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Freecom Digital TV DVB-T USB Stick Freeview receiver, black
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178 Customer Reviews
RRP: £26.99
Amazon Price: £22.29
You Save: £4.7 (17%)
Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours
Platform: Windows XP
Publisher: Freecom
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Editorial: With the Freecom DVB-T USB Stick, you can watch and record Freeview digital TV and Radio on your computer without monthly subscription.
The Freecom DVB-T USB stick is characterized by amazing compact dimensions of only 28 x 15 x 86 mm and an ultra-light weight of 25 grams. This minute digital receiver is therefore perfect for mobile, cordless TV and radio reception. The only equipment required is a laptop or desktop with a USB 2.0 port. An IEC connector is also included to connect to a normal aerial to get better signal.
The Freecom DVB-T USB stick offers much more besides convincingly sharp picture quality; in combination with the hard disk, it becomes a digital video recorder. In this case the user has the choice between "live" recording and convenient programming by means of the timer function. This is where the EPG comes into its own, which lists the complete TV schedule of all broadcasters, and provides brief descriptions of the individual programmes.
Accessories Included
Freecom DVB-T USB STICK
External DVB-T antenna
Remote control
USB extension cable
Quick Installation Guide
Freecom warranty registration form
Freecom manual & application CD
2 Years manufacturers warranty and unlimited helpdesk support |
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"Worth trying" - 3 October 2006
I bought this after purchasing the Hauppauge WinTV-NOVA-T USB Stick.
The Freecom Digital TV DVB USB Stick was easy to install and worked well, although I didn't use the antenna that came with it
The picture quality was very good, the only problem I had was recording programmes. I was able to record certain channels for viewing at a later date, but was not able to record all channels!
Has anyone else had this problem and overcome it......could you let me know.
I had nothing but problems with Hauppauge WinTV-NOVA-T USB Stick for some reason certain drives would not load form the CD. The product support guys were very polite but could not solve the problem.
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"Awsome" - 14 July 2006
This product is simply brilliant. This is the latest May 2006 revision and it comes with a great program called Arcsoft TotalMedia to run it (Which is better than rubbish freecom software some people have) and for people like me with windows xp mce it included BDA drivers on the CD which let me use it with my HTPC (that I built myself. It is an awsome piece of kit and you cannot beat it for V.F.M. I would throughly reccomend this product for windows xp mce users and people with normal xp. It is much better than the cheaper alternatives and even includes a little remote control and a HI speed USB extension cable.
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"A nice device, but..." - 12 July 2006
As usual, the item was delivered promptly and I set about installing it on my laptop. Call me daft if you want, but when I am asked for a serial number, I'm going to go for the number on the box or the stick itself. So, I had to abort the setup as it kept saying I had the wrong number. Onto the website FAQ's and I quickly find that the number needed is the one for the disc. Otherwise all went well. The aeriel is no good where I live, but attaching an external one brought in most of the stations I get from our main box. Worth the effort in the end.
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"We never stop hoping for a happy ending..." - 2 July 2006
I was struck by how many people have written reviews for this product, and how many have read those reviews, judging by the amount of feedback left. Perhaps this reflects a perenial optimism that things will work out okay if you prod and tweak them, plus it's a cool looking gadget. Well that's me to a tee - sucker for cute widgets plus I did what I guess most people did and think 'oh those ones who couldn't get it to work very well, they were probably just unlucky'. Thirty quid didn't seem like very much money when it would almost certainly work for me, me being reasonably techy-savvy.
Well. As seems to be standard, the initial scan with the supplied aerial produced nothing, but forewarned I plugged it in to the house aerial, and the scan produced a list of about thirty channels. Note, I had to stand in front of my tv set to do this, where there is, er.. not a great need for another tv, but I digress.
I initially struggled to reorder the channels in the set up box, but with a little perseverance I did. Then I tried them out.
BBC1 & BBC2 & CBBC fine
Sky Sports News & Sky 3 fine
E4 fine
Shopping channels
that's it
Now there are many more channels listed, many of them called things like '302', but I have no idea what these are. Click on them and Nothing happens. Can't find ITV or C4 at all.
The Quality of the picture and sound is really good, no complaints there, but to be honest I wouldn't have bought it if I'd known I'd be able to get two channels I want at the price of having an extension cable resting on the head of the people watching the real telly in the living room.
If I want to record something on BBC1 or 2 I'll probably be very pleased.
Other comments: the remote has to be very close to the usb stick to work; the stick heats up to the point where I wouldn't want it touching anything else or to be left plugged in while I wasn't in the room as I suspect it could be a hazard if forgotten; the software is not intuitive to use and exhibits selective behaviour, where sporadically only parts of it will function (not a lack of resources as pc is quite powerful). It isn't impossible but it doesn't make the job easy.
So should you buy it? Well you might be one of the lucky ones - some people obviously do fine judging from many of the reviews -
but I think you have to be realistic, it's just a straight gamble..
Have to say that thirty quid seems like quite a lot now!
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"Driver issues with XP" - 29 June 2006
I bought this little stick hoping that a simple install with the luxury of USB would make this a better buy than PCI. How wrong was I.
