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Ian, Edinburgh on July 14th, 2005
I recently bought one of these cards from Overclockers and have found it to be excelent value for money at only 40 quid. Good Points: The picture quality is superb, and the viewing/recording software is comprehensive and really easy to use. Recording programmes is very simple, either by clicking the record button, or schedulling recordings from the EPG. Bad Points: The is no digital teletext (or red button stuff), but the interative programmes can still be reached by tuning to the appropriate channel number; 705 for live BB, 701/2 for BBC stuff like the tennis. 4:3 to 16:9 switching has to be done manually. The card also does MPG2 video cature from an analogue source, which comes out quite nice - although I still prefer using my old Miro DC-10 capture card for proper AVI capture/video editing, and creating MPG2 files manually since the results are better by this longer method. In summary, the card is great for watching live and as a hard disk recording system on a PC for all freeview TV and radio programmes.
Martin, York UK on August 9th, 2005
The 200 has video capture from a composite/s-video source, ideal for hooking up a VCR/dvd-recorder/cable box, the 300 has an analogue tuner. A nice feature is that the analogue audio input is captured on the card, so none of the sound card interrupt and sync problems of most capture cards. The digital viewing seems to work well, download the updated drivers form the site if you have problems out of the box
Stuart, Glasgow on September 1st, 2005
Got for £40 inc postage. Picture OK but a bit dull/blurred on my PC screen - pleasing lack of flicker or scan lines though. A few annoyances - 1. Supplied software doesn't have the correct frequency offsets and won't tune in all the muxes. Need to update from website. 2. Intermittently on start-up or channel change the card fails to lock on to a signal - despite perfect signal strength. Invariably restarting the programme cures this, but it makes the device very unreliable for timed recording, one of its supposed key benefits. 3. Lipsync becomes really bad after a while on recordings. 4. While it is possible to manually record an entire transport stream (Mux) to avoid lipsync issues, timed recordings do not give the option to record in this format automatically. 5. There is no control over the random nature of the channel numbering.
Jon, Christchurch on March 15th, 2006
Bought for Christmas , works well with software update but will occasionally lose channels. No interactive MHEG but you can tune in Video and Audio on eg Parliament and news multiscreen . EPG ok but a bit erratic. Picture very good on my Viewsonic VP171s , picture in picture facility nice gimmick albeit that it can only PIP the current Mux (not across them)
