LITTLEBLACKDOG.COM

Big Dog Joined: 18 Oct 2000 Posts: 4419

Feel free to post any questions, comments, or feedback regarding this article. We will do our best to answer any questions you may have, and look forward to your feedback on this article!

Original Article - http://www.littlewhitedog.com/reviews_hardware_00019.asp

Fido@littlewhitedog.com

Stray Dog Joined: 16 Jan 2001 Posts: 1

Fido,

Great article. That audio/video sync problem is too bad; I certainly won't be buying one, particularly because of it!

Can you (or anyone else) suggest the best video capture card out there (preferably w/ S-video and composite)? ATI's drivers are too buggy; I hear Hauppage makes some decent PCI add-in cards.

Thanks,
sd2k

Big Dog Joined: 18 Oct 2000 Posts: 4419

Hauppage and Nogatech both make similar type devices but I cannot comment on how well they work. In fact prior to writing this article I sent e-mails off to AverMedia, Nogatech, and Hauppage asking for some hardware to review - AverMedia was the only company that replied.

I think Brain (one of our Forum memebers, and writer here at LWD) has USB TV Tuner of somekind, perhaps we will chime in on this thread and share some thoughts about his.

Fido@littlewhitedog.com

Big Dog Joined: 20 Oct 2000 Posts: 3689 Location: USA

Fidolio,

I may have mis explained when we were talking before.

I have TV out on my V3 3K, and I have a DVD player (I'm not using the TV out for some reason ?. . what WAS I thinking Question

)

I HAD a Hauppage Tv tuner for almost a week. . . but someone offered me $30 more for it than it would have cost for them to drive down to the local Comp USA and purchase one. . . so you can guess how quickly I sold that sucker !

Unfortunately I never even got it out of the box before I sold it because I was out of town when it arrived by mail.

Blame is for people who need a reason to be pissed off !
-Brain

Stray Dog Joined: 12 Apr 2001 Posts: 1

Hi, I read the review and I believe that you forgot an important detail. You explained that you pluged the audio output into your sound card inputs and then later you said you had a bad audio delay problem. You didn't include what kind of sound card you had and didn't include weather or not the delay was present when going directly into speakers or headphones with the sound. If people only are using this card for watching the TV and not capture then that delay wouldn't matter as long as going direct with the sound would fix the delay. Also the performance of your audio card is mostlikely the reson for the delay. With proper drivers and settings you can get well below 40ms latency on the audio card if you have a halfway decent one. That much audio latency would be humanly imposible to here, so the delay wouldn't be an issue. Please let me know if you can answer some of these unclear issues about the device. Thanks a lot, I appreciate your review.

Jeff Pierson (kain864@aol.com)

Stray Dog Joined: 13 May 2001 Posts: 1 Location: USA

Enjoyed your article on the AverTV. I agree that the limitation with the out of sync voice and picture is vitally important...they need to fix this if it's going to sell...would appreciate knowing what a better alternative might be because there are quite a few of these out there, mostly slot devices, but I'm attracted to an external USB device because of its simplicity...hope some other firm comes up with a smiliar model with the right sync.

Posted: Sun May 13, 2001 3:56 pm Post subject:

Well since Fido has not responded yet, I will. I personally saw the delay, or heard it. Anyways, he's running a SB Live Value card and the delay happened whether we used the sound card or straight from the tuner. The weird part was that it didn't start out with the delay, but progressed into it. He talked directly with the manufacturer and they told him it was a known problem...end of story! Not much you can do about something like that. I agree he should of mentioned what sound card he was using, but I think after his conversation with them it didn't seem to matter.

....Fido jump in any time.

Rover

Toilet bowls...the chalice of dogs everywhere.

Big Dog Joined: 18 Oct 2000 Posts: 4419

Read your review and went with the Aver. Bad move. Check out the response I got from tech support...

Dear Sir or Madam,

Thank you for contacting us. We're aware of this error with the TV USB
"Can not create graph builder". Currently we do not have a solution,
our engineers are looking into this matter. We hope you can bare with
us at this time. As we hope our engineers will solve this problem
shortly. Your other alternative is to return the unit to the store you
purchased from. If you have any difficulty returning the unit, please
let us know and we will be glad to assist you. Thank you.

I think you should put an addendum on to your review. Also, the new ME drivers have hung up my system on installation. Very weak.

Bob

Posted: Sat Feb 23, 2002 10:24 am Post subject:

MSRP?

EEps · Posted: Sat Feb 23, 2002 11:25 am Post subject:

Quote:

MSRP?

Manufacturer Suggested Retail Price...

BamZipPow
...how things get done
[img]http://ianwolven.net/lwd/doggie/postsleft.php?ID=971 [/img] Freaking posts before my next dogspot...

Posted: Sat Feb 23, 2002 2:34 pm Post subject:

my bad...yes..i know thats what it means...i was wondering what the msrp is...also i tried to play the video capture thru media player...it couldnt find the decompressor for it

Big Dog Joined: 18 Oct 2000 Posts: 4419

The CODEC they used to capture that was a pretty old one. I doubt most of the stuff you have is backwards compatible with that version. MSRP is $76.00, but I would try to find some alternate device to capture video is you're looking to do that. This device is rather old, and there is no XP / 2K driver support.

Leg Humper Joined: 16 Jan 2002 Posts: 5518

the reason the delay seemd to get larger is the ratio of the audio to video playback.

Consider that the audio is off one quarter a second, for the first second its off by only that one quarter, then the second second its if by one half second, and just by the fourth second it will be off by one whole second.

Yours may have been off by 1/100 - 1/1000 of a second which wouldn't be noticiable until about thirty seconds or more through playback.

Stray Dog Joined: 01 Sep 2003 Posts: 1

I want to buy this thing for my dorm and would use it with my laptop (PIII 650, ATI 8MB, WXPpro) I've checked the aver website and they have XP drivers now, the main use would be to watch TV and maybe pass my nintendo signal trough it, since I don't have/ can't afford a TV set that fit my needs at the moment. I find it at a store here in Mexico and I'm doing some research before buying. I think the capture capability would be useful, but the main use is watch casual TV (I'm not a couch potatoe), is it worth the $85 USD price that I find?

I saw in the web site that the product had won some awards so I don't think is that bad.

Also it got 2 paws uot of how many? how many paws does a perfect product get?

Thank you very much, hope you can answer soon because it is the last one in stock.

Big Dog Joined: 18 Oct 2000 Posts: 4419

I've heard from a few people recently who stated they were having difficulties with their AVER device. And when they contacted the company they were not willing to help them out, almost as if they didn't want to support the thing anymore. I can't back up their claims as I have not spoken with this company in quite a while, but if I was looking for something to what you want it to do I would really consider looking into something a little newer. Possibly something like this from Hauppauge.