The VisionDTV USB-Ter should be a mobile professional's dream because it allows you to watch free-to-air digital TV programs and listen to digital radio stations on the move. It also supports time-shifting, allowing you to record programmes when you are away from your computer. To make the product more TV-like, an infrared remote control and aerial are also provided. Unfortunately, the software is prone to crashing and the supplied aerial is useless. It also lacks support for HDTV/AC3 playback and subtitling teletext, and only supports real-time MPEG-2 compression, so you can rule out recording to AVI, DivX or VCD. The software's also prone to crashing and timeout errors. Used at home with a decent aerial and reception the VisionDTV USB-Ter works relatively well, but you're unlikely to be able to watch anything on the move, which defeats the key selling point of the device.

Pros: Includes remote; Teletext supported; powered by USB port
Cons: Buggy software; no Dolby Digital audio decoder; useless aerial


V-TEC's latest gadget is an external USB tuner that allows Windows-based laptop and computer users to watch and record free-to-air digital TV and radio broadcasts anywhere in the world. For just £84.99 (ex. VAT), the VisionDTV USB-Ter plugs into any laptop or computer with a USB port and then allows you to tune into as many free-to-air digital TV channels as you can receive depending on your geographic location. Unfortunately, this will likely be none using the supplied aerial. However, plugging in a more powerful unit, such as a roof-mounted aerial, yields much better results. Of course, doing so defeats the purpose of this portable (7.0x11.2x30mm) device.

Setting up and configuring the VisionDTV USB-Ter is fairly straightforward: you plug the device into a a USB port on your computer, fit an aerial using the built-in 75 Ohm Din and then install the supplied software. The only tricky part is when it comes to scanning for TV and radio channels because the software is full of jargon and isn't very intuitive.

When scanning for channels, you can scan by country, single channel or by frequency range. If you don't want to search by country, you can opt for the 'Full Search' (6/7/8MHz), which will attempt to find all available channels. Alternatively, if you know exactly what channels you want, you can input frequency start and end points (KHz), as well as bandwidths (MHz). Once channels have been found you can either save the entire list as a Favourite, or delete channels to suit.

Programs can be recorded when you are away from your computer using the Time-Shifting function. From a single interface you can schedule up to five recordings based on start and finish time, as well as channel. You can also choose the directory where you want to save recordings. A neat touch is that the software lets you know how many hours/minutes of either TV or radio you can store on your available hard disk space.

Other software controls allow you to alter video brightness, contrast, saturation, blue and red colour levels, as well as view multiple channel thumbnails on a single screen. A built-in Electronic Program Guide (EPG) lets you see TV and radio listings provided by your content provider, and the Teletext application is a simple Teletext browser that only works when the main VisionDTV software is running.

The VisionDTV USB-Ter is a mobile professional's dream - in theory. After all, who wouldn't like the ability to watch free-to-air digital TV programs and listen to digital radio stations on the move? If that's not enough, the VisionDTV USB-Ter also supports time-shifting, allowing you to record programmes when you are away from your computer. The bundled software also allows you to capture still frames and create Favourite lists. To make the product more TV-like, an infrared remote control is also provided. Of course, you must remember that you need a TV licence to use the device in the UK.

Unfortunately, the software is prone to crashing the supplied aerial is useless. Other criticisms include the lack of support for HDTV/AC3 playback and subtitling teletext, remote control power-on is not supported, and you can't scan for scrambled programs. In addition, the device only supports real-time MPEG-2 compression, so you can rule out recording to AVI, DivX or VCD.

Connectivity options are also lacking, such as S-Video, composite video or stereo audio line-out, so you can't route to external A/V devices. Finally, there's no built-in Dolby Digital audio decoder (AC3). We also encountered a number of software issues when testing the device. Most noticeable was frequent timeout errors when we skipped quickly through channels or used the record feature. Also, unplugging the USB cable while the software is on but not playing resulted in the application crashing our test system.

BIOS, Jul 29, 04 | Print | Send | Comments (0) | Posted In Video