Hi has anyone seen the article in the Caravan Club magazine Page 110 ?
It relates to a Cinergy Hybrid T USB which is approx the size of a USB memory stick, and allows you to receive digital(freeview), analogue TV and FM radio in stereo direct to your laptop - rrp £59.99
Has anyone got experience of this? It sounds great in theory, we sometimes take the laptop when camping, especially when we camp early in the year. We currently use the laptop to watch DVD's in the evening, but this sounds like it is a easy method to convert the laptop to a digital TV also.
Saw the advert too, have been thinking about buying something like it for my laptop. You can buy something like it for as little as £20 online, reviews say reception is a bit hit and miss on both the cheap and expensive devices. From what i've learnt your best bet is to invest in a good aerial with whatever device you purchase.
yes i have one of those , my kids bought it for me a few years back for a birthday pressie, at the time my laptop couldtn really handle running it but since i have a better one now its works well, yes you need a far better arail than the silly little things it comes with,
I just bought one from Maplins - cost £14.99 down from £40. Hooked up to the ariel at home it has set itsetlf up with all the channels including radio. I can record TV,view online guides at its great. I installed all the softwar but with Vista you dont need it as you have media centre.
Took it away last weekend and got nothing from the ariel on the van so must invest in a proper one. Showed our neighbours on site and borrowed their ariel to test it and it worked fine. Didnt get all the channels but most of them
You do need a good laptop however to run it otherwise its a bit jumpy.
Compaq Presario A901EM Intel Pentium Dual Core T2330 processor with Windows Vistga Home premium, 17 inch BriteView HD widescreen display for viewing in vivid colour, 2GB of RAM and 160GB hard drive. About £450
We bought a gadget from PC World last year that allowed us to watch freeview on OH's laptop. Was a bit glitchy, but did the job. Even though we've now bought an LCD tele for the van, we still use the gadget when the kids want to watch something different in the back. Was about £50 I think, more like the size of a little external hard drive (bit bigger than a packet of fags).
I had one last year which served it's purpose but eventually packed up so got a new one for my birthday. You need to be in a pretty good reception area, i can't pick up any channels where I live, but I know I will be able to when we go on holiday. When we got to Trevornick our pitch includes an aerial point, we just need to take or hire a cable. The arial just plugs into the side of the usb connector.
My laptop is an essential piece of kit when we go on holiday, camping or otherwise. It doubles up as a dvd player, games for the kids and also as a keen photographer, I spend most evenings uploading and editing my photographs.
------------- May/June - Spring Valley
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These things have been around for a while now. the only way that I have ever been able to get them to work is to lash a proper aerial to a windsurf mast ('cos I had one with me) with Black Nasty and then twiddle the mast about. Not impressed - paid £14 of FleaBay for mine
I also have one for my laptop, tried using it at Freshwater Beach but no joy with a proper Aerial
Works fine at home though so you would be best checking the Freeview coverage.
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Quote: Originally posted by HelenaB on 21/6/2008
I'm wondering just how powerful an antenna you need - would one of those interior aerials be good enough? Preferably one I could fold up.
No it wouldn't, I am in a good signal area and an indoor aerial does not work.
I have been using HiPoint Digital TV stick for several years now in my laptop. Works a treat. You can timer - record as well. It's only as good as your ariel though. This one was £30.00 but there are quite a number, they all work well.
Good advice from Cas54; if you don't want to disappoint the kids check out the signal strength first.
I don't want to repeat all the good advice already posted on this thread, but just to emphasise the important stuff...
a good aerial is absolutely key, as with any comms equipment, so don't scrimp there;
as with satnav receivers, the better TV receivers are the ones that have better signal to noise ratio (SNR); i.e. they are better at picking out the good signal from the noise (particularly in lower signal reception areas) and boosting that good signal and not all the 'crud' along with it... read the reviews from 'geeky' sites;
faster PCs are better at signal and image processing, so if you're buying new get the fastest you can afford with plenty of RAM memory.
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Topic: USB TV - For PC/Laptop
