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78 of 79 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Hauppauge DEC2000-t - Good but Slow, 26 Nov 2002
Installation
I chose the Hauppauge DEC2000-t, because it could be directly connected to my PC. The first thing that struck me when opening the box was how small the unit was, about the size of a thickish paperback. All the necessary cables were included, USB, RF, scart etc. and a remote control. The power supply was external. Connecting everything together was relatively simple, and I opted to try it with a TV first. When switching on, it prompted me to press 'OK' before it went into scan mode, its progress monitored on screen. In all, it found 14 TV channels and six radio. Connecting to the PC was just as simple and worked without a hitch.Operation
Using the unit with a TV, it is much the same as a digital satellite receiver, though you need to manually select the AV channel on the TV if you are using the scart lead, or tune into the video channel if using the RF cable. The current station is shown briefly in a blue information bar at the bottom of the screen. Pressing the green button toggles between this, then program synopsis, then signal quality. Using the unit on a PC, the software delivers an unbelievably clear picture, though is rather slow when changing channels. There is an option to record to hard drive while you watch - playback quality is almost as good as the original. There is a choice of watching TV in a resizable window, which lists the channels alongside, or in full screen mode. Summing up
In general, picture quality is quite superb, though suffers from the occasional blip or picture and sound break-up on some of the weaker channels (similar to the effects of heavy rain on a digital satellite dish). The unit is a little slow on start-up, both on TV and PC. A good aerial is essential for this product to work well, and a reasonably fast PC - 700mhz at least for PC use. On the downside, I would have preferred an internal power supply, the external being rather bulky in a plug socket.
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