Review: PCTV Systems nanoStick T2 290e TV Tuner
Don Bradbury takes a look at the world's first DVB-T2 (HD-capable) USB Freeview TV tuner for the PC
| Product | PCTV Systems nanoStick T2 290e TV Tuner |
|---|---|
| Company | Hauppauge |
| Web | www.hauppauge.co.uk |
| Price | About £75 |
| We like | Simple installation; good display; high definition capability; file conversion facilities |
| We don't like | Video replay in Gallery was susceptible to freezing during the final minute of the track |
| Rating | 9/10 |
| Requirements | All versions of Windows 7, Vista, XP with latest service packs |
Many would consider that the first thing to add to a new PC these days would be a TV tuner. After all, everything you need in order to play live television is in the computer itself except the tuner, and that can be added for a reasonable outlay. Modern LCD flat panels are capable of excellent resolution, and current multi-core CPUs and integrated graphics processing standards should be up to the job.
Maker PCTV Systems, now part of the Hauppauge Group, has recently produced this DVB-T2, high definition compatible tuner that can be used for viewing Freeview HD channels, albeit at a higher price than you might expect to pay for a standard, non-HD tuner. They quote minimum system requirements of 1GB of RAM, 2.6GHz multi-core processing for the DVB-T2 HDTV format, or 1.5GHz for standard DVB-T TV. The hard disk should offer at least 1GB of free capacity (though 20GB is recommended), and sound and graphics giving support for DirectX 9 or higher.
The printed literature that came with the device was sparsely populated with minimal multi-lingual help. The installation process was straight forward, with useful information on the channel scanning process, hardware configuration and so on, but for the technologically uninitiated, such things as the difference between an aerial and an antenna - among many other options in the setup routine - were only discussed in CD-based docs. Our advice is to just set up for 'aerial' and 'auto gain' before you scan for channels; that covers all aerial types so you can swap between them if you need to, otherwise you have to scan again if you make a change.
Detecting channels
Channel scanning could be set to quick, normal, or best quality, and while this took it's time to complete at the normal setting, it was altogether quicker than that taken by Windows Media Center, which is your most likely alternative medium for watching TV, video replay etc. The default 'quick' scan should be satisfactory, however, and our setup took 11.5 minutes to locate 105 TV and radio channels from a local relay station at that setting.
Though all detected channels were reported as satisfactory for signal strength, unusually we noted that all were said to be received at 100% signal quality. All the channels played well on a flat panel LCD display.
High Def
Picture quality from current HD broadcasts was visibly superior to the non-HD broadcasts, though you have to bear in mind that viewing on a computer's display is not the same experience as you get when viewing on a television set. The viewing distance is much closer for a start, perhaps only two to three feet max, so allowance has to be made for that when judging perceived picture quality, especially when viewed full screen on a large flat panel.
The nanoStick T2 came with a USB extender cable. That's because rear mounted USB ports on the typical PC's system box are likely to be fully populated and packed together tightly. In addition, the little remote controller you get in the pack needs pretty much line-of-sight to the tuner to work, so the tuner really needs to be hung around the corner of the system box a little, and the cable extender lets you do this.
What, for most locations in the UK, is likely to prove an ineffective, single pole, digital antenna is also included in the pack. Unless they live in the shadow of a transmitter, most users will need to provide access to a suitable external aerial for good reception. Having said that, we simply used a coax TV splitter when both a television set and the nanoStick tuner worked well while running simultaneously off an external aerial with this arrangement.
Up and running
Installation automatically installed the required device driver for our 64-bit Windows 7 system, and then proceeded to install TVCenter. This is the maker's application for viewing, program scheduling, and so on. It's a rather neat alternative to Windows Media Center, and in our experience, ostensibly more convenient to use as it gave access to the required station more quickly and intuitively, plus it added its own PVR facilities, including video record, time shift, and also single frame snapshot.
We noted that video replays froze the video, while continuing to play the audio, half a minute or so before completion. This did not happen when we played the files within Windows Media Player or VideoLAN's VLC Media Player. PCTV Systems are expecting to produce a program update where this little quirk will be solved; at present the reason for TVCenter freezing replay before completion is unknown, and it doesn't happen on all systems. In the meantime, if you intend to use TVCenter for replay and experience this problem, it would be as well to add a couple of minutes to the recording time to cover it.
While they were stored on your disk in appropriate (customisable) folders, the snapshot and video clips you record can all be viewed in the TVCenter Gallery facility that the program provides. You might pop a shortcut to that on the Windows Desktop for easy access as it offers many file conversion options. Not the least of these was the capability to convert your recordings to MPG format for playing on a DVD player. After the conversion, burn the new file to DVD in Windows or your favourite burning software.
All of the major program functions were accessible via sections in the PCTV Systems folder of Start Menu, including EPG, Gallery, Radio, Settings, Wizard, and TVCenter, plus Documentation and Tools folders. The latter included Check For Updates but, as yet, we discovered none. Check for Updates, together with another couple of program features, were all installed in Windows Startup, accessible via MSConfig.
Channel information was quite comprehensive, and the vital channel selection options were good, with the choice of listing by either channel number or with the stations shown alphabetically.
Channel selection
The tuner itself comes with a dedicated coax adapter to receive your aerial cable, and it's a tight fit. We found that if you just push it until it clicks, it will still stand off from the tuner's neck by around a quarter of an inch and looks a little suspect for that. It's firm in that position though, and the hardware assembly worked well.
The remote controller, whose activation was reflected by a red LED on the body of the tuner when in use, completes the package. We might point out that the tuner body is spilt so that, usefully, one half can be slid over the USB plug for its protection during transport.
The application suite also included DistanTV, a streaming medium for TV that's viewable over a local network or the Internet, to be received by a different PC or other suitable device, so that you can stream live TV and TV recordings to your iPhone, iPad or other PCs and Macs.
We noted that the software reported that the nanoStick T2 was merely a DVB-T device - which would not have been capable of HD reception - but in fact the station list showed that it had, in fact, located the Freeview HD channels, though they were not listed as HD.
TV recording formats included MPEG-4 H.264 (AVC) from DVB-T2; MPEG-4 compatible with PSP/iPod; MPEG-2 transport stream; and MPEG-1 (off-line trans-coding). The snapshots were in JPEG format, placed in the My Pictures folder, but TVCenter Gallery is a useful option for viewing all your recordings, as we pointed out. The snapshot captures were quite small at around 30-50K size; just right for emailing.
In conclusion
The nanoStick T2 is not one of those twin tuner, watch one channel and simultaneously record another type of device, but for those who want to watch a single channel, either full screen, in a small frame in the corner of the screen while you work on something else, or any size in between, it works well. Standard picture definition on our 1920 x 1080p LCD display was good, considering the close viewing distance, with appropriate benefits from full HD broadcasts being evident.
T2 is the current high definition standard for DVB-T2 receivers, but the nanoStick T2 also works well in areas offering only DVB-T (Freeview) and DVB-T radio. These users will fall back on the latter standard until their area can receive DVB-T2.
Whether you'll want to use this device with Windows Media Center instead of TVCenter - which it has to be admitted is a useful option - could depend on what exactly you want to do. Media Center does, of course, offer alternative forms of entertainment as well as TV if you want to go to the trouble of navigating around it's setup routines. TVCenter was rather simpler to use, though on our system the glitch we experienced during video replay had to be overcome by using either Windows Media Player or the free, and very versatile, VLC Media Player if the last minute or so of replay was important. In addition, TVCenter Gallery's file conversion options were most welcome.
