Kworld USB2.0 Tv Tuner Atsc/qam Watch Record Digital HDtv On Pc Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)I bought this KWorld 340U at a local electronics store since it was on sale. I am thinking about canceling my cable service since it has just gotten too expensive over the years. I wanted to see if Windows Vista Media Center, this tuner and an antenna could serve as a reasonable alternative to the HD DVR I currently rent from the cable company. The short answer is yes. Long answer is below...
I am using it with a Dell E521 (dualcore AMD x2 3600, nVidia 7300LE, 4 GB RAM, Vista Home Premium) and it works well, though honestly I wouldn't try running it on a computer any slower than this. Watching or recording a HD broadcast uses about 50% of the processor and it can drop a few frames here and there if something intensive is going on in the background like a virus scan. But most of the time it works great. Video quality is outstanding. I have a 22" widescreen LCD with 1680x1050 resolution connected via DVI. It has more resolution than all but the most expensive 1080p HDTVs, so you can see the peach fuzz and caked-on makeup on your local newscasters' faces.
I installed the software which included the driver and a clone of Windows Media Center (which I promptly uninstalled). After that Windows Media Center recognized the tuner instantly. I hooked up a set of rabbit ears I had laying around and it scanned and found all the ATSC channels in about five minutes. (The dinky antenna in the box didn't pick up any channels inside.) Then it downloaded the program guide from the internet. It is much easier to use and has a more attractive interface than the Scientific Atlanta 8300HD supplied by my cable company.
I can schedule recordings, pause live broadcasts, fast forward, rewind and do everything a dedicated DVR can do without a monthly service fee (like Tivo) or paying the cable company $100+ a month.
Apparently it can also pick up unencrypted digital cable channels but I haven't tried that since there's no jack near the computer. Also note that it does not pick up NTSC (traditional analog) broadcasts from the antenna. But those are going away in a few months so this is not too much of a drawback.
Highly recommended. It is "certified" for Windows Vista and I see no reason to pay more for a Hauppauge or other name-brand tuner. This probably has the same chip inside anyway.

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D-Link DWA-125 150Mbps Wireless USB Adapter Review

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(More customer reviews)I bought this for a WD TV Live Media Player wireless connctn and it started to stream right away after entering the router's security keys; I didn't have to do anything else.
Turned the player on; when I saw it was ready I plugged the stick in and the rest you have to go by the WD plyr instructions.
Thanks D-Link & Amazon for such a good price.


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D-Link DWA-125 150Mbps Wireless N USB Adapter

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StarTech.com 5.25-Inch eSATA USB 2.0 to SATA USB 2.0 External Hard Drive Enclosure - SAT5210U2E (Silver) Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)The enclosure works as advertised.
I installed a 1TB sata HD which worked fine.
Lots of room to use mini shock mount screws (full size may or may not fit).
With the front cover on, it got rather warm, but not hot during light use.
I would not try a heavy backup without removing the front cover - this reduced the temp 3-5c.
The major problem is that the USB port did not support SMART!
I found no way to park the drive for power down!
This is said to shorten the drive life greatly
(unless you leave it on for days at a time).
No way to check drive temp (but to buy a thermometer).
I would not buy this for a HD if you plan to use it on USB often.


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Magnavox Mdv2100/f7 Dvd Player W/progessive Scan Zoom Slow Motion Search Review

