancing ,or your cheap little USB Hauppauge stick. The thing which will influence the sigmal is your aerial. So my advice for those of you buying for the sole puurpose of veiwing digital TV on your comp at home and maybe recording the odd show is to buy a cheap USB stick and spend the bulk of your money on a reasonable indoor aerial and purchase a signal booster with it (20£), and foreget using a PCI board with dual tuner blah blah... because its little advantage for the extra money.
The funny thing about digital is that unlike analogue you ither have signal or you don't, no fuzy picture, either crystal clear or blank screen so reception is very important.
The reason for 4 star rather than 5 is that the software included (Win TV) sucks soooooo much and theres not many other softwares availible (most are beta editions.)
To conclude; this stick will serve the purpose of recieving digital TV through a good aerial (supplied aerial is v.weak and only usefull in strong signal area or outdoors.)

Does what it says on the box
Initially I gave this a 1 star rating, since it hung my system (XP) whenever I tried to install it. I have since discovered that the Nvidia graphics card drivers I had were causing the freeze - which also affected AVI files. I upgraded to the latest drivers from Nvidia's site and now everything works fine. It picked up all 64 channels through a shared coaxial cable and displays them without glitches. It records happily enough on a 2.4 Athlon, though it's best to keep the number of background processes running to a minimum. Playback quality is above VHS - around what you'd expect from XLP DVD (6 hrs per disk) and it uses around 2GB per hour of recording. I've put it through an HDMI socket in the TV via a DVi to HDMI converter which keeps a scart free. Overall, it's a cheap way of watching TV and if you have an old PC, buying a 200GB hard disk for £50 will give you a 100 hour digital video recorder for peanuts...

Digital T.V. on your computer
The reason I bought this was because I wanted to watch television on my computer. I was undiecided wheather to buy a new pc monitor or flat screen T.V. with integrated freeview and a PC input, but in the end opted for the 22 inch monitor with an HDMI port.

After reading a few reviews, I choose the Hauppauge WinTV-NOVA-T USB Stick. Once the package arrived I opened it and took out the instructions, (it unfolds like a map) and installed the T.V. stick and software. It took several minutes before I received a picture after rebooting it, but it soon appeared. I received 44 radio and television stations after scanning. Picture quality is good considering I'm using the supplied aerial and had to reposition it several times before I got a steady picture, however, a roof aerial might recieve a stronger signal in some areas. I found by setting it on top of a metalic object improves the image slightly. A T.V. show or film can be recorded to the computer's hard disk and viewed at a later date.

In order for product to be installed you're must have a free USB 2 port and Windows Vista or XP with service pack 2. It comes with the Win T.V. stick, a USB 2 extension cable, antenna, CD rom and installation sheet.

With my 22 inch monitor it is possible to have 2 applications on the screen at the same time i.e. browse the internet and watch T.V. etc. If you want digital television on your computer, then the Hauppauge WinTV stick will provide that. Works well for me.