Kworld USB ATSC TV Tuner TV Tuners and Video Capture UB435-Q

Model I received: KWorld ATSC Digital HDTV USB 2.0 TV Stick KW-UB435Q V2My Computer: HP Pavilion P6 2120 (Bought August 2012)Basic Specs: 1 TB Hard drive; 6 GB RAM; AMD Quad core processor; Windows 7 64 bitThe OTA broadcast networks pretty much ALWAYS put my favorites on at the same time & on the same night. Since I MUST catch certain shows NOWWWWWW, I started looking for an affordable "digital VCR" option that worked. That's when I found out about these PC TV tuners. This model/brand was one of the cheapest ones that worked for US Digital TV. Thought I'd give it a try so I bought it through Amazon.I have to say, I read some of the bad reviews here. Most seemed like they were people who didn't have the right OS, PC specs, OTA signal strength or installation know-how to get this thing working properly. Also sounded like some of them gave it about 5 seconds of a chance, threw a fit, then gave up on it. I personally found it very easy to set up on my system. All-in-all it took about 10 minutes out of the box to get it up & recording. It recorded the season premiere of Fringe perfectly later that evening.Getting it started...I merely followed the directions in the quicky guide that came with it. That worked for me. I also decided to use the Arcsoft Total Media thingy that was part of the package. It is a VERY easy program with a simple interface. I found it intuitive operation wise. It plays the recorded material well too, but I usually end up using my CCCP enhanced Media Player Classic for playback. That's just my preference. Since the recorder records into MPEG it'll be playable through most media players without too many extra or special codecs.Other notes:The MPEGs this thing creates are BIG. For the average 1 hour show expect the single file size to be about 5 & 1/2 to 6 GB-- with commercials. It is HD after all. If you want to burn the files to DVD youl'll have to either cut the show in half or use a media converter program to downsize it. A good free one is Format Factory. You can cut & convert with it & it's pretty easy to use too.Other, other notes:The antenna that comes with it was pretty cool too. The base is magnetic so it stays in place very well if you have someplace metal to stick it. You could always anchor it with a metal paperweight or something to keep it from falling over I guess. I just stick it to the radiator that's next to the HDTV. BTW...the signals that it pulls in are just as strong as the ones my HDTV gets with an amplified (square) antenna. Just don't expect miracles. If your signal strength is bad/weak this isn't gonna perform perfectly. If the weather/atmosphere is unstable--like electrical storms, solar flares, sunspots, etc.-- then expect the usual OTA signal disruptions.Still more notes:Like some have said, it does run warm. Not much warmer than a flash drive when you write several GB of data to it though. For me, if I'm not using it, I unplug it just like any other device. It'll extend the life of it I believe.Overall, I'm happy with it so far and would recommend it. Obviously I can't say anything about the product's lifespan yet. I'll add to the review when I see how that goes.Any questions? Ask and I'll try to answer as best as I can.

I took a chance on buying this TV tuner even after seeing its two-and-a-half star rating. Many of the negative reviews that I read seem to be either a result of poor signal strength or a low-performance PC. Some people got defective units which can happen to anyone with anything. The rest just say it's junk, but don't give any explanation. I'm watching TV with this tuner as I'm writing my review and it's working great for me.In my case, setup was a breeze. I just placed the simple included antenna in a window near our PC. (The included USB extension cable was helpful with antenna placement.) Then I plugged the antenna into the TV tuner. Next, I plugged the USB extension cable into the TV tuner, then the computer. Windows 7 tried to find drivers through Windows Update, but failed as the Quick Start Guide said it would. I inserted the CD with the TotalMedia software and device drivers and had the software and drivers installed in a few minutes. After a restart, I fired up the TotalMedia software which easily detected the TV tuner. Setup took about 15 minutes with most of that time for channel scanning. The dinky included antenna allowed me to pull in 24 digital channels.The included TotalMedia software does about what you'd want it to. It takes a few seconds to initialize after you click on it, but it runs flawless once it's open. It has an EPG from which you can easily schedule a program to be recorded. You can edit the names of channels and their order in the list. You can make and save lists of channels you like. There could be a few things placed a little more efficiently, but all the features I need are included in this program.The recording function works great, whether from a scheduled recording or just clicking the record button while watching TV. There are three ways you can start recording: Click the record button while watching TV, or click on a program in the EPG and select Record, or go to Schedule and manually select a channel and record start and stop times. You can choose a folder to record to in the settings menu. You can also choose a recording quality from several options that change the bitrate. There is a noticeable difference between the highest and lowest quality settings, but the lowest one is still useful. The resulting files are quite large, and can't be edited efficiently in Sony Vegas without converting them to another format first. Vegas can do this provided you don't try to preview or edit the raw MPEG-TS file created by the tuner. Just import it and render it into another format. (.WMV works for me.)Overall, I highly recommend this TV tuner. It works like a charm with the included software and records high quality video. (If this changes, I'll amend my review.) The included antenna works as good or better than an RCA flat bat-shaped antenna. I should mention that I received the KW-UB435Q V2 tuner. The system I'm using it on has Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit Service Pack 1, a 2.90gHz quad-core CPU, 8 GB of dual-channel RAM, and ATI Radeon HD 4250 onboard graphics (512 MB shared memory). I always record on a separate hard drive from the OS. While watching TV, the CPU usage hovers around 30%, and goes only slightly higher while recording. Any computer that can smoothly play 1920x1080p video will probably work fine with this tuner.