Sabrent USB 2.0 TV Tuner/Video Capture Box with Remote Control
Tv tuners on Pc’s are nothing new, in fact I think the first time I saw one was back in ‘94. Still, how many people have one? Not very many. Price may be a factor, possibly not many people can see a direct benefit to using one. Why would you want one ? Well, heres a few benefits.
1- (The obvious) - You can watch TV on your pc - computer monitors have always been high def, now I’m not saying that you’ll get HD programming with this thing, you’ll still need a tuner for that. Still - have you ever compared watching a DVD on your TV versus the PC? Try it.
2 - You can watch TV on your pc while working on something else. Sure, you could resize the TV picture to be a small box in the corner of your screen while doing your work. Great way to keep up on your favorite show while doing that work your boss wants you to finish.
3 - You can record TV/Video/DVD/VHS on your pc. Yup, want to have a digital copy you can play on your pc whenever you want? If you get a little fancy you could use even a basic software package to edit out commercials.
4 - You can convert your home videos to DVD- or if you have some older VHS movies you could convert those as well.
The unit comes with a TIVO like recording scheduler - so you can set it like a VCR to record at whatever time you want. It also includes a MPEG editor - with basic editing functions.
As you can see in the picture above it also comes with a remote control - which may be overkill unless you have a big enough monitor to be sitting that far away from the PC.
All in all its a pretty useful box - one thing to look out for though. - Make sure your USB port is a USB 2.0 port. I do not think a 1.0 port has the throughput to make this product worthwhile.
And now for the best part (drum roll please) - the price - $24.99 !!
You can grab one at Tiger Direct HERE
