miniTV USB

Previously only available overseas, the MiniTV plug-and-play USB TV tuner is now coming to the USA. Now you can watch and record your favorite shows right from your laptop.

ADS Tech announced that it is shipping its MiniTV USB TV Tuner with MediaTV PVR software, its own all-in-one solution for turning a PC into a digital entertainment center. In addition to delivering real-time TV with time-shifting capabilities and scheduled recordings on a desktop or notebook PC, the MediaTV PVR Software lets consumers take their favorite videos, music and photos wherever they go–on a CD, a DVD or on a portable media device such as such as a Sony® PSP or Apple® iPod®. Certified for Microsoft® Windows® XP Media Center Edition, ADS Tech’s MiniTV USB is also optimized for the new Microsoft Windows Vista™ operating system.

A complete hardware/software solution, MiniTV USB comes with a USB 2.0 extension cable, antenna MCX to F-connector and a CD containing device drivers and Media TV PVR.

At less than $80 retail, it would be a great way to re-utilize an old computer by turning it into a media device.

I wonder if employers will ban this thing from offices?



  1. Will says:

    erm, there’s already quite a few of these kind of devices on the markit already.

    Have I miss understood whats so new about it?

  2. Mike Voice says:

    Nice,

    Closest I’ve seen on a Mac is El Gato’s EyeTV 250 – and it is only analog, and costs $199 🙁

    What I am saving my pennies for is Miglia’s MiniTV HD
    http://www.miglia.com/products/video/tvminihd/index.html

    Which can record digital and HD via ATSC & Clear QAM – but it costs $250…

  3. Eideard says:

    In fact, I had a bud call me about this, today. He got a catalog which obviously was doing it as a private label — for over $100. I told him that if there was a mail order catalog doing it at this price — he’d probably do better with one of the online outfits.

  4. RonD says:

    I have been using Hauppauge WInTV PVR2 usb tv turner which came with video recording software. But it is a bit bulky for laptop use and requires an ac outlet for power. Looks like the ADS Tech model is quite compact and powered from the usb port.

  5. Mike Voice says:

    I’ve seen a few myself, but in the other cases I’m aware of, the DVR capability is not bundled and the device is more expensive.

    Same here. I’ve seen one for $99 with DVR software – but it is only analog…

  6. Milton da Scimento says:

    Does it comes with Portuguese languaje in its bundled software for Brazil ?
    Can I select PAL-M as TV Sistem ?
    thanks folks !

  7. Essefgy says:

    What a coincidence. I just got done setting up my brand new Miglia TVmini HD. No luck getting it to work with cable, but I was able to get almost all the local over-the-air broadcasters.

  8. Mark says:

    Just what I need, another method to put advertisements on my computer! I think that I will stick with RSS-TV feeds via bit torrents.

  9. Tremor_TJ says:

    GregAllen, I think what you want is something like the plextor PX-TV100U (if you want it to have a TV tuner too) or the plextor AV100U (which doesn’t) They both do real-time encoding into divx. They are $81.50 and $67.50 respectively on newegg.com .

  10. Nelson says:

    I don’t get why you guys are spending so much money turning your PC into a dvr unless you want to keep the shows or movies forever.

    I got a deal from my cable company and I get two DVR Cable boxes (capable of recording HD, and three different channels at the same time) with a 160 GB drive for 10 bucks a month.
    Note; With this offer they gave me HBO for free which costs 12 bucks a month so I’m really saving 2 bucks a month and getting two free dvr’s.

    But then again, I’ve never really seen the point in collecting DVD’s or movies except for those very few ones that you really like. Perhaps I dont have the time to watch things I’ve already seen over and over again.

    All that said, once the price of making your own computer media center comes down Ill be doing that since it would end up being cheaper. Plus theres the customization factor…

    Well I guess if you have the money knock yourself out and do it now.

  11. tony says:

    There isn’t a way to do divx in real time. I have a Pentium D PC with dual 3.2GHz and it can’t even do divx anywhere close to real time. Probably because most divx profiles do a 2 pass encoding process.

  12. Ryan says:

    There’s a TV Tuner on sale in Japan that I saw that encodes into divx in real time and is around $50. It’s called My TV, however I can’t remember the brand name.

  13. Matt says:

    Just get a sling media, its a lot better

  14. Name says:

    They should have made it all cable and no square block that might impede the ability to insert into close together USB ports … cable to cable seems logical anyhoo … -1

  15. Steve says:

    If your hardware supports it you can try WinVDR to record in the DivX format.
    I’ve used it before although audio sync was a common problem.

