Kworld VStream X-Pert TV-PVR USB 2.0 TV Tuner Card Review
Upgraded Laptop Memory 256mb -> 768mb
I'd been meaning to upgrade my laptop's memory for quite some time and
thought this would be an excellent excuse to go ahead and do it. The
new memory arrived, I again setup the TV tuner and things seemed a
little smoother -- but not smooth enough. I was still experiencing some
audio drop-outs and syncing issues, more than I would have liked to
anyway. Watching live TV wasn't too bad, but if I would go into the
highest resolution it was noticeably pushing the hardware to its
limits. Where I was seeing the biggest problem was trying to record a
high quality MPEG -- I don't know if I was maxing out USB bandwidth
with having both a TV Tuner card & sound card transferring data at
once or if my 5400rpm hard drive in my laptop couldn't keep up, but all
the tweaking of MPEG quality settings and video preview settings did
not solve my problems.
More on compatibility & the software
This TV Tuner card
uses a proprietary chipset from what I've found out. I was unable to
get any software PVR for Windows XP to recognize it as a TV Tuner
device. The software it comes with is proprietary and looks like
something you'd expect to have seen in the Windows 95 or early Windows
98 eras. You don't have any other options, you must use the software
that comes with the device.
What I liked
I liked the idea of having a USB TV Tuner Card
-- that's about it. I would think if you're looking for a cheap
solution for a dorm room and have an adequate computer that meet the
hardware requirements, you might be able to get by with this device. If
you're looking to transfer any home videos or do anything remotely
professional, look elsewhere -- I would recommend a Hauppauge card for
any professional video editing.
What I didn't like
For some, this card might work for their
purposes, but in my case it did not. I wanted to be able to use my
1.4ghz laptop to capture video without issues, but was never able to
successfully get the Kworld X-Pert TV-PVR to work without having some
sort of audio sync issue or sound drop-outs. Its hardware requirements
are high for a reason, it's using software to process the live feed
into an MPEG and your computer will take a beating. Make sure you have
at least a 2ghz processor & 512mb RAM. It's proprietary software,
build-quality and performance did not meet what I had expected in a USB
TV tuner card. Since I needed to purchase a USB sound card for my
laptop as well, when everything was hooked up it was no longer
"portable" -- too many wires and clutter. That was just one more strike
against this product for me.
Overall
I learned my lesson. Shortly after finding out this
product was not going to work, I purchased a Hauppauge PVR-250 PCI TV
Tuner Card for my desktop computer. What a differenece, as it does all
its encoding in hardware. It would have been nice to have had a TV
Tuner that I could take along on vacations or to a different room in my
house where there wasn't a television, but I found this card to have
too many problems for my liking.
Final Rating: 3.0/5.0
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