TVSquad

If you're in the market for a cheap HDTV tuner, you might want to check out Woot today. The web retailer is offering the Pinnacle PCTV HD Pro Stick for $40, which is less than half its regular price.

This USB tuner plugs into your PC via a USB 2.0 port and lets you watch or record NTSC or ATSC broadcasts. That means you can plug in an analog or digital antenna, or connect an analog cable, vcr, dvd player, or other device. The tuner comes with a remote control, a portable antenna, and a USB extender cable.

It also comes with the Pinnacle MediaCenter software for PC. But by all reports this software stinks and you should probably find your own PVR software like Windows Media Center, BeyondTV, SageTV, Media Portal, or GB-PVR.

EVGA, a company best known for its PC graphics cards, is joining the crowded field of companies producing USB TV tuners. The company's inDtube HDTV tuner (Get it? inDtube sounds like "in the tube." So clever. Wait, no.) looks like your basic TV tuner with support for ATSC and NTSC signals, and S-Video, RCA, and composite video.

The tuner also comes with a portable antenna, a remote control, and a USB extension cable, as well as an F-Connector to MCX adapter. There's also some basic PVR software if you don't already have an application for watching and recording TV programs. Without even knowing what software the inDTube ships with, I'm going to go ahead and recommend you find smething better like Media Portal, GBPVR, BeyondTV or SageTV.

The inDTube works with Windows XP, Windows XP MCE, and Windows Vista. No word on pricing or availability yet.

[via EngadgetHD]

Pinnacle is updating its line of PCTV HD sticks, with a new PCTV HD Stick and PCTV HD Pro. Both tuners can handle over the air HDTV or unencrypted ClearQAM cable signals. And they each support resolutions up to 1080i.

What sets the PCTV HD Pro apart from the stick is an FM tuner and a dongle that lets you capture video from other sources with the nifty, but awkward looking dongle you can see in the image above. Oh yeah, and the Pro version costs $100, while you can pick up a stick for $70. Both versions should be available early next week.

[via EngadgetHD}

AMD has released 3 new ATI HDTV tuners capable of picking up over-the-air high definition signals.

The ATI TV Wonder 650 Combo USB is a $149 external tuner that packs two TV tuners and the ability to handle over the air HDTV and analog signals as well as unencrypted ClearQAM cable and FM radio.

The TV Wonder 600 PCI and TV Wonder 600PCI Express are, as their names would suggest internal tuners meant to go inside your PC. Each card has 2 tuners, which can handle OTA HDTV, ClearQAM, and FM. Both cards go for $99, or about $50 less than the TV Wonder 650.

[via Engadget]

Shinco has come up with a unique way to add personal video recording functions to an LCD TV without driving up the cost. Leave out the hard drive.

The 32-inch TV has a USB port and ships with a 2.5-inch USB hard drive enclosure. Of course, you can plug your own 3.5-inch case, a flash card reader, or pretty much any other form of USB storage you like into the TV.

The TV includes a single tuner, so you'll only be able to record one program at a time. And you can't watch one live show while recording another. But it does included an MPEG-4 decoder, so you can watch prerecorded shows while making new recordings.

The TV is available for HK$6280, which is about 805 US dollars. But it's not clear that we'll be seeing this model in the US any time soon.

[via Gizmodo and Everything USB]

Plextor has announced a new entry in the USB HDTV tuner game, the PX-HDTV500U. The stick-style tuner comes with software that does everything you'd expect including pausing and recording live HDTV.

The tuner supports:

• ATSC recordings
• Automatic channel scanning
• Picture in Picture
• Still picture capture
• 4:3 and 16:9 aspect ratios

The PX-HDTV500U will be available in North America in April for around $99. Only Windows 2000, XP, or Vista users need apply.

Looking for a cheap way to throw a second, third, or 17th TV tuner onto your media center PC? Newegg's selling the Plextor PX-TV100U for $39.99. But after a $30 rebate, you can pick this little guy up for under $10 (plus shipping).

The PX-TV100U is a USB 2.0 tuner, allowing you to record shows in MPEG-1/MPEG-2/DivX. The encoding is done through software, so you'll want a reasonably fast computer, and I wouldn't recommend picking up a dozen of these thinking that you can record 12 shows at once without crashing your PC.

You can also capture video from an analog video source like a camcorder or VCR through the PX-TV100U's composite and S-video inputs.

I'm pretty much a technophobe, meaning I'm not only completely inept and ignorant when it comes to any kind of electronic or mechanical gadget, but I actually collapse to the kitchen floor sobbing whenever I make toast. Being who I am, I never would have figured out what our sister site PVR Wire discovered via the Tivo blog, which is that you can use your Tivo (or any DVR with a USB port, I suppose) to charge your iPod or mobile phone. Just plug the USB cord into the USB port on your Tivo, connect your handheld device to the other end, and there you go. I haven't actually tried this yet, but apparently it works. If you folks have any other fancy uses for the Tivo, let me know in the comments.