  16. Craig Matthews says:

    Yeah, I don’t get what’s so great about this either. There are several USB tuners on the market with DVR software. We bought three of them last year. ATI has been USB TV Wonders for at least that long.

  17. Julian Maytum says:

    I’ve been using my home built HTPC for years using snapstream’s Beyond TV – http://www.snapstream.com -and it works great!

  18. DAN says:

    PAL M ..

    IS NTSC… (USA SYSTEM)

    PAL B/I U.K. I

  19. ken Hebert says:

    Is there anything I can do to make the Mini TV USB work on my computer which has XP Pro ? I just bought one and would really like to keep it, Please, someone please advise a solution, thanks Ken

  20. Manuel Fernandes says:

    Drivers for Gemini usb tv tuner Model No-GE002ET

  21. Gerson says:

    I have installed one yesterday, in my XP Intel MacBook partition and it works great in Brazil (Pal-M), Argentina, Uruguay & Paraguay (Pal-N).
    Now trying to get it showing its XP window over the MacOSX desktop using Parallels and the Coerence feature, because, unfortunately there is no Intel MacOSX driver for it. As this is the ELEVENth tuner I use, since 1995, the MediaTV PVR interface is the WORST of all when not fullscreen. Ther is no way to JUMP channels, just sequential!

  22. Adam Summerhill says:

    The MiniTVUSB is a pile of dung. I am a professional IT person.

    First they lie and say it is Microsoft compaitble. when I installed it I got the Microdoft Dialog Box that says drivers were not verified.

    I call tech support and they don’t have a clue, which makes their support suck!

    I finally found the resources on my own since they are closed on weekends and I found out that they have the cheap flimsy fix which is a terrible substandard for a TV viewing screen.

    What is worse is the quality of video sucks immensely. I am sorry I bought this and I will probably start a class action suite agsinst them in the next couple weeks.

  23. Adam Summerhill says:

    Update on MiniTVUSB:

    I finally too the unit to my mom and dad’s house. They have a laptop that isn’t as good as my desktop, but the unit ran beautifull after gettting the updated software Media3. Media two caused a blue screen of death on the laptop, but that was fixed with Media TV 3.

    I come home now knowing it isn’t the unit, so I call tech support and they tell me there is nothing they can do and to call a technician. I told him I was a technician. So basically I was told to get a technician at anywhere between $50/hr and/or $110 per incident, so my unit ends up costing a crapload more than the price.

    I am so sick of this industry lying just to sell their garbarge., There ought to be laws against it. And what is the point of having a tech person if they can’t really help you do anything but restart your computer?

    Anyways, two thumbs down for the unit as a whole. It is very picky!

  24. Adam Summerhill says:

    Final Analysis:

    I have Norton Ghost as a back up and couldn’t find what drivers were causing the problem, so I formatted the computer fixed up the device manager and left any peripherals off that weren’t necessary.

    Apparently it is incompatible with my motherboard. That is all it can be at this point. I am running an ASUS. You can see what MB I am using on the following info.

    Bottom line ADS makes thing for Intel, even though the drivers are not signed, yet they lie on the box and says they are compatible, but ASUS and AMD users beware!

    OS Name Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
    Version 5.1.2600 Service Pack 2 Build 2600
    OS Manufacturer Microsoft Corporation
    System Manufacturer System manufacturer
    System Model System Product Name
    System Type X86-based PC
    Processor x86 Family 15 Model 39 Stepping 1 AuthenticAMD ~2640 Mhz
    BIOS Version/Date Phoenix Technologies, LTD ASUS A8N5X ACPI BIOS Revision 1003, 6/1/2006
    SMBIOS Version 2.3
    Windows Directory C:\WINDOWS
    System Directory C:\WINDOWS\system32
    Boot Device \Device\HarddiskVolume1
    Locale United States
    Hardware Abstraction Layer Version = “5.1.2600.2180 (xpsp_sp2_rtm.040803-2158)”
    Time Zone Pacific Daylight Time
    Total Physical Memory 2,048.00 MB
    Available Physical Memory 1.28 GB
    Total Virtual Memory 2.00 GB
    Available Virtual Memory 1.96 GB
    Page File Space 3.35 GB
    Page File C:\pagefile.sys

    Sincerely,
    Adam Summerhill

  25. TestNtune says:

    All ads tech products are junk. This is my second, the instant hdtv pci. Took 2 days to set it up. Not compatible with nvidea geforce or mce and the mce patch will cause it to die completely requiring a system restore. You get what you pay for. What a POS


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