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(More customer reviews)I had an older Magnavox DVD player that lasted for years. I replaced it with a Best Buy brand, and that lasted about a year. I saw this Magnavox model in a Meijer store and the price was right. I realized that I wasn't getting the Cadillac of DVD players for $30, but there should be some minimum expectations. It lasted a few months and then started to periodically lose color. I had to turn the machine off and then on to reset it. I had already gotten another for a spare TV, so I returned the first one and switched to the second. It's still working, but makes some funny noises. Hasn't been used enough to tell yet. In the meantime, a third player was purchased for the basement. It won't play right from the beginning. Will play some DVD's but not others, even though its twin will play all of the former. It too will be returned.
I expect the last one to go soon. A player or any product should be inexpensive because it lacks certain features, not because of poor quality. Yet I expect if I call the store to complain (or even Magnavox), there'll just be a shrug and comment "What do you expect of a $30 DVD player?" Let's say I expect a lot more than this. And perhaps some compensation from the manufacturer for my time, expense, and frustration.
When will people actually care enough about what they buy to consider boycotting corporations which insult the consumer with their shoddy products? Right now, it still seems to be . . . shrug and toss!

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Belkin Surge Protector 8 Outlet With Telephone & Coax Protection Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)I know, I know - you get what you pay for but I've always shopped the sales on surge protectors. Not too smart when some of the most pricey items in our home are plugged into them.
1. First of all, nice packaging. Very easy to get into - I didn't need my razor or Buck knife to get at the contents. Simple flap to open - not even taped.
2. Clear description of product on back of box showing pictures and uses of different functions on the protector.
3. Lots of plug-in space - 6 plugs for regular 2-3 pronged plugs and 2 plugs for those "Take up a LOT of room" transformer plugs.
4. Very sturdy construction with a heavy-duty cord for the "flat" wall plug-in. Someone else mentioned they wished the wall plug-in swiveled and I agree. Would be even more versatile with that feature.
5. Surge ptotector unit can be mounted on wall (or furniture or whatever). I like this feature but it would have been nice to have screws included with unit. They are NOT.
6. I like the slide safety plug protectors. It took me a few minutes to figure out how they worked - duh. They are little slide covers over the two-hole end of the plug-ins. You press and slide, and they are stiff at first to get moving but they do the job nicely.
7. I thought the On/Off switch has a rather light touch. It is recessed but easy to bump and turn off - a consideration if you have children or pets.
8. We aren't using the Phone Line protectors - no land lines.
9. We aren't using the coaxial protection right now - might in the future.
10. The only part of this protector that I didn't think was as high of quality as the rest is the power cord manager. It's a piece of plastic at the bottom of the unit that pulls up and you can wrap your cords around to keep them out of the way. The only problem - even 8 normal sized cords won't all fit around this thing, much less a couple of the super duper cords we have. It could have been made out of metal, been more durable and provided more storage wrap space and actually have been useful.

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Belkin Surge Protector 8 Outlet With Telephone & Coax Protection

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Rosewill RNX-N100 IEEE 802.11n USB2.0 Wireless-N 2.0 Dongle Review

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(More customer reviews)I can't use this device, because it is only wireless N. I'll need to replace my router to use it. So it will sit dormant until I decide (for reasons other than this application) that the router needs to be replaced.
So the purpose of this review is simply to warn other potential buyers that it is only N capable.

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Toshiba SD-6000 1080p Upconverting DVD Player Review

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(More customer reviews)I lucked out and bought the player brand new from one of the major national electronics dealers for $32. At this price, I consider this a steal.
However, if you pay $80 for a DVD player, I would not buy this one. The image is good. I also have a Sony 5-disk changer DVD player that "only" puts out 1080i, and the Toshiba puts out 1080P. I prefer the Sony's image quality. The reality is that a good DVD player is going to get you to 480P. Anything over that is really pointless. My Sony DVD player has lots of image settings that you can tweak (black levels, etc). The Toshiba effectively has none (except for widescreen modes).
Also, the Toshiba does not "remember" where you are when watching a DVD and you turn the power off. It just starts over. My Sony (and mother's cheapo JVC) both have memory features, which is VERY nice.
The response time is OK by my standards. It actually responds significantly faster than my Sony DVD player. It isn't instant, but it is fast enough for my purposes.
The front panel of the player has minimal buttons. It looks nice, but you I like to be able to switch audio modes, fast forward, and rewind just in case I don't have the remote handy. Also, the blue light surrounding the tray looks cool for about 10 seconds, and then it gets old. If you are somewhat picky about your home theater lighting, you might want to avoid this player for that reason alone.
I have a Toshiba TV (which I love), so I am happy with my purchase. One remote and one HDMI cable does the trick. For the price I paid, it was a deal. The picture does look nice. But if you are going to spend $80 on a player, I would look elsewhere (Sony, etc).

