Want a digital TV tuner for your netbook that doesn’t take up a lot of space? You have a few choices. You can order a netbook that has a tuner tucked away inside the case, like the Dell Inspiron Mini 10. Or you can get the smallest USB tuner you can find. And they don’t come much smaller than the PCTV Systems picoStick.
The PCTV picoStick is a DVB-T tuner that will let you watch and record live digital television broadcasts in Europe.The tuner is just 35mm long and 12mm wide. That’s about 1.4 inches by 0.47 inches. It gets a bit bigger when you plug in the included antenna or connect the tuner to another video source.
The picoStick is clearly aimed at netbooks. The system requirements include Windows XP or Vista, and a 1.6GHz Intel Atom CPU, Pentium 4 2.0GHz processor, 1.3GHz Pentium M, or AMD Athlon XP processor. The stick can handle MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4 H.264, and DivX formats.
If you haven’t heard of PCTV, last year US-based TV tuner maker Hauppauge purchased PCTV from Pinnacle. If you haven’t heard of those companies, then I can’t really help you.
via Engadget and Richard Lai
Would this stuff work it out in Brazil? We use a system called SBTD-T (Portuguese: Sistema Brasileiro de Televisão Digital Terrestre), based on Japanese ISDB-T (Integrated Services Digital Broadcasting Terrestrial), different from both European DVB and US ATSC systems.
Here is some irony; I’d rather have a ridiculously large USB digital TV tuner.
I live 30 miles out to sea, and no antenna HDTV signals reach my island that I could pick up without an outside…100ft tall…guide wire secured….typhoon resistant…tower.
Fly a kite.
You might be able to fold that into your NetBook carrying case.
Hey, it worked for Ben Franklin.
Aircraft Mikez…aircraft. I live within a few miles of the second busiest airport in Mass aside from Boston. I also seem to be an over flight path for the Medivac helicopter toing to and from the hospital.
If I brought down the helicopter with my kite string I’d be in BIG trouble.