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Sabrent USB HDTV Tuner with Remote Control & Antenna
$23.99 + $5 Shipping
Condition: New

Product List:
- 1 Sabrent TV-USBHD USB Digital TV Tuner w/ Remote Control & Antenna

*DISCLAIMER* Wootalyzer! is in no way affiliated with Woot!, and this post may not always be here!

Will not work with a Mac I assume?

Will this work on my Mac?

Also, does this DVR?

I know someone who has one of these and the antenna is fairly poor at picking up a signal.

I should get one free... i guessed the price on the previous woot!...

Product Website

[mod: something with their site will not take the link to the product page. Select TV tuners. It's the bottom one on page 1. ]

edit: I guess it's either a browser issue or something intermittent - I get taken right to the product page.

POC.
I bought one of these things about a year ago.
A significant portion of the buys complained they were DOA.
Sabrent techsupport never responds to any requests.

will this work on a HDTV with a usb port? Or is it PC only?

So must you have cable or satellite in your home to be able to access TV through this? I still do not understand these things.

bought this when they had it before.. doesnt work. i never sent it back because i was to lazy.. i wouldnt recommend it to anyone

3 out of 5 on amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Sabrent-TV-USBHD-Digital-Capture-Pendrive/dp/B000VKU33S

It is $40 on Amazon.

Also looks like it has Analog NTSC so you can watch cable TV from your provider if you hook up with a coax cable.

Probably has ClearQAM as well, but not for sure.

Do you mac people not go to the product website? Thanks who ever I saw posted the link to the site. Be a good geek and go to the manufacturers site when you have these questions. :-p

So wait... you're telling me I can get HDTV ON MY COMPUTER???

valence78 wrote:will this work on a HDTV with a usb port? Or is it PC only?

Nope.

It needs a driver. Your TV will not supply a driver.

LOL @ these things still being made. How can you get HD from something not shot in HD? At what point... nevermind... useless argument. I think the whole concept is ridiculous personally.

I've always wanted one of these. I just went for it. First woot for Alabama.

jakegpv wrote:So must you have cable or satellite in your home to be able to access TV through this? I still do not understand these things.

Not if you can access over the air TV with the antenna.

Though the included antenna is very small it looks like you can attach any antena with a coax cable connection, so you should be able to use a good quality amplified HD antenna for optimal reception. That is what I do with my ATI tuner.

Got one of these last year, works pretty well on XP pro.

Drivers for it are practically impossible to find though, so don't loose your CD.

jakegpv wrote:So must you have cable or satellite in your home to be able to access TV through this? I still do not understand these things.

You can get channels using ATSC, which is over the air. But you will need to use a better antenna most likely.

I had bought a Sata PCI card a few years back that was made by Sabrent and it didn't work out of the box, so they sent me a new one, and this one didn't work either and i sent it back and the 2nd new one didn't work, and instead of settling this they just ignored me for a long time, I finally did get a working card from them but spent the same amount of money on shipping for RMA and many weeks of my time

Long story short, I don't feel good about their RMA process or tech support

jakegpv wrote:So must you have cable or satellite in your home to be able to access TV through this? I still do not understand these things.

It's an antenna, so you will get HD channels through the air...like magic.

scottman54 wrote:Not if you can access over the air TV with the antenna.

Speaking of the antenna if nothing has changed in this, the antena has a decent magnet in it, I have it stuck to the side of my desk.

Hmmmmmmm....

Why is woot selling USB powered alien probe devices? It's kinda sick if you ask me.

babboa wrote:Though the included antenna is very small it looks like you can attach any antena with a coax cable connection, so you should be able to use a good quality amplified HD antenna for optimal reception. That is what I do with my ATI tuner.

I'm wondering if I could use the antenna & setup to turn my VAIO into an HDTV College Football Viewing Option on Saturdays while we tailgate on campus for LSU Games in the Fall?

I'm not sold on whether or not it could pick up the local ABC, NBC, & CBS affiliates' HD broadcasts, even though they would be less than 5-10 miles away in the setting I'm thinking I'd use this the most for.

Anyone have any personal experience with these mammer jammers?

raboto290 wrote:Do you mac people not go to the product website? Thanks who ever I saw posted the link to the site. Be a good geek and go to the manufacturers site when you have these questions. :-p

They just want to be the first i d i o t to say "does this work with a mac, or will it work on my mac." I'd bet that none of them even have a mac or even know what one is!!

I also bought this (two of them)when they had it before they DON'T WORK. And I also never sent them back because it was too much trouble.. I Definitely wouldn't recommend it to anyone!! JUNK!

hackman2007 wrote:You can get channels using ATSC, which is over the air. But you will need to use a better antenna most likely.