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Belkin N600 DB Wireless Dual-Band USB Adapter (Latest Generation) Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)I feel compelled to write a review after seeing the two 1 star reviews before mine. This works flawlessly for me with my ASUS dual band router, no problems at all and couldn't ask for better performance. I'd like to have the little stand that came with the previous model for extended use with a desktop computer, but otherwise I'm perfectly happy.

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The Belkin N600 DB Wireless Dual-Band USB adapter allows you to quickly and securely connect a notebook or desktop computer to your network. By giving you connection speeds of up to 300Mbps+ 300Mbps*, this adapter is perfect for streaming HD video or online gaming.*The standard transmission rates-300Mbps (for 2.4GHz), 300Mbps (for 5GHz), 54Mbps, and 11Mbps-are the physical data rates. Actual data throughput will be lower and may depend on the mix of wireless products used.

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LG DN898 1080p Upconverting DVD Player Review

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(More customer reviews)The LG DN898 is a very good player with a lot of great features: it does a good job of upscaling DVDs, it can output at a full 1080p, it supports playback of.mpeg, .avi (xvid/divx) and .srt files, and it can read from most recordable DVD formats as well as from USB. For the most part I have had a very good experience with this player and I would have rated it better if I had not discovered one glaring flaw. The LG DN898 is incapable of displaying 4:3 content in a pillarbox on a 16:9 screen. A pillarbox is the widescreen TV equivalent of a letterbox, the two black bars that appear on the top and bottom of a regular TV screen when playing a movie recorded in widescreen (16:9) format, only on a widescreen TV these bars appear as two black pillars on the left and right sides of the screen when playing fullscreen (4:3) content. This means that any video recorded in a 4:3 aspect ratio will be automatically stretched to fill the screen on a widescreen TV. If you prefer to have your video stretched to fit the screen then this shouldn't be a problem to you, in which case this player might be a good choice. However, if you prefer to watch video in its original aspect ratio then this is not the player for you. I have used other upconverting DVD players that let you choose whether or not you want to stretch the video. Considering the price of this player I am a bit disappointed that the LG DN898 does not offer this option.

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Bluray Player External USB Laptop Cd/dvdrw Burner Review

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(More customer reviews)I was planning to play Blu Ray movies with this drive. I couldn't care less about the DVD burning feature, I was only looking at playing movies. First (and as is normal with other drives) you need to buy a software player, so plan on spending %59 to $100 for a blu ray software player such as WinDVD, PowerDVD or MediaTheater. Second, and this was the hard part, the drive didn't came with the latest firmware, and the Phillips reference did not help at all.
1) This drive doesn't state what brand it is
2) You will not be able to find references in Google that point to a firmware update
3) No reviews or places to learn about the firmware issues for this model
Anyway, it's a Lite On drive, and while the drive is not listed there's an utility that is able to detect the drive, check for the latest firmware, update the firmware automatically (and check for upgrades from time to time)[...]
If I didn't find the firmware, I'd have rated it at two stars, for being able to read and burn DVD and one extra for being able to work with data blu ray disks. As it is now, it works flawlessly, yet it's 4 stars for the immense hassle that was finding and updating the firmware. Beware, under Windows 7, when you first run the program, it will not work. But if you close the program, Windows 7 will detect it did not install correctly, and do some changes. The next time you run the SmartPack, it will work and actually upgrade the firmware (at your own risk).

