AutumnWave OnAir HDTV-GT TV Tuner - HDTV-GT
OnAir GT Mobile HDTV Receiver & DVR for PC

The reciever is easy to set up. It catches all unencrypted channels. The video display is overall good, but not great. In my situation I consider it good value for the money.
 
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Any analog source will be recorded with part of the vertical blanking interval showing at the top. The VBI used to be blank as it was a gap where the electron gun position moved from the bottom of the picture back to the top to scan the next frame on the phosphor of the picture tube. Now, there is information encoded in that area making it even more objectionable to view than a simple blank line. It flickers like a swarm of dragonflies. Analog transmission will be history in February 2009, making any claims of recording by OnAir or Autumn Wave pointless very soon. Analog recording off the air or cable with this thing is pretty silly anyway. Gee, do I want to boot the computer, fire up OnAirGT, plug in the tuner, connect the cable or antenna, and put up with flickering lines at the top of the picture, or just use a freaking VCR? Their software does NOT provide a means of creating a DVD from a digital source. It can only record .trp files on your hard disk - another worthless claim of recording shot. The only thing the included WinDVD Creator software can ever record is analog with an annoying flickering line at the top. When I mentioned this on "another website" some joker said to throw the CD away and use a commercial DVD authoring package. Great, I want to spend a couple hundred more bucks and then waste hours authoring a recorded TV program, just to be able to burn it to DVD. Even though I have Adobe's $900 plus video package and ULead's DVD Workshop, DVD Santa, and several freeware authoring solutions, they all take a lot of time to process the source video and create the DVD file structure - usually more time than it took to record the video in the first place. In all fairness, the tuner works pretty well. If all you want to do is watch TV on your computer, then this might be a product for you. If you want to record, be aware of this software package's extremely limited abilities before you part with your money. Autumn Wave technical support is pretty lame. They will tell you all the limitations and then act like it's your fault.
 
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AMD Athlon 64 3200+, XP Home SP2 fully updated, 256MB Nvidia 7600GT with latest drivers; 2GB RAM; and everything else far exceeding specifications. Be careful, Buy.com won't return this as a defective product. You will need to mark it as something you don't like and pay a restocking fee plus shipping. Watch the return policy is 14 days from SHIPPING date. Buy.com customer service hung up on me while "transferring" me to a supervisor after refusing a full refund. Hopefully, Buy.com will post this review and you'll see this info...some vendors delete the bad reviews. AutumnWave tech support could not find anything wrong with my computer (since it runs everything perfectly) after providing a full system analysis. AutumnWave tech support will try to say it works properly with updated Windows and Drivers, but it is clear it doesn't. They finally recommended I return it but wouldn't admit it was there non-compliant drivers causing the problem. Even with other software, the drivers will cause the computer system to crash. Task manager will not shut down the computer, you will need to turn it off and restart manually. For me, that involved unplugging my computer, replugging and rebooting. Everytime this driver has problems this is required. I never viewed TV with the included software, and only for a few seconds viewed TV with another software program, before this products terrible driver froze my system completely, again. Yes all drivers and software packages were newest updates. All Windows and Video Card drivers were fully updated. You have been properly warned. Don't believe the Hype.
 
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Unit suffers compatibility issues. Not many laptop graphic cards work with this device. The processor is overloaded. Lots of lock-up issues. Have to force shutdown of computer and reboot. This is a Korean Divico product and these people have software driver problems - they dont know how to write software! If I knew it was a Divico product I would have never purchased the unit. You have to have a very fast laptop to prevent lockup issues.
 
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Great product...totally satisfied. Reception is excellent. Easy setup.
 
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I attached it to my laptop and it works perfectly. I get all the channels available in my area in digital and HD (where offered). What's great about it is that when I'm watching a favorite tv program and also want to watch a football game BOTH come in with clarity so I get to see them both in front of me. Recommend!!
 
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I shopped around quite awhile looking for a good HDTV USB tuner for my laptop. The 'stick' models seemed to be lacking, so I decided to go with this model. The receiver is fantastic! Combined with the Terk HDTV antenna, I can take my laptop just about anywhere and watch HD programming / sporting events. The support forum for the product is superb as well and driver/program updates are available. It is fully powered by the USB port, so no need to find an AC outlet to plug into.
 
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This receiver is everything it says it is. If using Vista, make sure the latest driver is downloaded from their site. Once done, setup is a breeze! The manual is easy to read, and the program itself is intuitive. Channel reception is very strong. The retail price is higher than the others, hence the point deduction in value.
 
