DVB-T Freeview USB sticks for PCs and Laptops
Tuesday, June 3rd, 2008TV Tuners for your lappy
Anyone remember the TV Tuner which came out for the Sega Game Gear? On the surface, it was amazing; cheap portable TV! In colour! In reality, it was a shoddy dissapointment, with intermittent reception, crap sound and wrong colours – and that was at the best of times. Plus, the already battery draining nature of the Game Gear, which normally ate up a massive 6 AA’s in the space of four hours, was amplified by this non-functioning monstrosity to the point where you couldn’t actually watch an entire 90 minutes of a football match plus the attendant commentary without the power dying halfway through. It was all well and good if you plugged it in via the mains adapter, but chances are if you were anywhere near a mains socket, then you’d be close to a proper TV set as well, sort of defeating the TV Tuner’s USP.
Fortunately, things have moved on a lot since 1991, no pun intended. A number of a companies have recently started churning out tiny DVB Digital TV tuners which connect to laptops via a USB port, allowing for Freeview channels to be viewed on the move. For about a tenner, you get a Tuner/USB Dongle thingy which comes with an aerial and a remote control – simply run the install CD on your laptop, plug it in and watch it go.
Of the devices currently available, the punchily titled Lupo Digital TV DVB-T USB Adapter Freeview Receiver for PC and Laptop is the most popular, costing a mere £9.99. HD fanatics will be pleased to know that an 1080i HDTV Ready option is available for £15.95 from ebuyer.com.
Whilst TV cards have been available for computers for years now, the release of these plug and play style devices, along with platforms like 4oD and BBC iPlayer, only goes to show how the role of the computer in the household is changing, occupying areas traditionally held by other devices. How long will it be before we can link up our computers to sensors in fridges, which automatically send out orders to the local supermarket when we get a bit low on milk? How long before the Talkie Toaster from Red Dwarf becomes a reality?