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Rosewill RNX-N1 Wireless-N 2.0 Dongle 02.11b/g/n USB2.0 Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)I bought this adapter for my Samsung TV (PN50C6500) as a much cheaper alternative to the Samsung WiFi dongle (at $30 it's less than half the price of Samsung's) and it works perfectly. I literally just took it out of the box, plugged it into the USB port on the TV, followed the prompts on the screen to connect it to my network (I used the WiFi Protected Setup - WPS) and it worked seamlessly. I didn't plug it into my PC first or install the PC software that comes with it or do any configuration beforehand.
There are two small things to think about that are relevant only for advanced users. The first is actually an issue with the TV and not the dongle but affects connectivity when using the two together. If your network password is long and contains special characters, it will not automatically connect to the network when you turn on the TV (you can manually enter the password each time and it connects just fine - but that's a bit annoying). The simple fix is to just have a shorter (6-7 character) password with only letters and numbers. When I did that, the TV connects to the network automatically every time. I say it's a problem with the TV only because when I use the adapter with my PC is has no problem connecting to the network with long and complicated passwords. The second very small comment I have is that the Rosewill PC interface is a bit complicated to use. On the positive side, it's very flexible and will allow you a large degree of customization but that might overwhelm the novice user. Of course, if you are just using it to connect your TV to your WiFi network it's irrelevant - you don't even need to install the software.
I've used the Rosewill adapter for two months now and it does a good job of streaming video and other content from my server to my TV as well as accessing the Samsung Apps. For anyone looking to connect their Samsung TV to a wireless network, this is an excellent choice and a great value.


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Xtreamer WiFi Adapter Dongle USB Wireless N Antenna Review

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(More customer reviews)The product is good (better than the wdtv live that I previously owned) but some of my files (usually 1080p) are played with some kind of lag (a greenish color appear on the screen).
Other than that, I am happy with the purchase.

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Cradlepoint Mobile Broadband 3G/4G N Router (MBR900CP) Review

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(More customer reviews)I recently was in the market for wireless router to use in extending my Clear WiMax 4G connection to devices that did not support the USB modem I purchased. The USB modem works great for my Windows laptop, but did not work for my older Mac, Wii or Netflix enabled Blu Ray player.
I thought about getting the router directly from Clear, but the device they offer had features I didn't need or want to pay for most notably the ability to run on batteries.
I eventually settled on the CradlePoint MBR 900 because:
It supports the Clear WiMax USB 4G modem
It supports wired connections, which is what I needed for my BluRay player for Netflix
It supports 802.X wireless connections which is what I needed for the Wii and older Mac
It has the needed security features (authentication and encryption
I received the device about a week after ordering it. It was easy to set up with one major issue, configuring the device for Clear WiMax 4G, which required a call to their support staff to resolve.
See the post here on how to resolve this:
[...]


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RCA DRC300iH DVD Player with Dock for iPod and iPhone Review

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(More customer reviews)I have an Ipod touch 4 that I use for drum students as a source device for music,video's and such. This dvd/ipod player is super compact and works very well , it also charges the device! the hdmi output is handy , as well as the traditional outputs . It has been very durable so far.

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Use the DRC300iH DVD player by RCA for all your home entertainment needs. It features a bonus iPod docking system so you can enjoy your favorite tunes in addition to all your favorite movies. Watch your movies in high-definition with the HDMI output to transfer - the highest video and audio content in one connection. The HD upconversion converts your movies to 1080p resolution and the coaxial digital audio output allows for full surround sound. Don't have an HDMI connection on your TV? The DVD player has the analog audio and video outputs you need to connect it to your TV, regardless of its age. Use the DVD remote control to navigate through your docked iPhone/iPod's menu to play the videos and music it is storing. Your iPhone/iPod battery will be charged and ready to go as the DVD docking station also serves as a charging station. The DRC300iH has multi-format playback, meaning it is compatible with a variety of disc and file formats. Included with the DVD player is a remote control and AV cable.

