Thinkpads Forum

If you have successfully used an USB TV tuner device on your Thinkpad, which can also capture video (e.g. from VHS), would you like to recommend it? Thanks.

(This was previously posted in wrong forum)

I saw this posting on another forum. Thought you might be interested.

http://groups-beta.google.com/group/ibm ... 45e0d743fe

Plextor makes a few. For about 100$ you can get a basic unit that relies on your CPU for capture processing. For more like 200$ you can get something with an onboard signal processor. That's what you want if you will capture often. I'm assuming you have USBv2 ports, right?

http://www.cerkit.com/cerkitBlog/For+Sa ... +USB2.aspx

I was about to grab that one but I ended up just using a home computer where I could just pop a cheaper PCI in.

It's hardware encoding, so it's easy on your CPU. Plus incredibly inexpensive.

Thanks for your replies. The Hauppauge device has mixed user reviews. Some users said it works one day, and on another day, the computer did not even recognize the device. I have a no-name brand device from ebay which has the same problem. After many hours, I managed to get it working; on another day, it does not even connect; the LED light does not even turn on. Yesterday, after many hours, I was unable to get it to work. My laptop has only USB 1.1 and when the device worked, it did very well. But it is a hassle having to spend hours to install/reinstall it whenever I take it out to use. I was hoping that there may be better brand ones that don't have this hassle.

The Plextor at $200 is quite pricey, but if it has good user reviews, I might want to take a chance on it.