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Second day using product and very happy watching and recording HDTV on my pc. Using a Dell with P42.7, 1GB, 80GBHD. Best use 2.0 USB port and your video card must support DirectX 9 or higher with DxVA support. Setup was very easy. Nothing to install inside PC, install software and plug in usb cable! I'm using it to watch OTA (over the air) HD broadcasts so I decided to use the great indoor Terk TV5 powered antenna, not the included antenna (so I can't comment on it). Digital stations in my area are only 13 miles away, it found them all. I've had perfect digital reception, not even having to adjust the antenna between changing channels (unlike my 37" HDTV in the other room when using same Terk antennta). This tells me the HD receiver in the GT is very good and maybe better then my 37" HDTV?! I'm using an inexpensive 22" wide PC screen monitor, and full screen HD is mind blowing superb! You can adjust TV screen any size and right click for multiple options, such as aspect and zoom. Desktop mode plays the video as your desktop wallpaper so you can run pgms and have full screen tv behind them. Works great. Two nights now of watching free prime time HD shows flawlessly ota. Stereo audio is adjusted with windows volume control (wav). CPU usage stays around between 7 to 12% even when recording! There is a time-slip function, but have not tried it yet. HD recording is easy and works flawless- click record/stop. Or set scheduler. The schedule program could be nicer but it works. No pause however while recording. However you can easily make clips from a play back, by pressing record/stop when you want. I found HD recording uses 8.7 gb disk space per 1 hour. Play back is flawless, with superb fast forward/backward controls. Fast forward has 3 fast modes, with very smooth video. No skip 30 seconds ahead function, but you can jump anywhere by clicking on any part of the playback bar. Recorded TV files have a .trp extension. However, it's just an MPG-2 file so I simply changed the extension from .trp to .mpg, and played the recorded HD file in windows media player and DivX player, with perfect playback (DivX is better HD playback). However, the renamed .mpg would not play in my Panasonic DMR-EH55, don't know why, as I can play other .mpg files (from other sources). The included OnAir HD Editor software crashed both times I used it. It has a Notice on opening that if you don't have an SASEM DTV card it's "limited to 31 days and 250 mb". So maybe that's why, don't know. I'll find another way to edit mpg's. The included Intervideo WinDVD Creator 2 software makes a movie DVD with menus, but it's very slow. But it worked. Remote control is fine. This product is worth every penny IMO!
 
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The pluses for this unit are: It is extremely easy to install. I was able to scan HD over the air channels with the antenna that came with the unit. It uses an USB port rather than an PCI/PICe slot and most machines have plenty of these ports. However, once the HD channels were recognized with the accompanied antenna I had trouble viewing some stations. The shows played and hesitated rather than smooth picture viewing. I suspect it has something to do with the antenna and not the unit. Also, when I plugged my analog Time Warner cable to the unit, the recorded shows are twice as large as, say, as a show I recorded in best quality with an Hauppauge PCI tuner card. Overall, this unit provided me with all the requirements I need. Able to connect to HD or analog input. Keeps my PCI and PICe slots open for other components. It is a little pricey but base on my research, it is the most reasonable and flexible unit out there.
 
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I considered other tuners at half the price, but I wanted to be sure I got something that works and supported QAM (cable) as well as over-the-air. I use it in my office and on travel, with Windows XP. It's a slick little device (about the size of a notebook-sized USB HD), with a little screw-on antenna, a nice slipcase, and a cable. And, of course the software. The player software is excellent, with high quality display and indicator to tell you what type of signal you are watching (1080i, 720p, 480, etc). The management software is plain and utilitarian, but it works. To set up, you connect to cable and scan for analog and digital (you'll get the unencryoted channels). Then you reconnect to its little antenna or your own antenna and scan again for analog and digital channels, for a total of four sets. You can edit the channel descriptions, replacing the number with call letters or whatever description you like. I can schedule recordings or record as I watch. I was surprised how many over-the-air stations I could pick up. With the built-in features I can encode to MPEG-1 or 2, but more importantly the software allows me to record a pure MPEG-2 transport stream and Dolby audio without encoding, then re-encode to other formats (using other software, not included). Combined with a PC and widescreen, hi-res display (at least 1280x720) you now have HDTV in your office or hotel room. If you like to preserve broadcasts in HDTV resolution, you have that option.
 
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i have had the ati hdtv wonder card in my desktop for over a year now and with software called watchhdtv it works flawless. recently i bought a new laptop,so i also bought the onair gt. after alot of research on other usb hd devices this appeared to be the best,though it cost a little more and i did not mind as long as it was reliable .i have used it a couple nights on my laptop and it works as well as my ati card.hooked up to my outside antenna it picks up every channel the ati does.i live a good thirty to fourty miles from town and the little antenna that comes with it, inside my house picks up at least half of the channels. that really suprised me as far as i live from town.and i am only talking about digital channels which need to have a strong enough signal to be watchable.the software that comes with the onair gt works better than ati software though you should download the newer drivers before use.
 
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I purchased one of these about three months ago and I'm extremely happy with it. I live in San Francisco and I get about a dozen HDTV stations including three excellent digital stations from the local PBS affiliate (KQED). I plug it into my laptop which sits on a table in the kitchen and it’s like having a great TV handy without having to actually have a TV sitting around. The software which comes with it is not very slick looking but it’s very efficient and runs without any problems. My only complaint would be that the price seems a little high (approx $160). I’m curious to know if the “PC TV Pendrive ATSC” which I see being sold on various websites for about $50 would work as well for my needs. Anyhow I love the fact that I get beautiful high definition TV and I don’t need to pay “the man” (the cable company). :-)
 
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