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150mbps USB Wireless Adapter LAN Wifi 802.11b/g/n Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)This generic adapter works better than my Mvix Nubbin, although the Nubbin is a fraction of this adapter's size. It recognizes more connections than my Mvix and I get a much stronger signal strength. If you don't mind the large size, this would be an excellent product to give wireless to your old desktop.
Users of other versions of this adapter (B/G) say it is plug and play with Vista and Windows 7. This was not the case for XP. I had to install the RALink drivers. Installation is a bit tricky and it didn't work the first time around. Then, I connected my desktop using an ethernet connection and the installation worked just fine. Give this a shot if you're having trouble as well.
I am very pleased with the product, especially at this price point.

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Philips DVP3560/F7 DVD Player with 1080p HDMI Upscaling and Multimedia DiVX Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)I just received this DVD player tonight after struggling with a crappy Panasonic S-58 I purchased locally based on a few enthusiastic, albeit ill-conceived, reviews I came across on Amazon and elsewhere. I can't tell you how happy I am with this unit and the myriad ways in which it excels both my previous Phillips 3962 (rendered it useless due to a sticky rental from Netflix)and the previously mentioned Panasonic model (of sorry memory), but I'll make a feeble attempt by way of this brief review nonetheless:
Image quality: The Phillips wins hands down here, offering what appears to my eyes at least to provide a level of picture quality (out of the box with ZERO adjustments) comparable to high-end units commanding upwards of three times the price. The Panasonic, in contradistinction, offered a level of image quality that I judged to be,at best, mediocre, or what a more discerning home theater electronics fancier would refer to as "terrible". It would indeed be no exaggeration to describe the difference as dramatic and eye-catching. The upscaling to 1080i of my Samsung LCD is simply phenomenal. I can't even imagine how good the image would be with 1080P compatible TV models.
Features: This DVD player has every feature you need and even some features you don't need. For those of you with DIVx-laden flash drives, fear not, as this unit provides front connecting USB facilities that effortlessly transport the tech- savvy votary of cutting-edge home theater to DIVx heaven with the the simple plugging of a cord.
Price: Cheap and good. This is true of so few things in life. For all those currently vacillating between "cheap dvd players", I would advise you to not look a gift-horse in the mouth when considering this unit. Don't even think twice before hitting the purchase button and certainly don't wast your time and tire your poor eyes "researching" any longer. This is, unequivocally, the HOLY GRAIL of cheap DVD players. So save yourself some time and money and just hit the purchase button.
Accessories: For all those here endlessly kvetching about the "flimsy" remote, I beg to differ. The remote is actually very elegant and well constructed for a player in this price class. You want to see a cheap remote? Buy the Panasonic S-58 and be prepared to cringe as the dollar-store quality Chinese toy-like polyethylene plastic tenses and creaks helplessly under the pressure of your child's feeble grip. In any event, this complaint amounts to nothing more than the most minor of quibbles considering the superlative features and quality of the player itself. For my part, however, I stand by my judgement that the remote is just dandy.
In closing, I would like to thank Phillips for manufacturing this superb product and for providing it to the public at such a modest cost. In doing so, they are affording the non-enthusiast public a viewing experience whose value far outstrips the mere pittance for which it is exchanged, and which will only serve to further consolidate Phillips unshakable position as the leader in home entertainment electronics for years to come.
And, as always, Amazon.com is peerless in their prompt, worry-free delivery of new products.
Both, therefore, win my unqualified and unreserved endorsement. FIVE STARS!

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PHILIPS 9" Multi Region Portable DVD Player 5 Hours built-in Long Lasting Battery, DIVX, XVID, AVI Review

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(More customer reviews)Works well, and is holding up to my 3 year old at least for now. We watch dvds from both the US and Europe, so the region-free aspect of this device is great (no more watching the German ones on the computer only).
This hasn't been a problem for us, but you should be aware that it doesn't charge while it is playing (unlike most laptop computers).
The screen is fine, controls straightforward, and the remote works well also.

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