Hauppauge WinTV Nova-T Stick review

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Verdict:

Review Date: 21 Aug 2006

Price when reviewed: inc VAT

Reviewed By: Seth Barton

Our Rating 2 stars out of 5

Review
Specs

This USB tuner is wide enough to have a full-sized RF input at the end, so there's no fiddly adaptor.

No remote control is provided in the box, but it does include the biggest mini antenna we've seen (most of which we couldn't fit on the page). This comes in three parts, measuring 348mm high. The antenna's size seems to help with reception, as we got perfectly clear digital reception from it.

Hauppauge's ageing WinTV 2000 software takes a while to get going as there are numerous drivers and applications to install first. The scanning utility found every channel and you can reorder them as you choose. The interface is cluttered. The channel list is hidden and appears only when you right-click on the selected channel. You can watch TV using the full screen, but you have to go back to windowed mode to get to the controls. Channel changes are slow and jerky, so channel surfing is a pain. We got a good picture with both the portable antenna and our rooftop aerial.

The software displays Now and Next information when you change channel, but beyond that the EPG is limited. You can sign up to TVTV, an online EPG that costs £15 a year. Alternatively, Hauppauge provides its own EPG software that you can download from its website. We found it hard to install, but once working it provides a basic EPG that can send scheduling requests to WinTV 2000.

The WinTV Nova-T Stick is a little expensive, has a confusing EPG and no remote control. Unless you want its huge antenna, it's not a good buy.

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