It appeared a simple set-up and even comes with a quick install card, six hours later, yes SIX hours later I finally gave up, put it back into the box and returned it to Amazon. Error after error after error with no solution from the help line, forums, etc.
I am an advanced PC user and it beat me!
If you look on the forums for this device you will notice that LOTS of people have suffered the same problem. There are fixes out there but they are complicated and beyond what people should be doing to make this work. Despite the fixes (found by customers may I add) mine still failed to work.
Many will say it's my computer, which is often the get out clause with these companies. Regardless of my set-up this should work, at the end of the day you pay your money you expect it to work.
I'd do some research on this via the forums before you decide to buy.
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"Great gadget - shocking aerial!!" - 28 June 2006
Very good little product indeed! I'm only holding back giving it five stars because the aerial it comes with is very disappointing. Freeview.co.uk says we can't get Freeview (even though we can), so I wasn't expecting much from it. Not surprisingly, it picked up nothing at all. Bought a freeview-capable aerial from Wilko for a fiver and picked up 30+ channels and 20+ radio stations no problem. Once you get it up and running, the picture quality is excellent - looks great on my 19" Samsung LCD monitor! Recording programs is very easy too, although the TV planner software is a little primative.
Bottom line - don't be put off by negative reviews, cos it's a crackin' little gadget. Just be prepared to spend a bit extra on a replacement aerial or hook it up to your main house aerial*.
(*I can see how this'd be a problem for people wanting to use it "on the move" with a laptop, but face it...if you're using a laptop, you're already used to things not working properly anyway!!)
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"Freecom DVB-T works a Treat" - 22 June 2006
Bought one of these for my laptop. Easy and simple to set up, worked straight out of the box. Scanned channels using the supplied aerial, good reception indoors (living in a good signal area). Very neat little device with good interface. Picture is perfect, but can jerk a bit when using other application at the same time on my PC. (my CPU is P4 1Gb with intel onboard graphics). Recommend it if you are after an easy to use valuable TV add on....
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"Excellent !- Believe it or not" - 16 June 2006
I got the item today. quite easy and trouble free installation initially. (You need to have DirectX 9 installed in the system). Connected initially to the roof top antenna and the software auto scanned most of the channels. I was initially able to hear sound, but not picture. The picture window was showing lines and dots only. Thinking in terms of incompatibility with my display adapter, I tried to change some settings. I reduced my laptop display colour depth from 32 bit to 16 bit and also disabled the display adapter hardware acceleration (my laptop has S3 prosavage). Voila! I was able to see all channels clear. Next thing was even surprising. I tried various positions for the antenna supplied in the kit inside my room. On the wall positioned horizontally and perpendicular, it was picking up all the channels. My area has good freeview reception.
I don't agree to all the negative points in some of the reviews.
1. It is a good piece of kit, you may face some sort of hardware or software incompatibility depending on your PC spec.
2. If you are in a poor freeview reception area, you may not get any channels or you may need a roof top antenna.
3. The small antenna is working,but definitely needs some tweaking with regards to its final position. I did not get any better using an amplified indoor antenna.
4. The software shows the RF signal strength and quality. Both has to be high for reception.
5. You get either full quality picture or none. If reception is poor, you may see intermittent scenes and sound and not poor quality pictures.
6. Video recording is much smooth and not heavily CPU dependent. It is directly in mpeg2 format and has nearly DVD quality.
Hope this helps.
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"good for the money" - 2 June 2006
First impressions: looks pretty well made, a usb extension lead is supplied which has been invaluable.
As many other reviewers have commented, a rooftop aerial is extremely handy but utterly against one main purpose of this device which is portability.
Fortunately I am using this on my desktop pc, and my aerial is magnetised to my clothing rack, which helps a lot!
If you are going to attempt to use the supplied aerial, it's going to take a lot of time to position it correctly and it still might not work.
Software supplied is NOT very good. Some of it is counter-intuitive and I could probably have designed a better interface myself. The recording is glitchy, the EPG is really poorly designed. That being said, I've had a few recording successes already and the quality of the recording has been excellent, but it eats hard drive space, a large HDD is essential.
I'm hoping that Freecom will bring out some improved software soon!
The picture is good on all channels, although in the three days that I've had it, I've had to reposition the aerial several times to avoid intermittent tranmission.
Overall, a potentially fantastic product, which is let down by sub-standard software, but well worth the money.
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"Freecom DVB-T Freeview TV Stick" - 1 June 2006
This is a great product. Easy to install software. Scan for channels using an existing rooftop aerial to ensure channels are stored correctly on PC. I then used the supplied mini aerial and it works great. I am just sitting with my laptop on the dining room table with the aerial plonked on the table and I am getting all the Freeview channels with excellet reception. The recording function works really well although it uses a lot of memory of course. Picture quality is excellent.
I find it hard to believe that a laptop can be turned into such a quality TV with such a simple small device !!!
My laptop now works as a mobile TV, a DVD player and a Naviagtion system for my Boat !!! Previously I had to take three seperate bulky systems with me !!
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