picoStick USB Digital TV tuner is insanely small, but only in Europe
By Joseph L. Flatley 
posted September 16th 2009 10:01PM
posted September 16th 2009 10:01PM
It's not like we've ever felt particularly overwhelmed by the size or heft of the USB digital TV tuners already on the market, but Hauppauge's latest has us feeling positively overwhelmed at the thought of lugging one of those other, nearly credit card-sized behemoths ever again. The PCTV Systems picoStick, launched at PlayBite 2009 in London today, is being billed as the world's smallest DVB-T (Western Europe) tuner, requires no antenna, costs £50 (about $83) and should be available from Amazon.co.uk and Play.com next week. One more pic after the break.
[Via Richard Lai]
[Via Richard Lai]
Last.
Irony win?
this is what we get for not releasing the Zune HD in Europe x.x
83 bucks isnt bad...
It's would more likely be $50 in the US, products are always overpriced in the UK/Europe thanks to currency exchange rates.
for that size and price i want to see these things built into my next laptop - proabably better reception with a screen mounted antenna too.
essential? nah... but theres always times when you want to see That One Off TV Show Or Sporting Event that you know is going to be too much effort to find on bittorrent.
agreed.
Portable (and discreet) tv tuner + World Cup = epic win.
"DanielT @ Sep 16th 2009 10:28PM"
Lmao! The comment alone wasn't too great, but when coupled with your picture it was priceless.
awwww the little baby, so cute
Those things are a waste of time and cash, cause they do not pick up any tv signal, unless connected to a big tv aerial on top of your house. The usual small aerial that they come with pick up zero signal.
And this one that claims needs no antenna will be very bad too.
Don't worry: an external antenna is supplied in the package.
CONFIRMED: ATSC sucks.
i wish theyd bring those wireless tv systems to canada
"picoStick USB Digital TV tuner is insanely small, but only in Europe"
Ok, so where's the man-sized North American version?
Trade the Zune HD for the picostick tv tuner, lol.
In the US its huge!
It's big in Japan
Isn't this small because they only have one channel?
What makes you think we only have one channel?
Wow. Really. Funny. Wrong. Ignorant/Unfunny American.
P.S. While the article says it's for "Western Europe" it's actually ALL of Europe. That's 49 countries and more languages! So needless to say we actually have at least THOUSANDS of channels in total!!!
Hope this comes out state side, hope it gets good reception and good channel selection.
It won't work in the states, it is DVB/T which the states doesnt use, the states use ATSC... according to this info...
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bd/Digital_broadcast_standards.svg
I know what standards are being used where. I guess i forgot to mention to please release one that is ATSC**.
Are these worth it or do we need a CableCard as well? Not exactly sure how the whole cable card thing works.
Umm, No. This is nothing to do with cable. Plug it in, hook up an aerial and you can view the free to view Digital terrestrial channels.
Or if they can make them this small, then computer manufacturers could and should just start integrating tuners on a regular basis.
so true...
EUROPE WIN
windows only? smacks of soft modem trickery to me