Ok, I'm a complete OTA HDTV n00b, as all my HD channels come from cable.... Does HDTV require some special type of antenna, or I can plug in my old dusty rabbit ears and get a reception? What about the regular TV antenna on the roof?

dlazz wrote:I know someone who has one of these and the antenna is fairly poor at picking up a signal.

I can't imagine this thing working very well, but imagine the possiblities for mods?! I can't wait to see THOSE pictures!

Pfft, who cares about Mac. If you really want to be free, you need to use Linux.

Supposedly the digital portion of the tuner works in Linux. http://www.linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/Sabrent_TV-USBHD As always, no promises though, i've not tried it myself.

Here's an amazon link to a similar product, this one comes with a remote though. http://www.amazon.com/Sabrent-TV-USBHD-Digital-Capture-Pendrive/dp/B000VKU33S

LEM- wrote:Ok, I'm a complete OTA HDTV n00b, as all my HD channels come from cable.... Does HDTV require some special type of antenna, or I can plug in my old dusty rabbit ears and get a reception? What about the regular TV antenna on the roof?

There is no such thing as an HDTV antenna. It's a marketing gimmick.

I have several different USB tuners now, and each and every one is different. Things to consider:
1). Will it work with Window 7 Media Center? If no, you might want to pass. If yes, then on Windows 7, this just plugs in and works. This says it supports Windows 7, so that is good.

2). Does it do "Clear QAM"? Over the air ATSC is HDTV broadcast, and with that, it will receive BROADCAST HDTV from an antenna, IF there are signals in your area. It requires a good antenna usually if not close to a big city. Since Analog (NTSC) broadcast TV is mostly gone now, that is mostly useless for over the air.

However, QAM is the transmission method for digital cable, and an ATSC tuner will NOT tune digital channels on cable. A "Clear QAM" tuner will be needed, as all digital cable companies are required to send standard channels (the ones they get from local broadcast) in Clear QAM, unencrypted.

This device DOES NOT do clear QAM, so it will NOT receive "free" digital cable channels.

3) NTSC tuners for cable: Some cable companies still send 32 or so channels in analog NTSC over the cable. But it needs to be a "cable" NTSC tuner, and not just an over the air tuner, as the frequencies are different. I suspect this is not an issue. These are NOT HD channels!

Conclusion: If you do not have cable, or your cable still transmits some channels in NTSC. and you can receive over the air broadcast ATSC, then there is some use for this. If you get your TV from digital cable, then this is likely not going to work.

As for working on a Mac, I would not count on it, as I could find no driver for the Sabrent tuner chip for the Mac, nor could I find one for Linux either.

no qam = fail

Sabrent is utter garbage. I have a PCI-E standard def tuner in my junk drawer, and even when cable was broadcast in standard def it didn't work for crap, and their website is terrible. Sabrent drivers are garbage, too. Hauppage is the only way to go.

DO. NOT. WANT.

LEM- wrote:Ok, I'm a complete OTA HDTV n00b, as all my HD channels come from cable.... Does HDTV require some special type of antenna, or I can plug in my old dusty rabbit ears and get a reception? What about the regular TV antenna on the roof?

Dusty old rabbit ears will do just fine.
(I mean, it works for HDTV, good reception depends on your location.)

Just plug it in in Windows 7 and media center will be awesome. :D

THIS IS THE BIGGEST PIECE OF JUNK EVER.

Like 1 in 10 work and chances are the drivers will not work for your box. I tried this with 7 and had problems recieveing OTA HDTV...so, opened up the plastic and took a look at the chip to confirm compatability...sure enough the chip soldered in was not compatable with the HDTV you can get with rabbit ears.

You are taking a chance.

I have two similar USB tuners for my Win 7 MCE HTPC. Between MCE, Netflix, and Hulu I hardly miss cable tv-- and certainly don't miss the monthly bill.

The included antenna is mostly worthless. You can build a better HDTV antenna for cheap:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWQhlmJTMzw

hackman2007 wrote:It is $40 on Amazon.

Also looks like it has Analog NTSC so you can watch cable TV from your provider if you hook up with a coax cable.

Probably has ClearQAM as well, but not for sure.

NO CLEAR-QAM! It is marked on the box, but has no power to the Qam tuner. You get what you pay for. It does ok reception. the software is lower middle of the road. Processing happens on your cpu so you need a decent one.

For the price it is a good buy. Tech support does kinda suck they claimed to be working on a software fix for the Qam. Year later still not out. It will never come as software can not fix a hardware issue. It is nice to see woot pull the qam off the listing for once.
Yes % chance of DOA, but they will send a replacement if you mail it back to them. $$ If its DOA hit woot with a RMA request.