October 17, 2006 1:15 PM PDT
Turning your laptop into HDTV
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The $179 OnAir GT by start-up AutumnWave is an ashtray-size high-definition tuner that plugs into your laptop, turning it into an HDTV set. I recently tested the device at CNET Networks' headquarters in San Francisco.
Video: OnAir GT makes your laptop a TV set
Device relies on an antenna to pick up broadcasts.
At a time when a host of companies are trying to stream video over the Web, the GT relies on an antenna to pick up over-the-air analog and digital broadcasts. The device could shine when people find themselves without access to the Web or a TV set. Think airport delays, camping trips and crowded college dorm rooms with too few televisions.
AutumnWave, based in New Bloomfield, Penn., is trying to take advantage of two relatively recent developments: Most laptops are now equipped with HD-enabled monitors, and the air is filling up with HDTV signals.
One misconception about high definition is that it's only available via cable and satellite transmissions and must be viewed on expensive plasma or liquid crystal display sets. Not true. More than 1,500 TV stations in the United States are now broadcasting HD signals over the air.
This means anybody with an HD tuner should be able to watch high-definition broadcasts.
After downloading the software needed to run the OnAir GT and connecting the device to my laptop via a USB 2.0 port, I received over-the-air broadcasts from more than two dozen stations. That was from the sixth floor of CNET's office building downtown. Elsewhere in downtown, results were mixed. At a Starbucks near the intersection of Market and Second streets, I couldn't locate any signals.
Surprisingly, I did get relatively good reception from my home in the city's Sunset District, which is surrounded by steep hills. San Francisco, with its numerous inclines, is famous for obstructing broadcast signals.
Razor sharp, yet choppy
Nonetheless, the hills didn't stop me last week from receiving razor-sharp images of Phoenician sailboats and Egyptian mummies during a documentary on KQED, a San Francisco-based public broadcasting station. I watched the American League Championship Series from my office and saw jaw-dropping clarity and depth when the Detroit Tigers' Magglio Ordonez hit his game-winning home run.
But those broadcasts, while digital, were standard definition.
Only one of the HD broadcasts I tried to watch came in clear. The other HD signals were choppy, shuddering so much they were almost unwatchable in full-screen format. In a smaller window, the jarring was still annoying but tolerable for short periods.
AutumnWave denies that it has seen this jumpiness elsewhere. Patrick Castellani, AutumnWave's president and chief operating officer, who stopped in San Francisco to talk about the product, said the HD tuner within the GT is made by LG Electronics, and as long as a signal is readily available the GT can produce HD-quality images.
"If someone can receive their local station, they can receive the station's digital broadcast," he said.
I'd still buy a GT. Even without the HD, it's is a nifty piece of gadgetry, and I enjoyed being able to watch live TV on my laptop while cleaning my room or checking e-mail.
At $179, the GT allows me to acquire a backup TV for far less cost. The product, which sells on AutumnWave's Web site, is light and highly mobile and provides an excellent picture from standard definition signals, be they analog or digital. Consumers can also connect the device to an HDTV cable box and record programming on a PC hard drive.
See more CNET content tagged:
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In the UK you can get a similar device for regular standard definition TV's (just about every home in the UK has an antenna, so they are expecting a large uptake of over-the-air digital tv subscription competing with the usual cable/satellite packages which have already gone over to digital only service).
This would be a great alternative for those that don't need premium channels like HBO, etc and I don't see why this wouldn't work with desktop PCs as well (watching TV at work instead of spending the day on the 'net?) - in fact I might get one just for this!
But to travel with the capability of picking up local channels, even if the only reliable ones are SD would be brilliant.
I do have a question though, can anyone out there recommend the prefered tv-tuner for *nix systems? X 7.1 is suposed to have native ATI tuner support but us ATI owners have been an afterthought until now.
* Less expensive.
* Smaller (about the size of a Flash memory stick).
* Works with Windows MCE. (The AutumnWave is only compatable with MCE on its analog tuner, you loose HDTV support, so if your PC comes with MCE pre-installed, you must install/maintain two media players.)
* Pinnacle promises that Mac support is coming "real soon now." Of course take that with a grain of salt.
I have no connection with any of these companies, but I'm in the market for a USB HDTV tuner (preferably compatable with Windoze MCE), and before I drop $100-$200, I'd like to see some real-world testing and comparisons.
The Fusion tuner (at least the latest model) also uses the LG v5 tuner chip. So I'd be interested to know why one user reported that the AutumnWave was so much more capable. Drivers or other software/firmware?
At best this is a portable receiver.
The best digital TV modulation in the world is DMB-TH just chosen by China and developed here in the US. It CAN do HDTV mobile as can the European standard, DVB-T/H and the Japanese standard ISDB-T.
Every country but Canada and Mexico that looked at our modulation rejected it. China and Brazil being the latest.
We should reject it to and for the most part we are. That is broadcasters, retailers manufacturers and the public for the most part are paying very little attention to over the air broadcasting.
Hopefully, maybe, 8-VSB will just go away.
http://www.notebooks.com/?p=149
I only got this piece to record with. I really never bought into the idea of watching HDTV on a computer screen. I wanted to record, burn to DVD, and watch it on the big screen.
The other reviewers must only use this thing to watch TV.
OnAirGT comes with WinDVD Creator 2. It promises you can capture and burn the result to DVD. This is only a half kept promise because it will not and, according to Autumn Wave technical support, cannot capture anything digital, only hopelessly doomed analog.
That will be of no use come February 2009 and it is of little use now. Analog, I wonder, should I make it a really long and involved process with OnAirGT, WinDVD Creator 2, do a capture, create a project, create a movie, and burn to DVD, or just use a freaking VCR!
Sure there are a lot of other software options and I already own some that allow the .trp recorded video to be converted to mpeg and the mpeg converted to .vob with complete structure for burning and playback on a standard DVD player. The whole problem is this stupid, irritating flickering line at the top of the video.
If you plan on recording, forget it.
I returned it for refund. What a waste of time.